• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

ASUS’ ROG Strix PSU Returning From RMA Was Discovered To Have Bypassed Internal Safety Fuse Instead Of Replacing Faulty Components

erek

erek

Fully [H]
2FA
Joined
Dec 19, 2005
Messages
17,675
1786969915791.jpeg

“Keep in mind that what ASUS’ technicians did was thoroughly inept, because the fuse is designed to prevent catastrophic failures to a PC while minimizing the chance of an electrical fire. The excessive current draw from the ASUS PSU never triggered an internal fuse break and instead found its way to the home’s circuit breaker, causing the trip and acting as the only deterrent against a potential fire hazard.

The Redditor has reached out to ASUS USA, but because he opened the casing, there’s little hope for a resolution through standard channels. Still, it’s possible that the company realizes its technicians were at fault and offers some compensation. After all, the owner is lucky his house and expensive possessions didn’t catch fire.

News Source: Reddit“

Source: https://wccftech.com/asus-rog-strix-psu-rma-bypassed-fuse-fire-hazard/
 
I love both of my 850 thor's, no matter what you buy from where ever. You will always have a bad tech or RMA experience at some point.
 
Haha, what else to expect from Asus? Not susprised. Worst possible tactic here, for sure.
I had RMA for motherboard once, they ghosted me, I was not able to return it. Will never buy ASUS again.
 
I don't understand all the hate for ASUS, I have used ASUS since the 90's and have never had to rma anything. I admit I never purchased any low or mid tier items, maybe that is why?
 
mullet said:
I don't understand all the hate for ASUS, I have used ASUS since the 90's and have never had to rma anything. I admit I never purchased any low or mid tier items, maybe that is why?
Click to expand...
Without trying to excuse Asus here, most big companies probably have sketchy crap going on from time to time. All I can say is that I haven't had the kind of bad experience others have reported, and suggest people take that anecdote for what it is. Ditto Gigabyte, another company people love to hate. I sent an RX 6800 in to Gigabyte for RMA & repair a few years ago, and also an Alder Lake motherboard that had a problem. Got the video card back and it's worked ever since. The mobo they replaced with a newer revision, fixing the hardware problem that was common to multiple boards across multiple brands.

I dunno. I'd never deny Asus sells lots of gaudy and overpriced gamer stuff, but I love my Snapdragon Zenbook.
 
mullet said:
I don't understand all the hate for ASUS, I have used ASUS since the 90's and have never had to rma anything. I admit I never purchased any low or mid tier items, maybe that is why?
Click to expand...
How can you not understand typical, greedy corporation behaviour? ASUS is not exception. You just didn't had a RMA to learn it first hand.
 
pioruns said:
How can you not understand typical, greedy corporation behaviour? ASUS is not exception. You just didn't had a RMA to learn it first hand.
Click to expand...
If you boycott every company that wronged someone, there's not much left to choose from.
 
Asus claims that they didn't do it "BUT" they're going to replace the redditor's PSU and want him to return the one in the post "for internal assessment and review". o_O
 
mullet said:
I don't understand all the hate for ASUS, I have used ASUS since the 90's and have never had to rma anything. I admit I never purchased any low or mid tier items, maybe that is why?
Click to expand...
You must be lucky because I have RMA'd stuff with Asus and it wasn't a good experience. This is why I avoid Asus products.
1_rick said:
If you boycott every company that wronged someone, there's not much left to choose from.
Click to expand...
That's the point of a boycott. What's left should be good quality.
 
I must be lucky because out of probably 50+ boards I have never RMA'ed a single one. I usually throw them out before they go bad.
To me the 2 most important componets to a pc is the motherboard and PSU. I never go cheap on those 2 items.
 
StryderxX said:
Asus claims that they didn't do it "BUT" they're going to replace the redditor's PSU and want him to return the one in the post "for internal assessment and review". o_O
Click to expand...

Deny, deny, deny until proven true. Sat least the Redditor is getting a replacement.
 
StryderxX said:
Asus claims that they didn't do it "BUT" they're going to replace the redditor's PSU and want him to return the one in the post "for internal assessment and review". o_O
Click to expand...
This is a sensible thing for a company to do in this case. Original owner is going to quiet down and he happy and everyone else will quickly forget the little fiasco.
 
1_rick said:
If you boycott every company that wronged someone, there's not much left to choose from.
Click to expand...
As DukenukemX said, it's enough just to boycott one. The rest will see that screwing their customers to that degree isn't profitable, and they will back off.
ASUS is a great candidate here. I am certainly done with buying their products, for good.
 
pioruns said:
How can you not understand typical, greedy corporation behaviour? ASUS is not exception. You just didn't had a RMA to learn it first hand.
Click to expand...
If I buy from a company and I havent had a problem, I dont care if they are greedy, mean and make evil faces and sacrifice a goat once a year on an alter.
 
So this person actually has no idea if it was that way at the beginning or not? They also updated with a reply from Asus saying that is the original design...
 
mullet said:
If I buy from a company and I havent had a problem, I dont care if they are greedy, mean and make evil faces and sacrifice a goat once a year on an alter.
Click to expand...
Thanks for admitting your selfishness. Next time a serial killer is in your area, don't forget to invite him in and make a cup of tea. He did nothing wrong to you, therefore he cannot do you any harm?! It's obvious. (For mentality of five year old, that is).
 
mullet said:
I don't understand all the hate for ASUS, I have used ASUS since the 90's and have never had to rma anything. I admit I never purchased any low or mid tier items, maybe that is why?
Click to expand...
The issue is that they tend to suck at RMAs. In general, their hardware is quite good. I actually own quite a bit of it personally and I've been lucky and as of yet not needed an RMA. They seem to have a generally low failure rate.

