GTX Titan Faulty and out of Warranty

[sk3lph]

One of my first generation Asus Titans has gone faulty which I bought from OcUK in Feb 2013 so the Warranty expired 6 months ago. I have definitely confirmed this as the other card works fine, this one produces artifacts, drops the resolution and the Nvidia drivers fail to load.

This card cost £840 when it came out and fully working must still be worth £200 or so, so I'm not happy to just bin it and move on.

Any advice or recommendations apart from putting it in the oven? What are peoples experiences of this?

I'm currently talking to Asus about this but so far their customers support is not particularly impressive.

 

[darket]

You need to determine weather its a gpu or memory issue , or just a dodgy component on the board.

Inspect with a magnifier every component for signs of dry solder joints and blown/leaking caps.

Also run the card on its own, underclock the gpu and memory in turn and see if that makes a difference (if any)

Determine if heat makes a difference, does it artifact more as heat builds up ?

Is it a contact issue caused by years of sag ? , try running the card with the case on its side.

Now go test and report back to base with your findings !

 

[Mariusz]

Did you buy this on credit card?

 

[sk3lph]

You need to determine weather its a gpu or memory issue , or just a dodgy component on the board.

Inspect with a magnifier every component for signs of dry solder joints and blown/leaking caps.

Also run the card on its own, underclock the gpu and memory in turn and see if that makes a difference (if any)

Determine if heat makes a difference, does it artifact more as heat builds up ?

Is it a contact issue caused by years of sag ? , try running the card with the case on its side.

Now go test and report back to base with your findings !

First of all, I didn't buy this on credit card.

I can answer some of those questions above, I use a Skeleton case so the card is vertical and artifacts and drops resolution as soon as it's powered on. The card sits vertically and has done throughout it's life, so not liable to be a sag issue and not a heat issue either.

I'll need to take the heat sink off to closely examine the board, so will wait to see if Asus will do anything for me once I've made the guy understand that the Warranty has expired.

 

[Diagro]

These cards need at least a 5 year warranty.

3 years is simply not enough. Much like cars 3 years isnt enough!

 

[Gibbo]

These cards need at least a 5 year warranty.

3 years is simply not enough. Much like cars 3 years isnt enough!

Lets not talk about car warranties, my new £40,000 car, that took two years to arrive after putting down £1000 deposit, has now being off the road for one month awaiting a simple repair to the engine, but because the part is not in stock the repair has now taken a month on a six month old car and I am still without it.

Car warranty and service is shameful, crazy considering the money involved is vastly more.

So yeah pre-order a car with 1k down, takes two years. Six month into ownership and it breaks down and takes over a month to repair.

 

[sk3lph]

Basically my original post is, I have a knackered card that only lasted three and a half years and is out of Warranty that I paid £840 for.

What would you do?

 

[Rroff]

Short of Asus helping (wouldn't hold my breath) find someone to professionally reflow it and hope it is just something along the lines of BGA solder failure and not the memory degraded, etc.

 

[Vimes]

Drop a line in the CS within this forum and ask OC what are they prepared to do, as they are the retailer you bought the card from.
Perhaps also consider sending a trust message to either Gibbo or Bailey to see if they can assist. Link them to the CS thread. Copy the Asus responses to that thread also.

Ensure that their responses, and who you have been in contact with at Asus, is saved.

There is also a Asus rep who frequents this forum, find that person and trust them also, again copying all the stuff noted to them.

It would be nice to think that you might get a favourable response from that



All is not lost if nothing comes from it but at least you will have tried that approach first. Then there are other options. A phone call to the CAB will explain those, you will get a case number, make note of it.

Just for future reference pay by CC on items over £100. That way the CC company is as equally libel as the retailer if things go wrong. You would have only needed to have paid £1 with a CC and the rest by whatever means to get that cover as well, as long as the item you are buying is over £100 in total.
I think I'm right about that.

 

[dancook]

Basically my original post is, I have a knackered card that only lasted three and a half years and is out of Warranty that I paid £840 for.

What would you do?

I would contact the manufacturer/retailer first to see if they will provide service.

If they tell you it is outside of warranty and will not help... well

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-do-i-do-if-i-have-a-faulty-product

Your rights against the retailer can last for up to six years but the onus is on you to prove a fault was present at the time of purchase after the first six months.

So, I believe, if you are able to get an independent inspection which can verify that the cause of the fault to the card was not mistreatment by you - then you may have a case you against them.

I'm not sure if this is a small claims court type thing, but at least this is your something you can look into.

Sorry if I'm wrong about this

 

[enigma27]

I would contact the manufacturer/retailer first to see if they will provide service.

If they tell you it is outside of warranty and will not help... well

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/what-do-i-do-if-i-have-a-faulty-product

Your rights against the retailer can last for up to six years but the onus is on you to prove a fault was present at the time of purchase after the first six months.

