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BFG RMA question

Well that's the second replacement card confirmed as faulty. I have even gone to the time and expense of replacing my PSU in case the fault was at my end. It was something I was thinking about doing sometime soon anyway but this kind of forced the issue and the interim card I bought works just fine on either supply. So two months on I have been given two faulty cards and no further forward towards an acceptable resolution.

Incidentally, the new PSU I bought (Corsair HX1000W from OCUK) was faulty too. Just my luck. I sent it back out to them on Friday afternoon after a phonecall to a real person (as opposed to some emailbot) and received a brand new working unit on Monday at lunchtime! BFG could learn a lot from this level of customer support and a big thanks to OCUK for dealing with the issue so promptly and professionally.
 
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Looks like my first replacement (BFG 260 MAXCORE) might be faulty :( hasn't caused and problems in normal useage/gaming so far... but I'm coding a fairly GPU heavy routine for a benchmark and while testing it some runs = BSOD. Can't rule out a bug in the programming (unlikely) but its a lot heavier on the fillrates than your average game.

Fortunatly its in the PC I use for programming, etc. not my gaming PC.
 
Meh its bombing out with the same BSOD in furmark too - which I haven't tried before.

So I guess they are basically just swapping around the cards that come in for RMA in the hope they work for someone else/or they don't bother complaining again... good thing I never buy based on warranty or I'd be pretty ****** off... its not worth the time to me so I'm just gonna write it off and put another card in.
 
Just heard back from BFG and now they are basically calling me a liar and seem unwilling to replace their second faulty replacement. They want me to do a thorough test for them on an alternate machine even though I have now stated twice that it has been tested using two different 1 kW PSUs! B*stards! They claim that they tested it as working which no doubt involved plugging it into a bench system and getting as far as the BIOS menu and not under a real use and / or high load scenario. This time around and previously I did clearly indicate that there are no problems with it when the card is idle in a 2D environment. Under load in a 3D environment it emits an extremely loud high pitched capacitor whine type noise. Noise is so loud I can hear it while wearing a headset with a game or music coming thorugh. It's not coming from the fan, motherboard, PSU, or any other component. It's the bloody card! I've stuck my ear next to it in order to verify.

Rroff said:
So I guess they are basically just swapping around the cards that come in for RMA in the hope they work for someone else/or they don't bother complaining again...
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Based on my own experience so far, I'd have to agree with this.
 
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i think they may reseat the heat sinks as mine had a bit of stuff on the edges my card did not have a heat issue so it still has the same problem
See what happends 2nd time around
 
Seems like a mixed bag reading some posts. So far i've had excellent service from BFG UK. RMA'd my old 8800GTX and they sent me a 9800 GTX+ as a replacement although it took about 3 weeks to come from the US as they were moving premises apparently. I rang them up as I was thinking of upgrading to a better card and me and the bloke on the phone got talking, I basically said I had to wait 3 weeks for a replacement card; he said it was totally unacceptable of them making me wait so long and lo and behold, the next day I get a BFG 285 OC2 from them.

For the people having problems, I suggest you ring their Wales depot. You'll speak to Phil, he's very friendly and i'm pretty sure he'll be able to sort your problem out.
 
Just thought I'd throw my hat in here...had an 8800GT which developed a fault- BFG replied to my email within minutes with an RMA number, I sent it back to them, got a replaement 8800GT two days later- well chuffed, right? No. Like many of those before me, the replacement was broken. I contacted BFG again but got no reply, two emails and two days later they said I'd get a phone call from the Wales warehouse within 5 days to arrange a courier pickup- no phone call came, so I contacted BFG again...and again...SIX days and the same number of e-mails later, they emailed me telling me to phone THEM. Anyway, it got picked up yesterday so I'd expect a replacement by tomorrow. I sent a stern letter with the card explaining how i'd been treated and how utterly unacceptable it was...ball's in their court now I suppose. Not happy at all though...shame, had been buying BFG since they first started producing cards and always thought their service had been top notch. Never again.
 
Just rang to check where my wire is and if it actually been posted (i presume it hasn't) and all the phones are busy i'm told, they're moving and can't process anything until Tuesday so anyone in the process of RMA'ing right now, its going to take a while.
 
Nice isn't it - call a premium rate number and wait on a lengthy hold.
I'm pretty sure they are recirculating RMA'd cards that pass a rudimentary test hoping that a number of problems go unnoticed at their new owners. As for moving premises - this will be closing down and handing a business fucntion over to a 3rd party whilst they cease operations in Europe.

