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Oh dear AMD undervolting and warranty woes.

bru

bru

bru

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I have a friend who has finally managed to get hold of his Radeon V11, from a small company he has local to him in the Netherlands. Now we love to banter back and forth about the whole NVidia vs AMD thing and to be honest I was really looking forward to his views on the Radeon V11 that he has had now for a just over a week.
Now as many of you he was excited to start to use the new card and straight away he said it was unbelievably loud, and ran far too hot for his liking. I pointed him to various reviews that have talked about undervolting and adjusting the fan profile in the wattman driver utility, to bring the power usage and fan noise under control. at first he had quite a good bit of success and he managed to he put it, bring the power usage and therefore the noise under control somewhat.

Now all seemed to be going swimingly and he was happy as Larry with his new card. but then disaster struck and his card went pop for no apparent reason. Now I have told him that it was nothing he had done and sometimes these things happen. He should contact the company he bought it from and they would sort out a replacement under warranty.

Well he did exactly that and he told the shop what had happened, but he made one fatal mistake, he told them that he had used wattman to change the fan profile and undervolt the card. Now as far as I am concerned this shouldn't be a problem, but the company that he bought it from is refusing him warranty due to him running the card outside of AMD's specifications.
Basically because he used the wattman utility that is built into the driver suite to change the fan profile and undervolt the card, he is diddled out of a warranty claim, just because he told the company about doing it.

Now it does say on the AMD adrenalin edition webpage.

OVERCLOCKING WARNING: AMD processors are intended to be operated only within their associated specifications and factory settings. Operating your AMD processor outside of official AMD specifications or outside of factory settings, including but not limited to the conducting of overclocking (including use of this overclocking software, even if such software has been directly or indirectly provided by AMD or otherwise affiliated in any way with AMD), may damage your processor and/or lead to other problems, including but not limited to, damage to your system components (including your motherboard and components thereon (e.g. memory)), system instabilities (e.g. data loss and corrupted images), reduction in system performance, shortened processor, system component and/or system life and in extreme cases, total system failure. AMD does not provide support or service for issues or damages related to use of an AMD processor outside of official AMD specifications or outside of factory settings. You may also not receive support or service from your board or system manufacturer. Please make sure you have saved all important data before using this overclocking software. DAMAGES CAUSED BY USE OF YOUR AMD PROCESSOR OUTSIDE OF OFFICIAL AMD SPECIFICATIONS OR OUTSIDE OF FACTORY SETTINGS ARE NOT COVERED UNDER ANY AMD PRODUCT WARRANTY AND MAY NOT BE COVERED BY YOUR BOARD OR SYSTEM MANUFACTURER’S WARRANTY.
Click to expand...

So basically if you mess with anything that changes the factory settings, even if you use the built in wattman utility, you void your warranty.
Does wattman warn you before you use it?

Now I have told my friend that he should contact Powercolor direct and don't mention that he has undervolted or changed the fan profile and hopefully they will be able to sort him out, as a dead card is a dead card and that shouldn't happen with a new card at all.
 
Running kit OUTSIDE if specifications is a sure way to invalidate your warranty. Doubtful that an undervolt did that but why on earth tell the retailer? Maybe he should consider it an expensive lesson on how to life :eek:
 
It's standard policy for all companies to have that in their terms. Retailers in particular love a reason to deny a warranty, no matter if it's right or wrong. Still, I can't imagine he can't raise a stink and threaten them with the relevant authorities and get the RMA through. Maybe he bought it with a card as well, do a charge back?
 
If AMD were to refuse RMAs because people were using software supplied and advertised by them it could be argued the company had been irresponsible.

It may be a good idea to see if LtMatt can help out here.
 
It's a weird situation.
The official stance is that doing anything voids the warranty basically.

But then we've got cards that are sold for overclocking etc.
 
If he called the shop then leave it for a week and then use a different method of communication and just say "it went pop". The shop won't know him from Adam.
 
I wonder what would happen if he emailed AMD directly and asked

"Does using Wattman with my Radeon VII invalidate its warranty?"

If they say "yes" then they've opened themselves up for trouble if Wattman itself doesn't make it abundantly clear that pressing any buttons invalidates warranty. If they say "no" then the shop hasn't got a leg to stand on.
 
Gutted for him and honesty has cost him here. I would get in contact with AMD if I was him, as they are more consumer friendly and will help him out.
 
