780TI just gave way, with smoke. Ugh.

randal · 19 Nov 2015 at 11:55

Such a shame about Asus' RMA, their products are awesome. Until they break obviously.

I remember back in 2003/2004 I had an AthlonXP board that was the wrong rev to support the newer Barton chips, their documentation said it supported it but negelected to state the rev. Had a right old battle with them, the reseller didn't want to know (they are also still terrible, not OcUK but main competitor) and Asus themselves took 2 months to understand what the problem was and sort the board out. They never did update their documentation either.

DataVampire · 19 Nov 2015 at 19:05

randal said:
How long did it take Gb to get back to you guys out of interest?

My ticket logged last night is still showing as new, and no reply to emails set to returns as yet.

edit - NVM, they replied to the email.

Mine was over a month, and still had no replacement. took the money instead

randal · 19 Nov 2015 at 20:39

Was that the first or second RMA? How much of the card's value did they offer you out of interest?

Must say I've had a very different experience to you, especially on the second RMA. 36 hours from my first contact to card arriving at GB, then I had a mail at 15:50 this afternoon to say they've given me a new RMA number and that my case was progressing. Very impressed all in all.

Snookums · 20 Nov 2015 at 13:12

Gigabyte RMA service everybody. Honestly it's horrendous. Once I drop this board I am never going back to gigabyte. Watched a friend go through so much crap with them over what was a very clearly faulty card. Always gonna keep EVGA as my card though. Such an amazing RMA process and they are opening a centre in the UK next month.

philo-sofa · 20 Nov 2015 at 13:16

For what it's worth, back in New Zealand I got my Gigabyte motherboard sent back to me with a statement along the lines of 'it works completely fine, have the old one back'. Except it was a brand new board with stickrs all over it. I could also tell it was a different board because it worked; I RMA'd the predecessor after accidentally breaking one of the socket pins (hey, I was a poor student at the time).

Not quite sure how that relates to Gigabyte GPUs in the UK, but basically +1 vote for RMA people talking BS.

randal · 20 Nov 2015 at 13:24

I know this thread started off sceptical, but my experience so far with Gb has generally been very positive.

Sure I would have preferred an exchange on the initial RMA, but I got a repair instead. Took 5 working days to get my card back.

Granted it's failed again, but hopefully now that'll give my exchange argument the legs to go through.

They responded within 7 minutes (8:37am) of opening the morning after me sending the email (11pm previous night), a courier then collected the card 2 hours and 23 minutes (11am) after that email. The card was returned to them in exactly 24 hours at their cost, and 5 hours after delivery receipt I get an email with a new RMA number. C'mon that's hardly horrendous!

Of course now I wait to see how long it'll take to get a course of action, but if the last turnaround was anything to go by it shouldn't be that long.

As mentioned though the only concern I have is that it gets repaired again, and then I run the risk of it failing once more. I noted on the RMA form that it explictly says "fix/repair only", but they did tell me over email that exchanges were at the discretion of the repair team so one lives in hope.

randal · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:21

Well it looks like they're repairing it again, whatever that entails because they wouldn't tell me last time.

Have just told them that whilst I have faith in their process and the engineer's abilities, I really don't have faith in that specific card. Nor do I want to chance putting it back in my machine for it to go and kill/burn something when it inevitably goes again.

Perhaps I'd have a little faith if they told me what they'd fixed...

Semple · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:34

randal said:
Well it looks like they're repairing it again, whatever that entails because they wouldn't tell me last time.

Have just told them that whilst I have faith in their process and the engineer's abilities, I really don't have faith in that specific card. Nor do I want to chance putting it back in my machine for it to go and kill/burn something when it inevitably goes again.

Perhaps I'd have a little faith if they told me what they'd fixed...

You should at least ask if whatever component has failed was the same as the one before. Might give little comfort that at least it was something else that had broken, but obviously not giving much trust in their QA.

RavenXXX2 · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:35

Buy EVGA in the future mate, GB look to be tight ****s repairing dodgy cards. EVGA just replaced my whiny 780 ti with the superclocked version.

Mariusz · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:36

That's bad news, the least they could do is tell you what they have fixed. Can't blame you for being sceptical about putting it back in your PC.

Mariusz · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:39

RavenXXX2 said:
Buy EVGA in the future mate, GB look to be tight ****s repairing dodgy cards. EVGA just replaced my whiny 780 ti with the superclocked version.

Had the opposite experience with Evga, RMA procedure was quick and easy but I sent then a Titan X SuperClock and got a "recertified" standard Titan X back, at least that what the card bios said

Purgatory · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:40

Gigabytes warranty. . Basically worthless. After the card gave up twice before and 3rd time the customer states it went up in smoke, they should be replacing it with a new or different card. 3rd time Lucky. . 4th time house on fire or takes out the rest of your system.

I wouldn't accept a repair not for 3rd time. Disgraceful. . Putting a customer at risk a 3rd time. Hope they have good insurance & lawyers if this repair causes a dangerous situation.

randal · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:47

Semple said:
You should at least ask if whatever component has failed was the same as the one before. Might give little comfort that at least it was something else that had broken, but obviously not giving much trust in their QA.

