AMD RMA is absolutely amazing!

[Nelly]

Read this: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...ng-k7-team-group-ram-free-480gb-ssd.18825904/

Basically this person bought a bundle and could not get the system to boot, thinking the motherboard was not flashed with the latest BIOS. So, he returned the bundle to Overclockers UK, however, the RMA was rejected because the CPU had bent pins, which was caused by sending it back still attached to the cooler. OcUK tried to fix it, however, 3 pins snapped off.

See the horror pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/y11XcSz

Anyway, to cut a story short, he got in contact with AMD and returned the CPU. He received a brand new unopened still sealed 2700x CPU And heat sink within a week! This was provided free of charge as a replacement for the damaged CPU, AMD provided free return labels in both directions.

How good is that?

 

[Nocky24]

Wow kudos to AMD.

 

[LuckyBenski]

I dunno, "amazing service" and "losing money by giving credit to irresponsible users" are separated by a fine line IMO. Why did the person leave the cooler and CPU stuck together, and then put it in a box like that?

It depends how many people end up abusing this trusting attitude from a manufacturer. It can be awesome to know you'll be taken care of, but I've seen people RMA cards a month before warranty ends, citing fan noise or coil whine, then sell the brand new replacement on for increased return.

 

[Troezar]

I dunno, "amazing service" and "losing money by giving credit to irresponsible users" are separated by a fine line IMO. Why did the person leave the cooler and CPU stuck together, and then put it in a box like that?

It depends how many people end up abusing this trusting attitude from a manufacturer. It can be awesome to know you'll be taken care of, but I've seen people RMA cards a month before warranty ends, citing fan noise or coil whine, then sell the brand new replacement on for increased return.

Isn't this partly why BFG went bust?

 

[Gerard]

Isn't this partly why BFG went bust?

Nope, they went bust because they sometimes upgraded people to more powerful cards (once people got wind of this they were trying their luck rmaing for bs reasons), also the delay on fermi didn't help matters. At one point they were try to dip their toes into the amd side of things but that fell through.

 

[Nelly]

BFG lost an exclusive contract with Best Buy in the USA, apparently that's the main reason BFG went bust. I read Galaxy (KFA2) took over the contract with Best Buy prior to BFG even going bust.

BFG’s problems were largely graphics card related, but not related to GTX200. Sales and profit margins on that card were quite good actually. The biggest problem was GTX400 (Fermi) allocation. And the only reason they continued to sell power supplies after they got out of the graphics card business was because there were power supplies to sell. But they couldn’t sell them as quickly as they had been used to because once Best Buy caught wind of BFG not being able to supply graphics cards, they dropped selling their power supply product line as well. If there’s any question as to how much of a dent that put into BFG’s business, let’s put it this way: Best Buy sold TEN TIMES more BFG power supplies than Newegg. Of course, they returned three times as much, but the benefits of the large volume could not be denied.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100819130945/http://hardwareaware.com:80/news/bfg-tech-liquidating/

 

[AthlonXP1800]

BFG lost an exclusive contract with Best Buy in the USA, apparently that's the main reason BFG went bust. I read Galaxy (KFA2) took over the contract with Best Buy prior to BFG even going bust.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100819130945/http://hardwareaware.com:80/news/bfg-tech-liquidating/

Yeah but that not the whole picture how BFG went bust.

Years ago I wondered why BFG went bust and lost exclusive contract with Best Buy and investigated it. It wasn't Nvidia or Best Buy who killed BFG, actually it is PNY who killed BFG by pressured Best Buy with marketing development fund, promotions, priority allocations and higher sales commissions offers forced Best Buy to dumped BFG contract and gone PNY exclusive. After BFG went bust and PNY had BFG RMA promotion to exchanged worked or faulty BFG cards for PNY discounts coupons to buy PNY graphics cards.

 

[Nelly]

Yeah but that not the whole picture how BFG went bust.

Years ago I wondered why BFG went bust and lost exclusive contract with Best Buy and investigated it. It wasn't Nvidia or Best Buy who killed BFG, actually it is PNY who killed BFG by pressured Best Buy with marketing development fund, promotions, priority allocations and higher sales commissions offers forced Best Buy to dumped BFG contract and gone PNY exclusive. After BFG went bust and PNY had BFG RMA promotion to exchanged worked or faulty BFG cards for PNY discounts coupons to buy PNY graphics cards.