Finally, after several iterations I got working cards back from BFG, one appeared to be new and the other clearly a refurb - at that point I auctioned them on.
No faith in BFG for future purchases even if you could get them in the UK - for every good RMA experience there are more bad ones these days.
 
I wont be buying BFG ever again. And I have bought about 5 cards from them in the past.

8800 GTX returned, and got a faulty 8800 GTX in return.

Spoke with Phil a great helpful and friendly guy. And after hearing the trouble I'd been having. He sent out a 285 GTX OCX, but sadly the card had issues with the shader clock, so I down clocked it and now it's stable. So sticking with this card as even tho I've down clocked it a little, it's still a better card than my returned 8800 GTX.

So once again, speak with Phil in the welsh depot. It's like banging you head against the wall trying to get anywhere with the american side of the BFG.
 
Its mad how many people this is happening to, send faulty card in, get one in return. Id love to know what is going on as theres no way in hell this amount of dodgy cards being sent out as replacements can just be an oversight.

It would be one thing if there was a bad batch of a certain card but this is pretty much encomposing the 8 series right upto the 295. :eek:
 
I think BFG are in more trouble than we think.

I wouldn't be supprised if they go belly up this year, with the service they have been providing everyone.

I've even seen people on another hardware forum based in the states that has a similar thread like ours. And they are reporting the same problems with returned cards as our own.

They are also getting no where with BFG staff in the states when they speak with them, some have even been said to be clueless or rude towards people trying to resolve there return issues.

This doesn't sound like a company that is going to be around for much longer in my eyes.
 
Ghengis said:
Finally, after several iterations I got working cards back from BFG, one appeared to be new and the other clearly a refurb - at that point I auctioned them on.
No faith in BFG for future purchases even if you could get them in the UK - for every good RMA experience there are more bad ones these days.
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What's wrong with a refurb?
 
robin66 said:
I think BFG are in more trouble than we think.

I wouldn't be supprised if they go belly up this year, with the service they have been providing everyone.

I've even seen people on another hardware forum based in the states that has a similar thread like ours. And they are reporting the same problems with returned cards as our own.

They are also getting no where with BFG staff in the states when they speak with them, some have even been said to be clueless or rude towards people trying to resolve there return issues.

This doesn't sound like a company that is going to be around for much longer in my eyes.
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In my personal dealings with BFG staff they've been v. helpful and polite and the RMAs have been v. quick - usually door to door in less than 3 days not including weekends.

Gerard said:
Its mad how many people this is happening to, send faulty card in, get one in return. Id love to know what is going on as theres no way in hell this amount of dodgy cards being sent out as replacements can just be an oversight.

It would be one thing if there was a bad batch of a certain card but this is pretty much encomposing the 8 series right upto the 295. :eek:
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This is what gets to me... as far as I know all their cards are just like everyone elses off the same line - yet they appear to have a far higher failure rate than any other brand.
 
Rroff said:
In my personal dealings with BFG staff they've been v. helpful and polite and the RMAs have been v. quick - usually door to door in less than 3 days not including weekends.
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Are you referring to dealing with Phil at the welsh depot, or dealing with people at BFG in the states?

Phil was helpful and friendly, while it was like pulling teeth getting anywhere with people in the states for myself and others.
 
Rroff said:
In my personal dealings with BFG staff they've been v. helpful and polite and the RMAs have been v. quick - usually door to door in less than 3 days not including weekends.
Click to expand...

Yes, that would be my experience too. Including the time when I infamously complained because they had sent me an H2OC GTX280 back for an 8800GTX H2OC card and it wouldn't run SLI, so they swapped my other perfectly good 8800GTX H2OC for another H2OC GTX280. That's service!

Rroff said:
This is what gets to me... as far as I know all their cards are just like everyone elses off the same line - yet they appear to have a far higher failure rate than any other brand.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure they do have a higher failure rate, it's just that OcUK encouraged people to go direct and then folks post on here when they're not happy. The happy ones generally never post.

As for them going bust or having worse service, I think they've been dealt a carp hand by their partner, NVidia, who have effectively left them (and others) with no cards to sell and no replacements for warranty work. So they either have to fix those warranty cards or start issuing refunds. The warranty is backed by insurance so it's not actually costing BFG anything to process the warranty claim, the insurers are probably freaking out a bit though...
 
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