Gigabyte RMA Nightmare

W

WildMonkey

Gawd
Joined
Nov 1, 2007
Messages
887
Update 5/4: I finally received a card. They sent me what looks to be new a 390 base version (not their OC line) hard to tell with only the card and no box/manual/etc...didn't really pay much attention to it.

All I cared about was getting a working card, and the second I put in my computer it worked fine, no problems at all, at least that's a plus.

It took over 2 months to get it, or about 10 if you count the previous times I sent it.

What really frustrates me is that I had to call them for them to take any kind of action during all those months. I'm pretty sure I would still be waiting if I hadn't called because by some "coincidence" they always sent something (usually untested crap) the day after I called.

They have horrible customer service, I am not buying another Gigabyte product again, even though they eventually came through, it shouldn't be my job to hound them to do it.

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Update 4/22: So it's been three weeks and I've called them 3 times this week, two of which they hanged up on me after being on hold for about 30 minutes without actually speaking to someone. The third I just asked about the current status of the RMA and they told me that they're looking into it and that I should use their website for status changes.

I'm never buying another Gigabyte product.

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I sent in my Gigabyte 290 OC card for repair, they gave me free shipping seeing it was the THIRD time I've sent it in the past 8 months.

Pretty much all for the same reason, occasional crashes, trouble loading windows 10, then eventually constant crashes, impossible to get into windows, and severe artifacting.

IMG_20160308_125633dd.jpg


Anyway, so last Thursday I called them to check on the status of my card, because it had been 3 weeks, and they basically told me nothing, but the next day they sent me a replacement card (same model).

Yesterday it arrived, and the instant I put the card in and tried to boot in to win 10, this is what I see for the next hour, windows wouldn't even load:
IMG_20160330_193635dd.jpg
IMG_20160330_194150dd.jpg
IMG_20160330_200257dd.jpg


And many more, so I ran the repair tool, and I finally got in, installed the latest drivers, restarted the computer and the same story.

I called them back this morning and the told me to send it back, which I did, and they would send me another model.

I'm really tired of this. Any suggestions/comments/consolations?
 
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This might be a dumb question, but are you sure that the problem is the graphics card, or that you're not somehow damaging the fresh cards they send you?

Bad motherboard, power supply, RAM maybe?

I could imagine maybe getting one bad graphics card back from an RMA, but if you've gotten three or four, it seems to me that you've probably got something else going on.

I would test the card you currently have in another system, and see if that system has the same problem. I'd also test another, different graphics card in your system, if I could get my hands on one.
 
RazorWind said:
This might be a dumb question, but are you sure that the problem is the graphics card, or that you're not somehow damaging the fresh cards they send you?

Bad motherboard, power supply, RAM maybe?

I could imagine maybe getting one bad graphics card back from an RMA, but if you've gotten three or four, it seems to me that you've probably got something else going on.

I would test the card you currently have in another system, and see if that system has the same problem. I'd also test another, different graphics card in your system, if I could get my hands on one.
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Nope, I have 2 old 275 GTX's, and 2 older 9600 GSO's, all work fine, that's what I was using for the month. Not a single crash.
 
RazorWind said:
This might be a dumb question, but are you sure that the problem is the graphics card, or that you're not somehow damaging the fresh cards they send you?

Bad motherboard, power supply, RAM maybe?

I could imagine maybe getting one bad graphics card back from an RMA, but if you've gotten three or four, it seems to me that you've probably got something else going on.

I would test the card you currently have in another system, and see if that system has the same problem. I'd also test another, different graphics card in your system, if I could get my hands on one.
Click to expand...
I don't want to belabor the point, but this was my first thought as well. Any different connections (additional lines from the PSU or something) between the 290 and your older cards?
 
Powerage said:
I don't want to belabor the point, but this was my first thought as well. Any different connections (additional lines from the PSU or something) between the 290 and your older cards?
Click to expand...

Ummm no, I'm currently running the 275's in SLI without any issue in the same machine. It's a Seasonic X-series 750w PSU. Same connectors, same slots, etc... I've never had an issue with any other video card except the 290.
 