Makes sense. I've now found a further article that states Galaxy (KFA2) only took on a few lower priced SKUs in the second link I've posted below.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/11205/bfg_a_sinking_ship/index.html

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/11222/bfg_tech_2008_was_our_most_profitable_to_date/index.html

 

[Rroff]

There were a lot of reasons why BFG went bust - aside from high RMAs from people abusing the system a bunch of their cards had abnormally high rate of BGA solder failure compared to other AIBs not really sure why other than some kind of freak storage issue - whole load of their special edition 9800GTX+ and early 200 series cards suffered from it.

 

[BTVA]

I dunno, "amazing service" and "losing money by giving credit to irresponsible users" are separated by a fine line IMO. Why did the person leave the cooler and CPU stuck together, and then put it in a box like that?

It depends how many people end up abusing this trusting attitude from a manufacturer. It can be awesome to know you'll be taken care of, but I've seen people RMA cards a month before warranty ends, citing fan noise or coil whine, then sell the brand new replacement on for increased return.

I agree with this 100%. Leaving the cpu attached like this and sending away, the person doesn't care much.

 

[darket]

I don't think this offers an overall picture of AMD's rma policy, i mean , give it a try "i yanked my cpu cooler off the board and in the process pulled the cpu straight out of the socket bending a load of pins" and see how far you get.
Its 100% kack handed user error and is just luck rather than rma policy that the cpu was replaced at all.

 

[LePhuronn]

I wasn't going to wade in on that guy's thread questioning his thought process, but even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's a complete novice, I do not understand the thought process in any of what he's done.

If the cooler wouldn't come off, why would you try and force anything?
If your thought was that the motherboard wasn't BIOS flashed properly, why would you decide to return the CPU?
Why didn't you even think to ask questions first about what could be at fault? If the cooler won't budge, why not ask for assistance first?
And even ripping the CPU out of the socket, on what planet is it a good idea to not completely engulf the CPU pins in a bazillion layers of something if you're putting a big lump of metal in the same box?

As for AMD's response, it seems like this is an extreme exception to the rule, rather than good RMA practice. Somebody somewhere decided to take pity on the guy for being an utter ****. Or it was a disgruntled RMA engineer who decided to cost AMD a couple of bucks.

 

[hominid]

I would have refused the RMA on the CPU - that's indefensible!

 

[Zhuni]

It really should have been tuition fee time for that mistake.

 

[willhub]

I really can't believe AMD replaced that CPU, the mind boggles!

 

[beany_bot]

LGA FTW....

Seriously thou. Who thought shipping that would be OK?? No wonder it wouldn't boot. Bet they put it together wrong.

 

[Hagar]

Yes, I have had a good result or two with AMD RMA but nothing with bent or broken pins. I sold an FX8350 on MM, the purchaser later reported through the forums the problems he was having achieving stock speeds and it was getting worse. Feeling huge remorse for thrashing it earlier in its life, I arranged the RMA with two weeks to go on the three year warranty. They replaced it for new, no issue.

 

[Avalon]

I remember the original thread, I did a full on ‘WTF’ after the pics were posted that anyone would be so completely and utterly irresponsible as to return a CPU like that, let alone think that they should be trusted to build a PC.

Until further notice i’m calling my Xeon/980GTX build my main rig - I don’t want to be assosciated with such BS

 

[tres_kun]

It did happen to me once
Pulling an AMD socket 939 cooler with the CPU attached to it right out of the socket
The CPU came right out without damage
The stock thermal paste was at fault back then

 

[Vince]

Had the same (fried CPU, not the being a noob and leaving a CPU attached to a cooler) and AMD have been brilliant. Sent them the CPU on Saturday via their DHL label and I have notification of a delivery tomorrow so that is a 3 day turnaround on a 2700x. Literally one of the best and easiest RMA's I have ever done. I sent a corsair RMA at the same time and their turnaround isn't nearly as quick or efficient.