I have experienced high failure rates with Asrock. Nonexistent consumer warranty?

[DaedalusHelios]

My warranty experience with ASRock was nothing but terrible. My hardware didn't fail per-say, but basically, I bought a motherboard because ASRock said it supported a particular CPU; then they later remove support after numerous people claim it didn't work right.

I asked for a motherboard upgrade to support the CPU I bought it for, they said yes, and then gave me the runaround for two months. Then they eventually ask me to pay for an upgrade, and then they say they can't accept a paid upgrade. Total waste of time, and $12 for me shipping the board to them initially.

Here's a detailed explanation of the endeavor: http://redd.it/2d9ap9

In the end, I accomplished nothing trying to get support from ASRock except hassle. Newegg eventually got involved, and they were willing to do a refund on the board, but I had already given it to someone else. So if anything, I learned Newegg has pretty ok support

So based on that, it's clear ASRock doesn't actually test what CPUs work on their boards, and their support is terrible. And on an unrelated note, I had a H97 Killer that flexed really easily in the middle, and had a relatively loose PS/2 port; so I question their build quality heavily. I can't say I'd recommend ASRock for any kind of hardware purchase really.

Well I am sorry to hear about that but it gives me the heads up to watch out for it. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. It helps with understanding various perspectives handling the situation. But I will see if they accept my RMA directly and I guess I'll try my luck.

 

[Naito]

I can't say I'd recommend ASRock for any kind of hardware purchase really.

I have recommended AsRock on multiple occasions and have heard no complaints, in fact quite the opposite, nothing but praises. All of the ones I recommended for peoples builds are still functioning fine. Warranty here is much simpler too; most stores go out of their way to assist customers (as it should be good business practice anywhere). If the store refuses, the manufacturer is usually easily contacted and dealt with and work as fast as they can to resolve the issue. If neither cooperate, usually quoting the relevant sections of the Australian Consumer Law will budge them. If they still won't resolve the issue, the issue can be escalated to the court of law/ombudsman , but normally would be more hassle than it is worth.

EDIT: I have personally used AsRock right back to LGA775 (P45XE) and have recommended AsRock to other people from LGA1366 onwards.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

I have recommended AsRock on multiple occasions and have heard no complaints, in fact quite the opposite, nothing but praises. All of the ones I recommended for peoples builds are still functioning fine. Warranty here is much simpler too; most stores go out of their way to assist customers (as it should be good business practice anywhere). If the store refuses, the manufacturer is usually easily contacted and dealt with and work as fast as they can to resolve the issue. If neither cooperate, usually quoting the relevant sections of the Australian Consumer Law will budge them. If they still won't resolve the issue, the issue can be escalated to the court of law/ombudsman , but normally would be more hassle than it is worth.

EDIT: I have personally used AsRock right back to LGA775 (P45XE) and have recommended AsRock to other people from LGA1366 onwards.

Well I don't live in Australia but I did read about people having to use the Attorney General's office and that was the only thing that worked to avoid a $50 fee despite poor workmanship of a cold solder joint. According to here: http://www.overclock.net/t/1439341/asrock-rma-issue

For my own use a $50 fee isn't a big deal. If I deploy say 100 computers and half fail I would not want to fork out 50x50=$2,500 plus shipping and make a project stall for a week or two. If I show cost savings from engineering something myself I get a bonus. I wouldn't want fees to cut into that for no good reason. That is partially the reason for this thread. I wanted to make sure buying more Asrock in the future wouldn't lead to the issues stated above.

The marketed "corporate stable" ASUS models(LGA775 era) that are cheap have also have given me trouble so I stayed away from low end ASUS during my last upgrade cycle.

 

[Naito]

Well I don't live in Australia

I know, I was just stating it, but it rarely ever goes that far. I have returned motherboards and graphics cards to the store I purchased them from and they often don't bother asking questions. Just a quick inspection on the spot, an offer of replacement or refund, and you're done. I once had to wait 3 months for a motherboard (Gigabyte board) to be sent by the store, back to Gigabyte to be repaired and then back to store for pickup, but that was the worse I have ever experienced. I couldn't imagine why the support in the States would be any different.

 

[theonedub]

I've generally had good experiences with AsRock. I also have a Z77 Extreme4 that I don't think Ill end up using...

 

[DaedalusHelios]

I know, I was just stating it, but it rarely ever goes that far. I have returned motherboards and graphics cards to the store I purchased them from and they often don't bother asking questions. Just a quick inspection on the spot, an offer of replacement or refund, and you're done. I once had to wait 3 months for a motherboard (Gigabyte board) to be sent by the store, back to Gigabyte to be repaired and then back to store for pickup, but that was the worse I have ever experienced. I couldn't imagine why the support in the States would be any different.

