So, thinking of refunding my AVADirect

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Metallikat

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 18, 2008
Messages
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So, I purchased a 2000 dollar system from AVADirect only to suffer bad in-game performance (severe stuttering/hitching in games, that would often progress to the point where the game would either CTD or cause the PC to Blue Screen), with CTD's in other applications and Blue Screens while browsing etc. Emailed with tech support for a few days, when they said that setting up a phone call would be best. First call was supposed to be Monday, but I was told that due to a storm and understaffing they didn't have time. Was scheduled for a call Tuesday, but was again told they didn't have time. Couldn't do it Wednesday because of a half-day for them and obviously not on Christmas day. A call was set-up for today but I never received the call OR an email telling me why they couldn't contact me.

Needless to say, I'm not very happy and a little worried. I'm thinking of just refunding it and getting my money back. I have a question first though. When does their 30 day refund period start? Is it from when you purchase it, when it's shipped or when you receive it?
 
Custom built product(s) may not be returned and are non-refundable except if they were purchased within 30 days, do not work properly, or are in need of repair and are under warranty. After 30 days, custom built product(s) may be returned only for the purpose of repair under warranty. For products returned within 30 days a restocking fee of 15% will be applied. Modified components can not be returned.

You must contact us before you attempt to return such product(s) to obtain a Return Merchandise Authorization number (RMA number) for you to include with your return. The returned product(s) must be received by AVADirect no more than thirty (30) calendar days after your receipt of the product(s). You must return product(s) to us in the original packaging. You are responsible for properly packaging product(s) to be returned and for delivering the product(s) to the common carrier designated by AVADirect. You are responsible for risk of loss or damage, as well as shipping and handling fees, for a product(s) which you return.
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I'd say it starts when you buy it. Because of the whole "reciept of the products" dealy. Which really sucks. It looks like you might even have to pay a 15% restocking fee, too... maybe not, since it's defective, but that would be quite horrible. 300$ for a system that didn't even work properly.

EDIT: Oh, wait... Upon rereading, it would appear that maybe you don't need to meet the 30 day deadline because of the "or" in that first sentence, being that it does not work right. Also, it seems like the restocking fee would only be for those products that were returned within the 30 days but work...
 
And paying for shipping as well. Which makes me ask the question, do I forfeit the 300-400 dollars and get what I can back now or do I stick with it and possibly end up spending more in shipping fees with multiple repair jobs (if they even bother to get back to me)?
 
Assumin g no restocking fee, shipping can't be that bad. Maybe $40 max?

Some details about the problem could help..... my first guess would be an overheating graphics card. Yeah, it's their job to support their product, but if you can fix it yourself that may make you happier with less trouble.
 
I'm not real trusting with AVA lately,they seem to be slipping and their ratings have dropped.
I've heard getting them to refund a system is difficult at best.And their policy on who pays for shipping is very vague.If you buy a system and it's defective,they should pay for the shipping,and there shouldn't be a restocking fee.
 
This has come up before and I have asked their rep that visits these forums on what their policy is on shipping but I got no reply. It says on their site that YOU have to pay shipping but many others here thought they had changed that. Again, no word from the AVA rep.

The 30 days should start from the day you received the item. That only makes sense...however, things that make sense usually aren't how things are done.

I hope they get back with you soon and good luck. Please let us know how this was resolved.
 
Yeah, the policy of making the buyer pay for shipping to repair a unit or send it back for refund sucks. Hopefully I can contact them Monday and get something done. I was willing to talk to tech support to fix the problem, but with the window to refund the computer getting smaller (and the experience of having recently being burned by crappy Dell Tech Support on a newer PC) makes me think ridding myself of this would be best.
 
Well, they got back to me today. They had me go inside BIOS and change some voltages (memory voltage and North Bridge and South Bridge Voltages). It hasn't blue screened yet with my limited usage, but the main issue I suffer during games still persists. A game will play fine at first, going very smoothly when all of a sudden it will hitch (game will freeze, with whatever sounds are playing stuttering) and then start going again. The problem is, after this hitch, the game becomes incredibly sluggish and slow to respond.
 
Well, it blue screened again. Emailed AVADirect with the minidump file attached, then hooked up my old pc for the time being.