However when something DOES fail, they often seem to suck at the RMA process. We have had that problem at work a couple times, though to be fair the last time was years ago and maybe they've gotten better, where they were just pretty trash at even getting them to do an RMA. That's where a lot of the hate comes from.

D-EJ915 said:
So this person actually has no idea if it was that way at the beginning or not? They also updated with a reply from Asus saying that is the original design...
Click to expand...
However there's also that: People online having no fucking idea what they are talking about and making everything a conspiracy. Now no idea what the truth is here but for others wondering: It is 100% normal to see a circuit board in a product with slots for components that are unfilled, wires jumpering one thing to another, etc. What happens is that you get one circuit board designed for multiple devices, or that final testing revealed a change needed to be made, or things were unnecessary.

Also a fuse is CHEAP. I find it hard to believe they would elect to replace it with a jumper if it were necessary for safety. That is how you start a fire and get sued. More likely the fuse was not needed, so the jumper is standard.
 
Is there public access available to diagrams, for someone with electrical engineering knowledge to review what goes where? Y'know, to put it to rest?

I agree what System said, it could be something totally normal while internet is raging like the stormy seas.

I actually find the coil pack in the left center wrapped in dielectric tape more questionable than that highlighted connection on the right side. Does it appear intended from factory?
 
are closed said:
Is there public access available to diagrams, for someone with electrical engineering knowledge to review what goes where? Y'know, to put it to rest?
Click to expand...
Likely not, very rare companies release a circuit spec these days. You only really see it in niche or some very high end stuff and often even then not. Part of it is just that things are much harder to repair, what with the increased use of ICs and SMD devices, part of it is repairs are less popular because replacements are cheap, part of it is they want to discourage repair.

are closed said:
I actually find the coil pack in the left center wrapped in dielectric tape more questionable than that highlighted connection on the right side. Does it appear intended from factory?
Click to expand...
Could be, here's a picture from a professional review of my PSU:

main_transformers-1.jpg


The two things to notice are:
  1. An unpopulated component spot (in this case because the board is shared between 1300w and 1600w models) and
  2. Dielectric tape around the main transformers
This is a teardown and review of a "out of the box" part so that is presumably how all new units of that kind ship. I'm not going to rip mine apart to see if it is the same, but I'd assume so.


Either way: Like all Internet rage take it with a grain of salt. Not saying he can't be right, but he could also be stupid and/or lying.

Another trend I've seen like that flying around is "OMG grocery stores are deliberately shorting you on the amount of meat you get!" Some Youtuber goes around and measures stuff, find discrepancies and gets all worked up about it and has lots of people worked up about it. Gets him TONS of views. If anyone suggests that maybe he might have a financial motive to be less than truthful with this they get told "well do it yourself!" I have, and in my testing the stated weight has been accurate to the limits of my scale. Tell them that and they'll call you a "paid corpo shill" or the like.

Point is just take rage about companies with a grain of salt. They DO fuck people over, but probably not as much as people online would like to pretend.


In this case I find it far more likely that there never was a fuse there, just a spot for one that they decided they didn't need, than that they chose to remove it and jumper it. Not only are fuses cheap but the reason you find them at all in PSUs is not to protect the PSU from things like overcurrent on the line or whatnot, they have other better protection for that, it is to prevent a fire in the event of a catastrophic failure. That is the kind of thing a company would very much not want to cheap out on for a repair. I mean let's even suppose it was a pretty large fuse, like 10a for the main line: That's less than $1/each ordered in quantity. Some of them are less than $0.25/each. Even cheaper if smaller. They are going to leave that out, but spend the tech time soldering in a jumper (which also requires desoldering the fuse holder) and risk causing a fire that they could get sued over? Not buying it, I feel like if they are being stingy on that level, they just deny the RMA for whatever reason, or return it unfixed and claim it is fixed. I'm just not seeing them spend the multiple dollars of tech time to do such a thing, to save less than a buck that could result in a huge lawsuit.
 
are closed said:
Is there public access available to diagrams, for someone with electrical engineering knowledge to review what goes where? Y'know, to put it to rest?
Click to expand...
The silkscreen indicates F101, 250V. F is typically used to indicate a fuse, and 250V would be a reasonable voltage rating for a mains fuse. That doesn't necessarily mean it definitely was supposed to be a fuse, or that there isn't another fuse doing the same job elsewhere. But I think it's reasonable to assume that a fuse was meant to go there at some point, in this case.
 
I would love to say this is an uncommon thing.

They likely replaced the fuse, then blew it on the subsequent test. Having already wasted one (and not wanting to be on the hook for more), they replaced it with a wire so they could track down the cause of the short that blew the fuse. They then found and fixed that issue but forgot to remove the wire and replace it with the proper fuse.

At least I hope they forgot....

Because the alternative in my scenario is that the person at the repair table who blew up the first replacement fuse was held financially responsible for any parts their bosses decided they damaged in the process of implementing their fix, because that is some serious sweatshop shit that I hope ASUS isn't taking part in.
 
It is REALLY sad what's happened to Asus. For literal decades if someone needed a recommendation and I didn't have time to research I just pushed them to Asus. Ever since the china virus I never recommend Asus by default any more. To many issues across the board.
 
OFaceSIG said:
It is REALLY sad what's happened to Asus. For literal decades if someone needed a recommendation and I didn't have time to research I just pushed them to Asus. Ever since the china virus I never recommend Asus by default any more. To many issues across the board.
Click to expand...
Yeah. And about a year ago I replaced a blown-out ASUS motherboard whit a better one (for the same price) from MSI. Bye, bye ASUS. Over the years I tolerated their lousy RMA process because I thought they built the best boards.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top