This card?

GIGABYTE Radeon R9 290 DirectX 11.2 GV-R929OC-4GD 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card - Newegg.com

With as many 1 star reviews as 5 star?

What have you tried so far? Have any idea of the idle vs load consumption? Know the temps? Tried backing off the vendor supplied OC back to reference?

There are a lot of things that could be causing problems. As people have suggested, it could simply come down to a compatibility issue. Maybe the card is trying to use too much power from the PCI-E slot and the board you have doesn't like it. I had two 8800GTs from different manufacturers. My friends system hated card A, but that card would work flawlessly in my system. If I gave him card B, it worked just fine in his. I can't explain that one, but a card that appeared broken worked just fine in other systems. I gave that card to another friend who used it for another 3 or 4 years in his system, and it worked fine the whole time.
 
bman212121 said:
This card?

GIGABYTE Radeon R9 290 DirectX 11.2 GV-R929OC-4GD 4GB 512-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card - Newegg.com

With as many 1 star reviews as 5 star?

What have you tried so far? Have any idea of the idle vs load consumption? Know the temps? Tried backing off the vendor supplied OC back to reference?

There are a lot of things that could be causing problems. As people have suggested, it could simply come down to a compatibility issue. Maybe the card is trying to use too much power from the PCI-E slot and the board you have doesn't like it. I had two 8800GTs from different manufacturers. My friends system hated card A, but that card would work flawlessly in my system. If I gave him card B, it worked just fine in his. I can't explain that one, but a card that appeared broken worked just fine in other systems. I gave that card to another friend who used it for another 3 or 4 years in his system, and it worked fine the whole time.
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Yes, that's the one. I have a 2500K, Asus P8Z68-V Pro board, a bit old but nothing that would cause an issue with a newer card.
 
I would bet anything on the motherboard and/or compatibility issue with the board. I had a Z77 board a few years ago that killed multiple 7950's but would work with literally any other kind of card without the slightest sign of trouble. Sometimes electronics just have that element of PFM (pure fuckin magic).
 
Googling for "P8Z68-V amd 290 issues" seems to have a lot of hits.

Here is one possible suggestion. This person had a 290x that they flashed the card to an OLDER bios revision and it seemed to play nice after that.

Motherboard compatibility problems with r9 290x - Guru3D.com Forums

I wonder if some of the newest cards don't want to play nice in PCI-E 2.0 slots, or maybe they did when they came out, and someone "tweaked" it for better performance on new systems, without bothering to check backward compatibility. The other thing that I can think of off hand is there is a passive cooler on the board for the south bridge / bridge chip that controls the lanes on the board. I'd imagine they finally revised that silly bridge chip but back in the day that chip consumed a ton of power and generated a ton of heat. If your card is maybe spewing out a lot of heat down onto that passive cooler, it might be running it too hot and causing issues on the bridge chip. I don't know if your GTX 275's had the plastic shroud and single fan cooler that blew air out the back of the case but from the looks of it that windforce is basically going to force 80C hot air right down onto that heatsink. Have you tried just doing the simple ghetto fix of a box fan against the side of the case? Just throwing out ideas of possible things to try WHEN it starts acting up again. (Because it definitely will in the current setup)
 
bman212121 said:
Googling for "P8Z68-V amd 290 issues" seems to have a lot of hits.

Here is one possible suggestion. This person had a 290x that they flashed the card to an OLDER bios revision and it seemed to play nice after that.

Motherboard compatibility problems with r9 290x - Guru3D.com Forums

I wonder if some of the newest cards don't want to play nice in PCI-E 2.0 slots, or maybe they did when they came out, and someone "tweaked" it for better performance on new systems, without bothering to check backward compatibility. The other thing that I can think of off hand is there is a passive cooler on the board for the south bridge / bridge chip that controls the lanes on the board. I'd imagine they finally revised that silly bridge chip but back in the day that chip consumed a ton of power and generated a ton of heat. If your card is maybe spewing out a lot of heat down onto that passive cooler, it might be running it too hot and causing issues on the bridge chip. I don't know if your GTX 275's had the plastic shroud and single fan cooler that blew air out the back of the case but from the looks of it that windforce is basically going to force 80C hot air right down onto that heatsink. Have you tried just doing the simple ghetto fix of a box fan against the side of the case? Just throwing out ideas of possible things to try WHEN it starts acting up again. (Because it definitely will in the current setup)
Click to expand...