EDIT: Specs:

Vista Home Premium 64bit

EVGA GeForce GTX 280

ASUS Striker II 780i SLI

INTEL Q9450 Quad-Core 2.66GHz

MUSHKIN, 4GB eXtreme Performance XP2-8500 PC2-8500 DDR2 1066MHz CL5 2.0-2.1V

SEAGATE 750GB Barracuda 7200.11

LITE-ON, DH-16D3P-08 Black 16x48x DVD-ROM Drive, IDE, Retail

SONY, CRX320EE Black 52x32x52-16A DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive, EIDE/ATAPI

ANTEC Signature 850 Power Supply, 80 PLUS®, 850W

THERMALTAKE, Big Typhoon (CL-P0114) CPU Cooling Fan
 
Hate to say it,but the whole "change the voltages" thing sounds very familiar.Seems they tried that on another customer's system who posted here,said they had set them at some insane level that probably would have fried everything eventually.And they don't seem to have a very good track record with Nvidia chipset systems.Don't know if you'll have any luck,but going for a refund might be the best strategy right now.
 
I'd return it and consider yourself lucky to get away that cheaply.
 
You won't get a refund from ava. My pc was one they tried to fry with insane volts at stock also. Find a tech with some skill to get advise from not working for ava or throw it into the trash.You RMA it may come back as a paper weight I do know it will be worse than when it left.
 
Why AVA didn't make things right with you Schneider, when they had such a huge audience waiting for them to do just that, I will never know. There are three people in this tiny thread that wouldn't buy from them and that can be attributed to their epic fail on your rig. How many others out there don't have AVA on their list of possibles?

Shame.

Yeah, Metallikat, send it back. If it were me I would be telling them that I'm not paying shipping for an item that never worked.
 
You guys are so quick to blame the hardware assemblers when in fact this sounds more like a software/driver problem more than anything. Besides, this is [H], are you guys not ready for a challenge and help this guy?

What OS are you running? If its Vista-64, then installing certain programs like anti-virus can sometimes cause BSODs while doing mundane things like web browsing. Best bet it to try re-installing the OS and not install whatever antivirus you installed. If you could give us a list of other hw/software that you installed since you got your system, that would help.

Also, try using a different version of the video drivers. Sometimes newer drivers can seriously mess up an otherwise good system. Try downgrading to the video drivers on the CD that came with the system.

Also, the 780i NVidia chipset has always been troublesome. Try updating the BIOS to the most recent BIOS update. Or if it has been updated, try downgrading the BIOS to an earlier more stable BIOS.

I think everyone here can see that these are some good fixes to make to your system. Try them out and let us know how it works.
 
Its just very sad the first place they sent you was the bios volts.... What do the the sensors in bios say? Post a picture if you can of the entire report screen,
 
He shouldbe blaming it on them if they set the voltages that high and would probably reduce the life of his computer. They are a boutique just like any other. He bought a System from them that they built. I would expect them do do what HP or Gateway or any other boutique would do in this situation. Either get the PC fixed or give him a refund. There is no reason for his to have to suffer this long with just a measly BIOS voltage change. That wouldn't do anything. He sounds like he is having a software or driver problem, or even just a bad video card. The 280s did have a problem overheating, and his might have that problem. Just my .02.
 
antecuser said:
You guys are so quick to blame the hardware assemblers when in fact this sounds more like a software/driver problem more than anything. Besides, this is [H], are you guys not ready for a challenge and help this guy?

What OS are you running? If its Vista-64, then installing certain programs like anti-virus can sometimes cause BSODs while doing mundane things like web browsing. Best bet it to try re-installing the OS and not install whatever antivirus you installed. If you could give us a list of other hw/software that you installed since you got your system, that would help.

Also, try using a different version of the video drivers. Sometimes newer drivers can seriously mess up an otherwise good system. Try downgrading to the video drivers on the CD that came with the system.

Also, the 780i NVidia chipset has always been troublesome. Try updating the BIOS to the most recent BIOS update. Or if it has been updated, try downgrading the BIOS to an earlier more stable BIOS.

I think everyone here can see that these are some good fixes to make to your system. Try them out and let us know how it works.
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Good Suggestions, but the point is when the OP buys a $2000 system, he expects it to work great out of the box, he doesn't want to spend time screwing around and jumping through hoops. If he wanted to troubleshoot a system problem, he would have probably just built his own, right?
 
This thread along with some others along the same line have made my new build decision a lot easier. I've been eyeballing a Core i7 for weeks now and ordered the rig in my sig line this AM.