Store support in the United States at brick and mortar is horrendous in my area at least. Although almost all manufacturers I have dealt with have been great. That is why I avoid using stores as much as I can thanks to bad experiences. There is a lot of scammers, thieves, and boosters around Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and Durham where I live at so I can't blame them for being resistant. I never want to hassle the clerk so I just make it a point not to shop at places that don't have an open return policy because I kind of feel sorry for people that have to work customer service counters. They deal with mean people all day so I show them respect and thank them for their time. Those poor bastards probably are living in poverty. But like I said, if I can deal manufacturer direct I always do thanks to good experiences with manufacturers.

But I do realize if mine plays out like Espionage724's does, I am in for a hassle.

BTW I did have RMA issues using newegg on two out of four RMAs. The last one I just used a Paypal dispute after they declined to RMA and Paypal took care of it. DOA is one case where I absolutely require a refund one way or another with online transactions. The three RMAs before that were "ancient history" as despite as much hardware as I buy I usually end up with a low failure rate. The only other rash of RMAs I had experienced was with Asus 700 series Nvidia chipset motherboards, but they were known to have issues.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I would ask that you keep things civil here, the OP is perfectly entitled to his opinion, we all form it based on personal experiences and clearly his with Asrock has not been a positive one, yours may be different and thats fine, I have only owned one Asrock board and it served me very well but I am sure there are plenty out there with different experiences....... if we reach the day here that members cannot express their own opinions without things getting personal then it's a very sad day.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Alot of this could have been avoided if the OP had done like I and numerous others on here asked him to do, which is actually email ASRock, and then let us know what his situation is. Instead, he chose to keep saying they have no policy, and he has done all he could.

Respectfully, I am asking the OP again, to e-mail the company, even use the email address @lilhasselhoffer listed if you want. You've got plenty of anecdotal evidence here from members that ASRock can be very good to deal with, regardless what their website says, and that at the lower end of the motherboard scales, most motherboards have higher than normal failure rates, no matter the manufacturer.

Hopefully this wraps it up for advice. OP, please let us know the result of your contact with Support.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

May I propose a compromise here?

Can the OP change this thread to something like "Avoid AsRock: I Have Experienced High Failure Rates with Their Motherboards." If the title stopped there it would be personal opinion, supported by experience. While not immensely useful (if 4/100 motherboards fail, and you receive 4 failures that's 100% loss for you, but a 4% failure rate on the boards), it does communicate that the OP has qualms with AsRock. I'm not opposed to that, and my personal experience would actually seem to reflect that assessment of their products.

The qualm, as I see it, is the claim that AsRock has no warranty. I admit that Newegg has contradictory information on occasion, but the listed warranties are accurate. Additionally, AsRock has some very poor translation of their returns policy. They switch between multiple terms, and their language conflates sellers, customers, and authorized distributors. None of this is reasonable, but it doesn't mean there is no warranty. Based upon other people's input, there is obviously a working warranty and a method by which to get service.


I apologize for any perceived attack on the OP, which was not my intention. Everything typed indicates that there has been no contact with AsRock at all. I only ask that the OP gives them some sort of opportunity to make them whole. Once you've been in manufacturing you begin to understand that perception is reality. When people go out of their way to complain about something (presumably as a warning to others in an effort to prevent similar difficulties) you want the chance to make them whole. It doesn't seem as though AsRock has been given that chance, and I don't believe that is fair. Before we gather the pitchforks and torches, perhaps we should allow them the opportunity to fix their issues.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

I used Newegg as RMA first as it was what Asrock instructed me to do via their website. It it was rejected.

Soon I will send Asrock an email to see if they will offer any form of coverage or repair options for me on my other motherboards. I can't send it right now because I am working 14 hours a day for the next 4 days, but they will receive correspondence from me soon.

I will update the first post and the title with solved if and when it does get resolved in any way. I don't see why my opinion of Asrock was so troubling for so many honestly. I do not own stock in the company, nor do I think my opinion will change their financial standing. Anyone can disagree or show someone was mislead by simply posting evidence to the contrary. All I wanted were opinions from the community, information, and an intellectual discussion. I wanted to believe I was mislead as I had something to gain in being wrong and actually having options available. Otherwise I would not have asked for other people's experiences in the first post. I just figured I did not have any options but now I am going to further pursue the avenues that were suggested. Thank you all for any and all considerations and help. I did not intend any harm in the creation of this thread. I apologize for any frustration or feelings of contempt my title may have caused.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

My roommate has two ASrock Z77 Extreme4's with the exact same random reboot issue, I'm not too surprised to see failures with both ASrock and Asus these days.