I've always been conscious about proper PC usage and maintenance, I run diagnostics, benchmarks, temp monitoring. My CPU doesn't go past 65C even on load, the video cards do run hot but that's just the way 290/x run, around 80C+ on load. The case has 5 internal fans (4 case, 1 CPU heatsink) and all in the proper air flow configuration, two blowing cool air from bottom, 2 blowing hot air out of it from the top.
 
WildMonkey said:
I've always been conscious about proper PC usage and maintenance, I run diagnostics, benchmarks, temp monitoring. My CPU doesn't go past 65C even on load, the video cards do run hot but that's just the way 290/x run, around 80C+ on load. The case has 5 internal fans (4 case, 1 CPU heatsink) and all in the proper air flow configuration, two blowing cool air from bottom, 2 blowing hot air out of it from the top.
Click to expand...

Have you tried any of the cards in a different board? Is the BIOS up to date (unlikely you haven't tried this but hey)?
 
Are you trying fresh clean new installs at all? Im kinda guess not since you keep putting the backup nvidia cards in. You said something about running repair tools...i would at least try a clean install of 10....make an image backup before hand so you can easily go back to what you had if it doesn't help. Judging by the newegg reviews it looks like thats a model of card that has some kind of fucked up defect...(22) 1 star reviews..statistically thats pretty bad. I would try and see if they send you a new card or a slight upgrade to a 390.....maybe you can put pressure on them to do the right thing and you'll let everyone they came thru for ya....A link to this thread could help? If whoever is working your case gives a shit about PR

Im pretty sure you be sporting a 390 by now if it were an xfx card:)

edit: you can rename your thread with
GIGABYTE in the name just so google searches and what not might see this thread.
 
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I found the problem -- you bought a Gigabyte product.

They have honestly gone to shit the last 3-4 years.
 
LigTasm said:
Have you tried any of the cards in a different board? Is the BIOS up to date (unlikely you haven't tried this but hey)?
Click to expand...

The 275's actually used to belong to my brother so yeah, and they worked fine for him too. My mobo has the latest BIOS.
 
primetime said:
Are you trying fresh clean new installs at all? Im kinda guess not since you keep putting the backup nvidia cards in. You said something about running repair tools...i would at least try a clean install of 10....make an image backup before hand so you can easily go back to what you had if it doesn't help. Judging by the newegg reviews it looks like thats a model of card that has some kind of fucked up defect...(22) 1 star reviews..statistically thats pretty bad. I would try and see if they send you a new card or a slight upgrade to a 390.....maybe you can put pressure on them to do the right thing and you'll let everyone they came thru for ya....A link to this thread could help? If whoever is working your case gives a shit about PR

Im pretty sure you be sporting a 390 by now if it were an xfx card:)

edit: you can rename your thread with
GIGABYTE in the name just so google searches and what not might see this thread.
Click to expand...

After each card change I ran DDU in safemode to prepare for the change. I wouldn't have thought that I would need to reinstall my OS and everything on it just for a video card upgrade, in fact, I would rather dump it in the trash if that were the case.
 
WildMonkey said:
The 275's actually used to belong to my brother so yeah, and they worked fine for him too. My mobo has the latest BIOS.
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No I meant any of the 290's, sorry. Hell I've actually sold a 290 tri-X to a member on here who it did not work for, it turned out to be a compatibility with his motherboard and only ran in an x4 slot so I refunded him.
 
LigTasm said:
No I meant any of the 290's, sorry. Hell I've actually sold a 290 tri-X to a member on here who it did not work for, it turned out to be a compatibility with his motherboard and only ran in an x4 slot so I refunded him.
Click to expand...

The thing is the 290 ran well for many months until the first time I had to RMA it, then after that it just ran well for a couple of months.
 