While this is an enthusiast Board, not everyone here is either qualified or inclined to "fix it themselves". I've ordered PCs since the early 90's for myself and my company and I used one tried and true rule....if it didn't come straight out of the box in prime condition to do what I bought it for it was re-boxed and sent back that day. It was never a question if I could find the problems and take care of it myself. I figured paying somebody to assemble it, burn it in and guarantee it once was enough.
 
antecuser said:
You guys are so quick to blame the hardware assemblers when in fact this sounds more like a software/driver problem more than anything. Besides, this is [H], are you guys not ready for a challenge and help this guy?

What OS are you running? If its Vista-64, then installing certain programs like anti-virus can sometimes cause BSODs while doing mundane things like web browsing. Best bet it to try re-installing the OS and not install whatever antivirus you installed. If you could give us a list of other hw/software that you installed since you got your system, that would help.

Also, try using a different version of the video drivers. Sometimes newer drivers can seriously mess up an otherwise good system. Try downgrading to the video drivers on the CD that came with the system.

Also, the 780i NVidia chipset has always been troublesome. Try updating the BIOS to the most recent BIOS update. Or if it has been updated, try downgrading the BIOS to an earlier more stable BIOS.

I think everyone here can see that these are some good fixes to make to your system. Try them out and let us know how it works.
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He didn't build this himself, otherwise your suggestions would be spot on.

I don't think it's fair to him to have to run through circles to get his comp working. What did he pay AVA $2000 for? To put everything in a case and make sure the wiring looked good?

I'm not one to say "cut your losses" at the first sign of trouble but I can only imagine how frustrating it is to get so excited putting a rig together, rounding up the money and paying for it, waiting 2 or 3 weeks for it to arrive and then get it out and it doesn't work.

Horrible.

edit: ooh, yeah, what xdivenx and passingthru said...couldn't have said it better...as you can see! haha
 
I get what you guys are saying. But this is not a Dell or HP with basic parts. This is a high-end system with Enthusiast level parts. These types of things happen at this level and the end-user better be able to cope with the occasional snag.

And it just did not work out of the box?!?!? He installed a game (or 6?) and I am sure other software before posting here. We have yet to hear back what software he has installed since he got it or what he has done to it. Until we know what he did, its either AVA or OP's fault. So until then, blame cannot be passed onto either.

Also, he did not list what game(s) he is having issues with. As gamers, are you guys not aware that some guys just have issues with certain gfx cards and drivers and other hardware? Any other time you guys would have helped the guy but instead your just saying "AVA sucks". Would you guys have said to return the whole system if he was having the same issues if he bought it himself?
 
Fair enough ante but in this case, his window of oppurtunity is closing fast. 30 days to return for refund and it's going on two plus weeks now, just going by his post: it may be longer.

And although by saying "send it back" I'm essentially saying it's AVA's fault, it's really a matter of not wanting to hassle with it, more than it is laying blame with one party or the other.

And believe me I am way more aware than I want to be about drivers and GPU's not playing nice with certain games. (ATI+City of Heroes! argh!) He did say he is getting blue screens browsing though.

If the oppurtunity to get a refund in the first 30 days is available to him and he is scared or nervous about their customer service based on his own experiences with them thus far, then he should be able to send it back and if I were him, I would.

I know it's the holidays and delays are expected but are they going to extend his 30 day window for Christmas and New Years minimum manning?
 
antecuser said:
I get what you guys are saying. But this is not a Dell or HP with basic parts. This is a high-end system with Enthusiast level parts. These types of things happen at this level and the end-user better be able to cope with the occasional snag.

And it just did not work out of the box?!?!? He installed a game (or 6?) and I am sure other software before posting here. We have yet to hear back what software he has installed since he got it or what he has done to it. Until we know what he did, its either AVA or OP's fault. So until then, blame cannot be passed onto either.

Also, he did not list what game(s) he is having issues with. As gamers, are you guys not aware that some guys just have issues with certain gfx cards and drivers and other hardware? Any other time you guys would have helped the guy but instead your just saying "AVA sucks". Would you guys have said to return the whole system if he was having the same issues if he bought it himself?
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He asked in his original post about the start date of the 30 day guarantee. That pretty much tells me he had problems out of the box. He also noted that when doing simple things like browsing he suffered CTDs and BSDs. I've only been using PCs since the early 90s and don't claim to know everything but I've seen very very few legitimate program so badly out of synch with an OS that it would try to kill the PC and itself with BSDs. I've never known BSDs to be that prevalent due to bad drivers either. Actually they have been rare in my experience and considering I worked with AutoCAD products for over 15 years that's saying something.

