Anyone RMA'd a card recently?

M

McClintoc

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Sep 27, 2005
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Last time I RMA'd a card was back in 2019 before all the bullshit we are dealing with these days.

Long story short - I was playing some BF2042 when my gaming rig crashed/shut off. It would turn back on but no video output to the monitor. I put my spare RX 590 in it and video output came back so I'm thinking my 5700XT died.

It's a Sapphire (2 year warranty) just barely over a year old. I got an RMA number from Sapphire and just put it in the mail yesterday. Between the chip shortage, the low video card inventories and high video card prices, what can I expect with an RMA in regards to repair versus replace and turn-around time?
 
Just did a PowerColor RMA for a RX 6600, one of the fans was rattling extremely loudly. Opened the RMA claim on 12/1, had to follow up myself on 12/3 after not hearing anything, they apologized for the delay stating their system was "laggy." Their RMA center was literally down the street from me, but they wouldn't let me drop it off in-person... so I shipped out my card on 12/9, and got my replacement on 12/16. Didn't even bother to ship it back in a model matching box, just a generic oversized box. Overall mediocre experience from PowerColor.
 
SPARTAN VI said:
Just did a PowerColor RMA for a RX 6600, one of the fans was rattling extremely loudly. Opened the RMA claim on 12/1, had to follow up myself on 12/3 after not hearing anything, they apologized for the delay stating their system was "laggy." Their RMA center was literally down the street from me, but they wouldn't let me drop it off in-person... so I shipped out my card on 12/9, and got my replacement on 12/16. Didn't even bother to ship it back in a model matching box, just a generic oversized box. Overall mediocre experience from PowerColor.
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That's still pretty promising considering it's the holidays time of year. I know mine will be working around the new years holiday but hopefully it won't take more than a couple weeks. I am having to ship mine from TX to CA. I used USPS Priority with tracking and insurance so since I put it in the mail yesterday (Wednesday), it might arrive there tomorrow (Friday). Then again, since actual new years day is Saturday, that may not cause much of a holiday delay.

It did take Sapphire a couple days to respond to my initial email but that response was to give me the offical RMA request form and once I got the request form emailed back to them, they issued an RMA number and shipping instructions the next day.
 
I did EVGA in December. Got a card from Taiwan in 2 days. Given flight times I thought that was crazy.
 
I was able to put my card in the mail the Wednesday before New Years day. It arrived to the facility in California this past Tuesday. On Thursday I got a tracking email saying "a replacement is on its way" but it doesn't say if it's a new card or a refurb. Tracking says it will be here Tuesday the 11th.
 
A nice surprise- my card arrived today. It's a refurb. No big deal - I got it back into the computer and everything works. Once I put it in the mail, it was only a week and a half turn-around time. Not too bad at all.
 
SPARTAN VI said:
Just did a PowerColor RMA for a RX 6600, one of the fans was rattling extremely loudly. Opened the RMA claim on 12/1, had to follow up myself on 12/3 after not hearing anything, they apologized for the delay stating their system was "laggy." Their RMA center was literally down the street from me, but they wouldn't let me drop it off in-person... so I shipped out my card on 12/9, and got my replacement on 12/16. Didn't even bother to ship it back in a model matching box, just a generic oversized box. Overall mediocre experience from PowerColor.
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A week is pretty damn good for something other than a cross ship type of service. As for the packaging, that's normal. You'd have had that from just about anyone.
 
I did an RMA with Asrock in the summer and it took 10 business days or so to get a card (I think new with shrink wrapped but in a generic brown box). Question for you guys- did your Rma require you to provide the invoice?
 
McClintoc said:
A nice surprise- my card arrived today. It's a refurb. No big deal - I got it back into the computer and everything works. Once I put it in the mail, it was only a week and a half turn-around time. Not too bad at all.
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You're lucky. I RMA'd my Sapphire card 3 times and never did get a working card back when I sent mine out for bad fans a few years ago. I refuse to buy Sapphire after that.
 
LFaWolf said:
I did an RMA with Asrock in the summer and it took 10 business days or so to get a card (I think new with shrink wrapped but in a generic brown box). Question for you guys- did your Rma require you to provide the invoice?
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amd reference was the one of the biggest pains to try and rma. (I ended up not needing to rma).


They take an entire day (or two) to respond and request you use beta drivers and beta bios (which didn't happen till the 3rd response). Note, this was more annoying than anything else.


Short story*


I used our paypal account to buy it, which is under my wife's email address.

I made the ticket under my email address with the appropriate information for the service ticket. Even though my address and last name are the same as my wife's they required me to remake the rma under her email address.

edit

Even with the invoice they did not take it.
 