LigTasm said:
No I meant any of the 290's, sorry. Hell I've actually sold a 290 tri-X to a member on here who it did not work for, it turned out to be a compatibility with his motherboard and only ran in an x4 slot so I refunded him.
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I have seen this issue with older mobo and 290s. Just happens I guess.
 
WildMonkey said:
After each card change I ran DDU in safemode to prepare for the change. I wouldn't have thought that I would need to reinstall my OS and everything on it just for a video card upgrade, in fact, I would rather dump it in the trash if that were the case.
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lol i really dont think a clean install would fix your particular issue anyway...i did it on mine just to make the xfx rep feel more comfortable that mine was 0% chance of being software related. Now if you had a weird software glitch that seemed like a software issue it be different. I figured their going to ask this and that and i wanted to be able to honestly tell that person i already ruled this and that out and its 0% chance of that. If you can find anyone at GIGABYTE that cares what a bunch of [H] potential customers think - it would really help your case. At this point try and suggest its in their best interest to send you a 390 series and they can stop wasting time and money sending cards back and forth and at the same time give themselves good PR.

See if you can get the technician who's working your case to take pictures of his screens at his desk of the card working fine..lol ya get the feeling know one is even testing the dam cards right?
 
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Had this exact same issue the other week, turned it out was the PCIe slot on my motherboard, Looks like I may have been rough with the card pulling it a little harder than I should have while the lock was still engaged from the pci-e slot. This was about a month or so ago, then the same exact problems/crashes took about 2 weeks to begin manifesting. Replaced motherboard and good to go.

Since the OP has 4 cards that work fine, chances are it's a bad card from Gigabyte. Other culprits could be PSU, SSD. Ruling those out I'd agree with the OP that it's the card.
 
silent-circuit said:
I found the problem -- you bought a Gigabyte product.

They have honestly gone to shit the last 3-4 years.
Click to expand...

Eh my Mobo has been fine... And I wouldn't have an issue buying a gfx card, however it would be nice to have something new to throw money at lol.
 
I'm never buying another Gigabyte product again, their RMA process has been horrible the last 2 times for me. Status said my card was repaired a month ago and they still hadn't sent it to me, contacted them to find out wtf is going on and they said 'sorry it's not really repaired, it's broken and we can't fix it, and also we don't have any 7970 replacements so you're going to have a r9 380 or nothing'. So not only did I have to go without my 7970 for 6 weeks, they replaced it with the equivalent of a 7950.
 
nightwalker said:
I'm never buying another Gigabyte product again, their RMA process has been horrible the last 2 times for me. Status said my card was repaired a month ago and they still hadn't sent it to me, contacted them to find out wtf is going on and they said 'sorry it's not really repaired, it's broken and we can't fix it, and also we don't have any 7970 replacements so you're going to have a r9 380 or nothing'. So not only did I have to go without my 7970 for 6 weeks, they replaced it with the equivalent of a 7950.
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...so you told them to go to hell and die in a fire, send me a 290X you degenerates? Right?

Your contract with them states equivalent or better. The 280X is worse. They're in breach of contract -- do not let them walk on it.
 
nightwalker said:
I'm never buying another Gigabyte product again, their RMA process has been horrible the last 2 times for me. Status said my card was repaired a month ago and they still hadn't sent it to me, contacted them to find out wtf is going on and they said 'sorry it's not really repaired, it's broken and we can't fix it, and also we don't have any 7970 replacements so you're going to have a r9 380 or nothing'. So not only did I have to go without my 7970 for 6 weeks, they replaced it with the equivalent of a 7950.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if they send me a downgrade the way things are going. And I had the same experience, they basically don't do anything until you call them.
 
silent-circuit said:
...so you told them to go to hell and die in a fire, send me a 290X you degenerates? Right?

Your contract with them states equivalent or better. The 280X is worse. They're in breach of contract -- do not let them walk on it.
Click to expand...

Usually I do take that path when people try to stiff me, but I just wanted it to be over with. Now I just buy XFX and I haven't had any problems, my one time I had to RMA with them was very painless.
 
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