I haven't read the AVA warranty but I'd bet dollars to donuts you will not see an exclusion for "Enthusiast level parts". It's like a car dealer telling me I have to figure out why my car died because it's a new model and his technicians couldn't be expected to work on it's new technology.

Is it his duty to troubleshoot the system? Errr, no it is not. He seems to have done the right thing and contacted the vender for troubleshooting help who apparently was not very good at establishing and maintaining a working relationship with a customer.

Anyway I wish him good luck with his problems.
 
Well, AVA got back to me and they want to do an RMA on the PC or video card. As for software and games I've used, it would proceed to give me problems on all that I tried. Fallout 3, Left4Dead, Warhammer Online to name some. Heck, even games like Dwarf Fortress would CTD after 10 minutes of gameplay. I've already done a Vista reinstall on the machine, after the new BIOS settings. Before they contacted me via phone, they had me try starting Vista with only 1 of the two ram sticks in. With only 1 stick in (didn't matter which one), the machine would blue screen before it could get past the windows loading screen. They then had me try to reinstall Vista, with the 1 stick of ram at a time. Again, it would BSOD during the Windows installation. With both in, it could function (but would give me problems in games etc.).
 
Hello Everyone,


Usually I'm very active with these forums, but lately I have not been. I've been focusing on other aspects of the business and have not been very involved, so I sincerely apologize.

The last thing I want is for anyone to be unsatisfied with our systems. I, personally, put a lot of effort into making sure the customer gets exactly what they pay for. As a salesman, I get great satisfaction from assisting clients with a build that I KNOW is perfect for their needs.

I'm going to leave my direct contact information. Please, PLEASE do not hesitate to contact me. I will be more than willing to help you in any way that I can.


Kind Regards,

Joseph M. Mundy
Sales Executive / Customer Service
800-808-8299 Direct.
[email protected]
 
Well, they're gonna send me a replacement video card to see if it fixes my issue. If not, I'll probably have to send the PC in to get fixed.
 
It sounds to me like the system was defective from day one,which suggests that it wasn't properly tested before shipping.And I don't think you should have to do all this troubleshooting for them,you paid good money for a system that should have worked properly out of the box,that's why people pay the premium to have a system built,rather than dealing with headaches like this .With all the possible causes for the problem,the refund period could expire by the time they're done having you do their job for them.
 
AVAdirect_Joe said:
Hello Everyone,


Usually I'm very active with these forums, but lately I have not been. I've been focusing on other aspects of the business and have not been very involved, so I sincerely apologize.

The last thing I want is for anyone to be unsatisfied with our systems. I, personally, put a lot of effort into making sure the customer gets exactly what they pay for. As a salesman, I get great satisfaction from assisting clients with a build that I KNOW is perfect for their needs.

I'm going to leave my direct contact information. Please, PLEASE do not hesitate to contact me. I will be more than willing to help you in any way that I can.


Kind Regards,

Joseph M. Mundy
Sales Executive / Customer Service
800-808-8299 Direct.
[email protected]
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Hey Joe, nice to have you back. Hope you had a good Christmas and Happy New Year.

I hope this turns out well for you guys...you have been getting some bad press here lately and I think this is a golden opportunity to get some positives in relation to the AVA name.

Good luck to both of you.
 
Now that we have an AVA rep here (finally), I would personally like an explaination on why AVA is having their techs up the cpu and ram voltages on a huge % of systems that are clearly having any number of different problems. Was this a company based decision or did a bunch of the techs decide that upping all the voltages to fix crashes (which sometimes works.. for a VERY short period of time) was a good idea? I was very close last week to ordering from AVA and man am I glad I did some research, forums everywhere are packed w/ all these same issues and it is just so frustrating because it looks so much like just another case of a great company reaching success and completely imploding due to greed. If you can't handle the support for so many systems than for gods sake slow down the sales until you can handle it. Anyway, how about a couple answers to all these guys' questions about the voltages?
 
I have built a number of my own PCs and never once have I adjusted the northbridge or southbridge voltages and all of those systems have run flawlessly.

These PCs are supposed to be stress tested and adjusted to the correct BIOS settings before the damn thing leaves the builder. I agree that this is bad news and I have read this in the other threads as well.