I apologize for any perceived attack on the OP, which was not my intention. Everything typed indicates that there has been no contact with AsRock at all. I only ask that the OP gives them some sort of opportunity to make them whole

I completely agree, the manufacturer should atleast be given a chance to bend you over first.

It's way more fun to watch chains of e-mails of terrible support, and gives much better reasoning for future potential buyers to avoid a product. These companys need more support publicity.

IMO Support experience should be part of standard reviews. RMA the board shortly after the product is launched. They should be there to review the entirety of the product to include the company behind it, not just the board itself.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

My roommate has two ASrock Z77 Extreme4's with the exact same random reboot issue, I'm not too surprised to see failures with both ASrock and Asus these days.



I completely agree, the manufacturer should atleast be given a chance to bend you over first.

It's way more fun to watch chains of e-mails of terrible support, and gives much better reasoning for future potential buyers to avoid a product. These companys need more support publicity.

IMO Support experience should be part of standard reviews. RMA the board shortly after the product is launched. They should be there to review the entirety of the product to include the company behind it, not just the board itself.

The Serial number or address of the reviewer could give away that it was going to be used in a review. You would most likely have to get a random person to buy it, RMA it, and pass on the data to be included in a review.

That is exactly why I will use the normal route to initiate my RMA and update the thread with my experiences. People need to know what standard treatment they can expect. They could be awesome for all I know. Time will tell.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

I completely agree, the manufacturer should atleast be given a chance to bend you over first.

It's way more fun to watch chains of e-mails of terrible support, and gives much better reasoning for future potential buyers to avoid a product. These companys need more support publicity.

IMO Support experience should be part of standard reviews. RMA the board shortly after the product is launched. They should be there to review the entirety of the product to include the company behind it, not just the board itself.

You seem to be starting from a point of anger. I'll hazard the guess that RMAs have been messy for you in the past.

To that end, allow me to explain my earlier e-mail address from AsRock. They do have a standard RMA address, but that seems to go into the ether. Once in the ether, the request is processed, shot to the appropriate "local contact," and dealt with from there. My understanding is that the person I referred to is the support for the US, if not North America. She was excellent to work with, and direct contact with her produces much faster and cleaner results than the standard RMA address.

Before you go any further, Asus and Gigabyte also have their problems. Their immense size means there are several unique thing to deal with. Asus has an e-mail for RMAs, which transfers you to another address for cross-shipping, which requires you get a different person if you want to actually be updated on the status of a return.

Gigabyte has a unified return address, but their speed is miserable. 48 hours between responses was standard, and once you develop contact they force you to jump through hoops step-by-step, even whenever you've already done everything to isolate the problem.


Technical support everywhere is a problem, because so often they have to ask the initial question of "is it plugged in?" They need to assume stupidity on the part of the consumer, because so many of them demonstrate mind bogglingly foolish reactions. I don't judge support based upon that, I judge based upon whether my product works when I'm done, and what it's cost me. As yet AsRock hasn't "bent me over" any more than anyone else.



Also, you seem to have no manufacturing background. Allow me to rectify this. If any one component has an average failure rate of one in 10,000 (.01%), and you've got a computer board with an average of 600 component, you'll fail 35 board just for components. Assuming that your pick and place machines produce an error of only 10 boards in 10,000, you've got another 10 failures to weed out. Let's also assume that the method for printing each layer of your circuit board only produces an error is 10 out of every 10,000 parts, with each board containing 4 layers on average. Another board is lost. Finally, the boards have to be transported. Lets ball park those losses at 2%. I say this because between trans-continental ocean voyages, warehouse storage, and to-location movement a lot of crap happens. 200 more are lost. We are looking at a failure rate of 246 boards out of every 10,000 on average. Even assuming the best QC in the world, only 46 of those failures could really be caught.

This all assumes a good design. If the design of a board is poor that 246 number could be more like 8000/10000.

Considering all of this, it's fair to wait for the manufacturer to make you whole. If that's not acceptable then you need to pay for the finest QC in the industry, and not buy a budget board. While this isn't easy to hear, a board that has 1/2000 QC inspected to keep labor costs low enough to meet a price point will always have a greater rate of failure than an expensive high-end one.

