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Gigabyte RMA service in the UK

spirits247

spirits247

spirits247

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Joined
29 Jan 2007
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731
I'm going to send in a GTX 560 Ti SOC, the 950Mhz version, to Gigabyte UK RMA.

I was surprised they will RMA based on serial number alone and that they have a fast UK turnaround service.

I'm a little concerned however - the GTX 560 Ti I'm sending in has bad solder joint issues. Therefore it's unpredictable if it will work fine or not!

Sometimes if the card is installed at a certain angle, it will corrupt everytime on boot (like the GTX 8800 when the solder goes bad). Install the card at a slight downward angle in the PCI-E slot, and it will work fine, however it will eventually TDR or offer a "pixellated crash" or even blue screen after being on for a while and simply surfing the web.

A 6970 works 100% fine on the same hardware the last week or so.

Their RMA form has a tiny box to describe the error. I did my best and will keep my fingers crossed the card doesn't have a working day in their lab.

Has anyone had experience of Gigabyte RMA? I heard they do board level repairs rather than replacements?

Perhaps they'll just stick my card in the oven and return it back to me!
 
If i was you I would either enclose a note with the card explaining what you said here or email the link to this post.
Regards
 
I don't think it matters what you write in that box as long as the item is faulty they will repiar/replace the item.

They will lilkley reball the GPU and possibly the VRAM.

There RMA service is the 2nd best i have ever used.
 
Ii send a 460gtx 1gb in and had it back 5 days after I posted it.
they had replaced the gpus fermi core.

I ran gpu-z and the card was showing as a 24rops , 192bit bus , 768mb card when it should be the 32rops , 256bit bus & 1gb of memory version

They sent a courier to collect it from me for further testing of the bios and memory bus. (physically the card has all the memory chips for a 1gb card, even nvidias drivers detect it as only a 768mb card)

I'll let you know what happens but it seems they do repairs rather than replace so they might just stick your naked card in a soldering wave machine thing which is basicly an oven :P
 
Wow, arknor, what a let down! Hope they get that sorted. At least they paid for a courier to pick it back up. Strange how changing the GPU core changed those features. As you mentioned, they are usually down to the bios and PCB.

I've sent in my card and will update with the outcome. You're probably right though, they will just resolder the card and send it back.

Either way I've got a Sapphire dual fan 6970 now due to cheap prices after the 7 series release, which seems to have the same tesselation performance, higher framerates and much cooler and quieter operation compared to the GTX 560 Ti SOC so I don't think I'm keeping the nVidia card regardless. Sapphire of course are a pain to RMA compared to Gigabyte UK so I'd prefer to stick with brands that have good RMA policies.

Now it's just an experiment to see how good Gigabyte's RMA service is.
 
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I have just contacted their customer support this morning as one of the fans on my 480 GTX SOC has just died :( explained why BF3 was running at snails 10fps.
 
I had no idea about this I think in future then I shall be avoiding gigabyte like the plague I don't want some crappy marked up possibly thrashed second hand refurb replacement for my pristine well looked after card, I prefer brands that send you a brand new sealed replacement.
 
C64 said:
I had no idea about this I think in future then I shall be avoiding gigabyte like the plague I don't want some crappy marked up possibly thrashed second hand refurb replacement for my pristine well looked after card, I prefer brands that send you a brand new sealed replacement.
Click to expand...

Which brands guarantee "a brand new sealed replacement"?
 
C64 said:
I had no idea about this I think in future then I shall be avoiding gigabyte like the plague I don't want some crappy marked up possibly thrashed second hand refurb replacement for my pristine well looked after card, I prefer brands that send you a brand new sealed replacement.
Click to expand...

To be fair to Gigabyte, they are by far the easiest company to deal with in the UK compared to trying to RMA many other brands. Some other brands RMA can be a right pain unless you can go through the original retailer and takes months. Some brands once over a year its almost impossible and involves shipping to the otherside of the globe (at high cost!).

Gigabyte honour their RMA based on serial number - they give each card a proper 3 year guarantee without an invoice. You can sell it on without worrying about receipts and RMA'ing for someone else. How many other brands do that? BFG tried a lifetime thing, but they went out of business. People abuse graphics cards, so I think it's a nice balance to a RMA policy.

Each time there is something wrong with the returned card, they sent out a courier to collect and replace from what I've witnessed on their UK forums. Yes, they have a dedicated UK forum which staff actually visit and can chase up RMA's for you.

I also had a motherboard which was out of its support phase but the old bios would not work with 5 series AMD cards. I emailed them and they sent me a new customized bios within 5 days.

So nothing but good experiences from my end. It's nice to know they have a UK RMA centre with a five day turn around. I'm quite happy with that arrangement, and can actually give your second hand card an increase in value when selling it on!

So it has downsides and benefits, but overall I think it's a good service and happy to support the brand.
 
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I RMA'd the exact same card 5 months ago. They sent me a brand new Gigabyte 560 Ti 448 Cores Windforce x3 card almost 3 days later! I assume these cards are discontinued so you'll be treated to something newer assuming a fault is found.
 
Surveyor said:
Which brands guarantee "a brand new sealed replacement"?
Click to expand...

corsair for one but it isn't guaranteed it just happens as I am sure it does with many other brands but as said above that is a relief to hear yes they should send out new replacements.I am not anti gigabyte I just bought a gigabyte 6970 just don't like the idea of comapnies that send out bashed up refurbs to replace peoples pristine hardware I guess.
 
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C64 said:
corsair for one but it isn't guaranteed it just happens as I am sure it does with many other brands but as said above that is a relief to hear yes they should send out new replacements.I am not anti gigabyte I just bought a gigabyte 6970 just don't like the idea of comapnies that send out bashed up refurbs to replace peoples pristine hardware I guess.
Click to expand...

So you could get a refurbished product from any manufacturer then.

Buying a product from a manufacturer who usually sends out new replacements doesn't guarantee that you won't get refurbishment in a particular case.

And of course it's impossible to know what the proportions are for each manufacturer for new versus refurbished.
 
Gigabyte are top rated imo for rma,they even repaired a board for free that was 8months out of warranty
 
I just sent in a piece of paper describing my problem in detail with a screenie of artefacting :D

They seem to try and repair first. If that doesn't work they give China a call and send you a new product in a refurb box
 
To complete the story, they found my GTX 560 Ti SOC faulty (thank goodness!) and sent a manufacturer refurbished GTX 570 OC Rev 2.0, the one with the Windforce 3 cooler.

It came in a plain white box with accessories and manual. Looks brand new, apart from a few tell-tail signs it has been refurbished.

After testing the card out, it performs pretty similar to the GTX 560 Ti SOC, apart from faster tessellation as it has about double the units being based off a GTX 580 GPU. A bit more noisy too. Probably overclocks to GTX 580 performance, but never tried.

Happy with the service, would definitely buy a Gigabyte card again.
 
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