They wouldn't tell me last time, told me it was company confidential. All they said was that they'd "replaced some chips".

Purgatory said:
Gigabytes warranty. . Basically worthless. After the card gave up twice before and 3rd time the customer states it went up in smoke, they should be replacing it with a new or different card. 3rd time Lucky. . 4th time house on fire or takes out the rest of your system.

I wouldn't accept a repair not for 3rd time. Disgraceful. . Putting a customer at risk a 3rd time. Hope they have good insurance & lawyers if this repair causes a dangerous situation.

I wouldn't go so far to say their warranty is useless, they're working to a process which under any other circumstance than smoke and fire would be acceptable. Hell, if the card hadn't failed again in the same way I'd be happy with the outcome as they returned me a fixed and working card. However it has failed in the same way, and they're not doing enough to assure me as a customer that it won't happen again so it's less than ideal.

I have said that I really don't want to be submitting a claim to them for an X99 system as a result of the card's failure, so at the very least I'll have "I told you so" if it grenades itself and takes my machine with it.

Marine-RX179 · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:48

randal said:
I'd be pushing for a 980 or higher if they grant an exchange, this card is capable of beating a 970.

I've mailed them asking for an exchange as I have no faith that a repair is able to fix this kind of fault. Also, I think GB will pay for postage costs this time around which is a bit of a bonus.

randal said:
Well it looks like they're repairing it again, whatever that entails because they wouldn't tell me last time.

Have just told them that whilst I have faith in their process and the engineer's abilities, I really don't have faith in that specific card. Nor do I want to chance putting it back in my machine for it to go and kill/burn something when it inevitably goes again.

Perhaps I'd have a little faith if they told me what they'd fixed...

Just want to clarify...were there at any point they offered you a GTX970, but because you insisting your 780Ti is a superior card and wouldn't settle for anything less than a 980, thus it might be what led to them keeping trying to repair your existing card?

randal · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:55

No they've not offered me anything in exchange, that was a hypothetical. Certainly not to the level of card models.

All they've said is that any exchange is at the discretion of the repair team when I said that I'd prefer an exchange because the card has failed in the same brutal way as before.

joeyjojo · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:56

If it makes you feel better randal there isn't much the card could do to damage the rest of your system.

A PSU fault could destroy a GPU, but not the other way round (AFAICT).

(I suppose it's possible to design a PCIe device to overload the PCIe socket power delivery. Seems unlikely IRL though.)

Marine-RX179 · 23 Nov 2015 at 12:56

randal said:
No they've not offered me anything in exchange, that was a hypothetical. Certainly not to the level of card models.

All they've said is that any exchange is at the discretion of the repair team when I said that I'd prefer an exchange because the card has failed in the same brutal way as before.

I see.

Just wanted to know if they have at least offered a 970 as replacement yet after all that hassle you've been through.

randal · 23 Nov 2015 at 13:01

joeyjojo said:
If it makes you feel better randal there isn't much the card could do to damage the rest of your system.

A PSU fault could destroy a GPU, but not the other way round (AFAICT).

(I suppose it's possible to design a PCIe device to overload the PCIe socket power delivery. Seems unlikely IRL though.)

That's something I suppose. My scenario of doom is that it catches fire when I'm not near the PC and able to pull the plug in time.

Marine-RX179 said:
I see.

Just wanted to make sure if they have at least offered a 970 as replacement yet after all that hassle you've been through.

Nope, nothing. All of the exchanges have been very fix/repair oriented and very curt in their nature. Like one liners, often ignoring most of the content of my original mails.

MooMoo444 · 23 Nov 2015 at 13:05

Mariusz said:
Had the opposite experience with Evga, RMA procedure was quick and easy but I sent then a Titan X SuperClock and got a "recertified" standard Titan X back, at least that what the card bios said

That really happened? I thought they couldn't give you something from a lower range. Equal or better, no?

humbug · 23 Nov 2015 at 13:09

randal said:
Well it looks like they're repairing it again, whatever that entails because they wouldn't tell me last time.

Have just told them that whilst I have faith in their process and the engineer's abilities, I really don't have faith in that specific card. Nor do I want to chance putting it back in my machine for it to go and kill/burn something when it inevitably goes again.

Perhaps I'd have a little faith if they told me what they'd fixed...

The thing with repairing components on cards is you can't really be sure why the component failed in the first place, if the card has failed once and failed again after being repaired there could be a wider problem with it, if they didn't pick up on what that was originally there the chances are they ain't going to find it.

If they had to pay for postage they would not mess you about like this, they would just send you a new one, but because you have to pay that it looks like they are just making you send the same patched up broken card backwards and forwards, almost like a punishment for RMA'ing it in the first place.

Thank you for this thread its been very informative, i was looking at a Gigabyte Motherboard to go with my Gigabyte card, not anymore i'm not and any future Nvidia card i buy will likely be EVGA.

These are very complex components, they can go wrong and thats fine, but if your paying 100's for these components you want to know you'll be treated right if they go wrong.