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LFaWolf said:
I did an RMA with Asrock in the summer and it took 10 business days or so to get a card (I think new with shrink wrapped but in a generic brown box). Question for you guys- did your Rma require you to provide the invoice?
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I have been a EVGA owner for a long time and always register my products shortly after purchase. Even if it's second hand. A hand written receipt has worked before on a second hand purchase. My suggestion on a purchase is to get it registered when you buy it. That way you don't have to go ahead and prove when you bought it. I did a recent RMA with EBGA on a 2070 that would not go into boost clocks after a waterblock install. It was a EVGA waterblock and the correct one for the card. Put a support ticket in and got a reply back next day to send it back. Sent it in priority to them and within 6 days back to me. They even sent back a 2070 super to replace it with. Something to think about is buy from a company that has a great rma system.
 
Ducrider748 said:
I have been a EVGA owner for a long time and always register my products shortly after purchase. Even if it's second hand. A hand written receipt has worked before on a second hand purchase. My suggestion on a purchase is to get it registered when you buy it. That way you don't have to go ahead and prove when you bought it. I did a recent RMA with EBGA on a 2070 that would not go into boost clocks after a waterblock install. It was a EVGA waterblock and the correct one for the card. Put a support ticket in and got a reply back next day to send it back. Sent it in priority to them and within 6 days back to me. They even sent back a 2070 super to replace it with. Something to think about is buy from a company that has a great rma system.
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95% of my cards are evga but occasionally I snapped up a used card from forums, so I wonder if the Rma in this thread needed to provide the invoice. Asrock required my invoice.
 
LFaWolf said:
95% of my cards are evga but occasionally I snapped up a used card from forums, so I wonder if the Rma in this thread needed to provide the invoice. Asrock required my invoice.
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Honestly I don't buy from Sapphire or any other Off brand. Don't take that comment that they are sub quality. I tend to buy even used from the bigger names that have a good rma system. Just in case. I do own a ASrock mobo that's in my daughters rig. It's a older z390 so I'm sure it's out of warranty.

To answer the question. I would guess the owner had to show proof of buying it on a certain date to be covered under the two year warranty.
 
LFaWolf said:
I did an RMA with Asrock in the summer and it took 10 business days or so to get a card (I think new with shrink wrapped but in a generic brown box). Question for you guys- did your Rma require you to provide the invoice?
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Yes, a copy of the invoice was required to get an RMA number from Sapphire.
 
kirbyrj said:
You're lucky. I RMA'd my Sapphire card 3 times and never did get a working card back when I sent mine out for bad fans a few years ago. I refuse to buy Sapphire after that.
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Very odd. Sapphire is my preferred brand. Along with this 5700 XT, a couple years ago I RMA'd a Radeon VII through them and got a working card back.
 
FrgMstr said:
One week turnaround on an RMA is mediocre? Mad you did not get a handy?
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Dan_D said:
A week is pretty damn good for something other than a cross ship type of service. As for the packaging, that's normal. You'd have had that from just about anyone.
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That's not the point, I'm completely fine with the 1 week turn-around time. It was a mediocre experience because (1) they left me hanging for several days after my initial contact blowing past their 2 day SLA, so I had to contact them a 2nd time to get the ball rolling on the RMA and (2) the generic box they used to ship back my card was oversized, nearly twice the size of the GPU. So it was basically bouncing around in there without appropriate padding. If it was only a 1 week turn-around and neither of the above issues, then they would have aced it.

Looking back at the RMA email thread (I was operating from memory before) I found that I actually opened the RMA claim on 11/28. Their RMA confirmation email states to "allow up to 2 business days," then if you don't hear back, it's on the customer to follow up. On 12/3, the 5th business day, I fired off an email and they approved my RMA shortly thereafter. It's obviously not cool to leave your customer hanging and put the onus on the customer to follow up on an outstanding service ticket. I've been in the service industry for my entire adult career and there's always emphasis on "one touch" and being proactive. I had to contact them twice and they weren't proactive.

My feedback to PowerColor would be to be proactive; don't allow customer service tickets fall into the cracks. They clearly have a 2 day SLA (service level agreement) for RMA confirmation, so they should implement some monitoring/alarming in place to catch tickets that have their SLA "on approach" (as we say in the service industry). I'd also suggest they use the appropriate box for the GPU that was RMA'd. I got back a padded box but for a GPU that was nearly twice its size; expensive/fragile hardware should just not be allowed to bounce around in their shipment box.

Also yes, a handy would have been nice.

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My EVGA 3080 FTW3 somehow died when I was installing the Hybrid kit back in March. I was really bummed since I was thinking it would take weeks or months to get a replacement since there was the shortage.
Did an Advance RMA with EVGA and got the replacement card in less than 10 days.
I was glad that I hadn't sold my 1080Ti FTW3 yet since I had no other usable gaming card on hand.
 
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