 

[Rowsol]

I've only had 2 Asrock mobos and one was defective.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Considering all of this, it's fair to wait for the manufacturer to make you whole. If that's not acceptable then you need to pay for the finest QC in the industry, and not buy a budget board. While this isn't easy to hear, a board that has 1/2000 QC inspected to keep labor costs low enough to meet a price point will always have a greater rate of failure than an expensive high-end one.

The problem is that manufacturers do NOT have any interest in making consumers whole, as Asus has not had even a meaningful shred of customer service since before the Nforce 2 days, but the brand still prints money. You don't need "manufacturing experience" to understand that service is shit and the brand is so embedded in enthusiasts brain they don't even consider it anymore until problems run rampant.

What is also troubling is the fact that one can send the same board in multiple times without it even being touched and they call it "fixed" or they play RMA runaround games like OP.

You can search r/buildapc for nightmares with ASUS rmas that are all current, and you will be flooded with complaints. It doesn't even take active searching.

 

[de.das.dude]

i wonder if OP was rude in rma requests. i know of someone who was rude with amd and they just brushed him off. whereas i asked them for help politely and they sent me their prototype foxconn copper heat pipe cooler that came with later phenoms, for free, shipped all the way from europe.


shitty service is like what i got from asus, they repaired my board 4times in 2 years and the last time i had to pull strings to get a replacement. and then i just put it aside and got this asrock one. didnt even bother selling it, it was THAT bad.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

i wonder if OP was rude in rma requests.

I am the thread OP. Are you trolling? My RMA request with Newegg was rather simple. I stated that I tested the motherboard with two known working sets of compatible hardware and it would not boot or show anything on either monitor. RMA request was accepted, then the RMA was declined as previously noted, and I won the paypal dispute. The other two were never RMA'd to Newegg since they passed Newegg's brief 30 day coverage. RMA's don't require much, just a list of problems and the troubleshooting already performed to make the diagnosis. My experience with Newegg was actually good despite the RMA and I still buy plenty from them for me and my business needs.

Or you could have been trying to respond to Dippy and said OP by accident.

 

[de.das.dude]

im confused i though dippykoodlez and you were the same.

 

[R-T-B]

For what it's worth, ASRock was very popular amongst high stress applications such as GPU mining. I can't picture them being low in the quality department for that reason alone.

 

[rtwjunkie]

For what it's worth, ASRock was very popular amongst high stress applications such as GPU mining. I can't picture them being low in the quality department for that reason alone.

Well, it all depends on if you get a mid-high to high end board....really just like any MB manufacturer. Anything below that is always going to be hit and miss.

 

[R-T-B]

The most popular board in mining was the cheapest possible in the lineup.

 

[RealNeil]

I use a lot of ASRock boards and I'm happy with them so far. I can turn on up to five systems throughout the house for UT3 LAN games and my grand kids love it when they're here.

There is an i7-870 system using a Lynnfield based ASRock board. This is used for gaming when there is a fourth grandchild here that wants to play too.

There is an ASRock H61MV-ITX system that my wife has in her office machine that she's using for her college doctorate degree.

I have an ASROCk 990FX Extreme4 with an FX-8350 CPU in it that's strictly used for gaming when my grand kids show up.

My main rig has an ASRock Z87 Fatality Killer in it with an i5-4690K

Last is an ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 with a i7-2600K CPU And that is one of my daily drivers.


The Lynnfield box has been here for years and seems to be bulletproof. The rest seem to be good quality boards too. I've never had to RMA any of them yet, and my guess is that they're all out of warranty at this point except for my wife's board.
I had a run of bad luck with Gigabyte boards and stopped buying them for four years, but have bought another one since then and it's good.

I've used MSI, and ECS recently for customer builds and they're working out for me too.

If you build a lot, you're bound to run into snags every now and then. It goes with the territory. I take each PC outside and blow the dust out of them regularly. I use the best PSU's that I can afford at the time I build.

Good luck getting satisfaction from them DaedalusHelios.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

The most popular board in mining was the cheapest possible in the lineup.

Mining is not high stress on a motherboard by any means.

 

[R-T-B]

Mining is not high stress on a motherboard by any means.

Dunno man, running any computational function 24/7 (often in like in my case, a garage) is pretty stressful. The fact that many miners overspec the PCIe slots wattage draw doesn't help.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Dunno man, running any computational function 24/7 (often in like in my case, a garage) is pretty stressful. The fact that many miners overspec the PCIe slots wattage draw doesn't help.

If the GPU violates PCIE spec, the failure is fault of the GPU not Motherboard.

Just because a motherboard is designed "to spec" should not make it special by any means, but for some reason enthusiasts fail to care sometimes.