When they say outside of spec, they probably mean going beyond what wattman will allow. E.g. messing with the BIOS. I think wattman has limits to stop you frying the card.
 
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Get your friend to go to the shop in a week with the card.

Also, what if it was wattmans Auto undervolt that caused the issue? Who would be liable then?
 
LePhuronn said:
I wonder what would happen if he emailed AMD directly and asked

"Does using Wattman with my Radeon VII invalidate its warranty?"

If they say "yes" then they've opened themselves up for trouble if Wattman itself doesn't make it abundantly clear that pressing any buttons invalidates warranty. If they say "no" then the shop hasn't got a leg to stand on.
Click to expand...

There's a disclaimer.
 
Sounds to me that the company just want to quickly wash their hands off, as soon as OP's friend honesty given them the opportunity to do so.

I do wonder if that seller even know "Wattman" is AMD's own software, or they just thought it was some 3rd party software that OP's friend was using.

But getting a response from AMD on the stance would definitely be helpful, as if they confirm using Wattman for tweaking graphic card doesn't void warranty, the response can just be forward to the seller so they would have no excuse.
 
LePhuronn said:
If he called the shop then leave it for a week and then use a different method of communication and just say "it went pop". The shop won't know him from Adam.
Click to expand...

No that will not work, the problem is the shop have invoice/order number file with his name and address on it and they logged graphic card serial number on invoice file so serial number sometime not visible on invoice paper before shipped Radeon VII to him. When he called the shop and told them he got faulty Radeon VII and the shop asked for invoice/order number then asked the guy how it happened and afterward the shop either flagged invoice with additional notes took from recorded call and blacklisted serial number then the shop called PowerColor urgently immediately and asked them to have his Radeon VII serial number blacklisted with additional notes took from retailer.

Very long time ago I bought brand new sealed Fujitsu Pocket Loox 600 on ebay for about £200, the PDA ran Windows Mobile 2002 and it had 2 years warranty. About a year later I had problem upgraded the PDA to Windows Mobile 2003 and called Fujitsu technical support for assistance, they asked me for serial number and I looked at the back of PDA and told the serial number then they told me the serial number is blacklisted flagged as stolen item so there was nothing they can do for me. Then I reported to seller and ebay, it is illegal to selling stolen items on ebay.
 
AthlonXP1800 said:
When he called the shop and told them he got faulty Radeon VII and the shop asked for invoice/order number then asked the guy how it happened and afterward the shop either flagged invoice with additional notes took from recorded call and blacklisted serial number then the shop called PowerColor urgently immediately and asked them to have his Radeon VII serial number blacklisted with additional notes took from retailer.
Click to expand...

Assuming it got as far as asking for invoice number...

"Hi, my Radeon VII popped when I undervolted with Wattman"
"Not covered, your fault. Sorry".

I was just shooting in the dark without having the specifics of the conversation. If indeed the shop did get invoice details as part of the conversation then yes the card is now directly traceable and warranty revoked. If the conversation never got as far as invoice details however...
 
LePhuronn said:
Assuming it got as far as asking for invoice number...

"Hi, my Radeon VII popped when I undervolted with Wattman"
"Not covered, your fault. Sorry".

I was just shooting in the dark without having the specifics of the conversation. If indeed the shop did get invoice details as part of the conversation then yes the card is now directly traceable and warranty revoked. If the conversation never got as far as invoice details however...
Click to expand...

If he went to the store in person for a bit of an informal chat then maybe. If he called their customer support line and went through to a call centre, then any operator following their script will have gotten him to hand over the order number/confirm details before even asking what the problem is. The details of every call will then be noted against the order and visible to anyone else he subsequently speaks to.

Really naff I know and common sense suggests undervolting a graphics card will if anything prolong its life, not kill it. Hopefully there'll be some better luck contacting AMD.
 
They would have to make a case where undervolting would cause damage, it will not obsolve them of your legal rights either regardless of what the warranty states.
 
This is overclocking knowledge 101. If you fry your card overclocking you never admit to doing so. Lets be honest if you were not pushing stupid boundaries the card was obviously weak so no need to feel guilty. If you were pushing stupid amounts of volts and destroy a card then you shouldn't be RMAing it in the first place. His mistake was to talk about this in the first place and i am sure he will learn from this now. If he was only undervolting i would try AMD or the OEM to see if something can be done.
 
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