So, I believe, if you are able to get an independent inspection which can verify that the cause of the fault to the card was not mistreatment by you - then you may have a case you against them.

I'm not sure if this is a small claims court type thing, but at least this is your something you can look into.

Sorry if I'm wrong about this

He would need the independent reviewer to prove the fault was there from the start and was a fault with the manufacturing process. if said card worked fine for the first free and a half years and never showed sign of fault not sure how you prove this.

I have seen this 6 year time limit posted so many times but have maybe only seen one person successfully use it and that only because they reported the fault and had it documented within the first year of use.

 

[McGraw]

Bake it.

Just fixed my stepson's 7850 (admittedly a little less valuable ) kike this.

 

[sk3lph]

Thanks for the replies, this is the sort of stuff I'm looking for.

I've already had confirmation from OC that they are not prepared to do anything as the card is out of Warranty, Gibbo responded to the thread above, so he has seen it, but I think he'd have said something if he was prepared to help. Shame I can't help him with his car problem .

If someone knows the Asus Rep I can contact that would be great - the quality of response I've been getting from Asus does not look good, loads of typos with repeated text, doesn't look like English is the native language of this support guy which makes me think he is not in the UK.

Ideally, if I can get a bit of a discount on a new card then I'd be happy with that.

 

[benjii]

Asus don't sell cards directly though, so I don't see how a discount would work. I would definitely recommend removing the cooler and carefully examining the solder points, capacitors etc. to see if you can identify the problem. You might get lucky and find it's just a blown capacitor.

 

[dancook]

He would need the independent reviewer to prove the fault was there from the start and was a fault with the manufacturing process. if said card worked fine for the first free and a half years and never showed sign of fault not sure how you prove this.

I have seen this 6 year time limit posted so many times but have maybe only seen one person successfully use it and that only because they reported the fault and had it documented within the first year of use.

I'm not sure exactly, but i'll hypothesize..

If it was because some soldering failed, could it be concluded the soldering was not done to a standard that would last for the expected lifetime of the card.

So this would be an inherent design flaw of the card..?

So I am also hypothesizing, that if the fault can be proved to have not been caused by the owner - then there is an inherent design flaw with the card.

 

[Vimes]

Thanks for the replies, this is the sort of stuff I'm looking for.

I've already had confirmation from OC that they are not prepared to do anything as the card is out of Warranty, Gibbo responded to the thread above, so he has seen it, but I think he'd have said something if he was prepared to help. Shame I can't help him with his car problem .

If someone knows the Asus Rep I can contact that would be great - the quality of response I've been getting from Asus does not look good, loads of typos with repeated text, doesn't look like English is the native language of this support guy which makes me think he is not in the UK.

Ideally, if I can get a bit of a discount on a new card then I'd be happy with that.

The rep is called......

Wait for it.....

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/member.php?u=86680

AsusRep

Not sure if tha tone has changed though...? Maybe someone else can help with that.

a pity about the response from OC. Contact the rep and then consider your other choices.

 

[Greebo]

Lets not talk about car warranties, my new £40,000 car, that took two years to arrive after putting down £1000 deposit, has now being off the road for one month awaiting a simple repair to the engine, but because the part is not in stock the repair has now taken a month on a six month old car and I am still without it.

Car warranty and service is shameful, crazy considering the money involved is vastly more.

So yeah pre-order a car with 1k down, takes two years. Six month into ownership and it breaks down and takes over a month to repair.

Thats the issue with been an early adaptor of a brand new item in limited supply

A good few years ago we had an "exotic" car in the firm I worked for and it broke down after 6 months. Not only did they not have any stock of the part needed in the UK, they didnt have any stock in the World full stop! As the claimed it really shouldnt have gone run and they werent expecting needing any of those spare parts yet.

Queue lots of angry letters to their head office etc and finally they got the part which was needed shipped over from the factory production line.

Car was off the road for 8 weeks in total.

 

[Poneros]

This is why I always say, go EVGA and buy as much warranty as you want to keep the card for.

 

[Rroff]

I'm not sure exactly, but i'll hypothesize..

If it was because some soldering failed, could it be concluded the soldering was not done to a standard that would last for the expected lifetime of the card.

So this would be an inherent design flaw of the card..?

So I am also hypothesizing, that if the fault can be proved to have not been caused by the owner - then there is an inherent design flaw with the card.

I think you'd end up paying way more to conclusively prove something like that without a larger scale problem than it would be worth.

 

[benjii]

I think you'd end up paying way more to conclusively prove something like that without a larger scale problem than it would be worth.

Also, they'd fight that hard because if you managed to win that argument, they'd then have to prove that was a one time only mistake or else face a class action law suit from anyone with a dead titan.