I remember another thread where the Asus SLI mobos were messing things up big time. I highly doubt it's the video card but we shall see.

Also, antecuser sounds like a fanboy to me. Blaming the user for installing programs is a FUCKING RIOT!!! What the hell do you do with a gaming PC? You install games and play them. What a joke lol.

Again, my home-built Vista 64 system with games and anti virus (have used two different ones actually) installed runs flawlessly!!!
 
Did you pay via credit card? You may have some sort of credit protection if you act soon.
 
I agree about and across the board decision to raise voltages that seems very strange. Back when I ran a shop and built many, many systems the only time I upped voltages was if there was a known issue with a particular mainboard which was rare or an OC the customer gave the ok for/wanted.It should be working out of the box correctly, and if not very soon afterwards. If they can't get it running for you correctly within two weeks send it back. Additionally I would ask for an Intel based board to replace the Asus 780i, or if you have to have SLI the eVGA 750i FTW.
 
+1 for the voltages causing the problem. If they were really messing around with that stuff, who knows what else they changed? I'm also warry of the video card causing problems. Usually a VGA failure will cause a total freeze, which doesn't sound like your symptoms. BSOD and CTD sound like power or memory issues, maybe both. The only other thing I can think of is to write down the BSOD error codes, they usually look something like 0x0000A5FF76 (.........), and look them up. Sometimes those codes give an imediate answer to what's going on.

IMHO, it sounds like your BIOS settings are screwey and some of the settings are on AUTO while others were set manually. It should work ok, but I really don't know. Honestly, if they can't fix your problem you might want to go into the BIOS and just reset everything to defaults. Before you do I'd make sure to write down how the BIOS has SATA setup as (ACH or IDE), as Vista may not load if it didn't install the default controller drivers. Other than that, there is no reason to not have those settings on Auto.
 
CraftyChicken said:
+1 for the voltages causing the problem. If they were really messing around with that stuff, who knows what else they changed? I'm also warry of the video card causing problems. Usually a VGA failure will cause a total freeze, which doesn't sound like your symptoms. BSOD and CTD sound like power or memory issues, maybe both. The only other thing I can think of is to write down the BSOD error codes, they usually look something like 0x0000A5FF76 (.........), and look them up. Sometimes those codes give an imediate answer to what's going on.

IMHO, it sounds like your BIOS settings are screwey and some of the settings are on AUTO while others were set manually. It should work ok, but I really don't know. Honestly, if they can't fix your problem you might want to go into the BIOS and just reset everything to defaults. Before you do I'd make sure to write down how the BIOS has SATA setup as (ACH or IDE), as Vista may not load if it didn't install the default controller drivers. Other than that, there is no reason to not have those settings on Auto.
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Does he risk voiding his warranty doing any of this?
 
Shawnasee said:
Does he risk voiding his warranty doing any of this?
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That's a good question, and I really wouldn't know the answer. I'd like to think that their warranty wouldn't preclude setting the BIOS to it's default settings, as these are the "safeset" options and what the motherboard should have been set to in the first place. If they manufacturer really had to up the voltages to get the thing to run in the first place, there was already something wrong. For example, in my house we have a total of 4 computers. A family PC, my personal gaming/work PC, a beatup old toshiba notebook, and a junk P4 running my Trixbox VOIP server. On all those computers, each with different motherboard/chipset combos, the only BIOS settings not set to default is the Trixbox VOIP server which has ACH enabled for SATA, so I can hot-swap if needed.

However, nowadays you never know what kind of 'gotchas' exsist in a companies customer service policies. To the OP, you probably shouldn't do anything I suggest, or anyone else, unless sure AVA will or can't fix your problem. Also, take all advice with a grain of salt, including my own. That said, this forum is full of people who can help if things really do deteriorate from here.
 
When I played games on my old 8800GTX, if it got too hot the game would freeze for about 3 seconds then start again but performance would be totally shot, FPS would drop and remain much lower than it was before the freeze. After investigation it turned out as the 8800 hit a certain temperature it dropped the clock speeds (causing the game to freeze) and then continued on it's merry way. Of course, being a lot slower.

A reboot fixed it, but only temporarily. I RMA'd it and the new one was fine,
 
Considering they already had him going into the BIOS and altering voltages,switching the memory around,and doing multiple re-installs,voiding the warranty shouldn't even be a factor.
 
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