Asus RMA- what on earth

:eek: amazing idea!

Actually.. this is a horrible idea for LGA socket pins.

Why, you ask. Because the pins are just straight pins. They have multiple bends in them. You stock a tube over them and you are likely to mess up those bends.

That pin in the picture is just skewed off in the one direction.

All you need is a pin or needle and then push it gently back where it should be.

That being said.. ASUS is an absolutely horrible company when it comes to customer service. Basically if you buy their products, you may get a high quality product, but you essentially have a product with no warranty that you might as well just throw in the trash if it breaks because of all the runaround you will get if you even try to get them to honor their warranty.
 
Actually.. this is a horrible idea for LGA socket pins.

Why, you ask. Because the pins are just straight pins. They have multiple bends in them. You stock a tube over them and you are likely to mess up those bends.
use just the tip, no full penetration.
the hole in the pencil lets it got over the tip of the pin and you can manipulate it back into place. a pin would also get this one straight.
 
TIL that a bent pin can be fixed with a Bios Update. I wonder if this applies to the 2000000000000 folks whose RMAs were denied due to user damage/bent pins?
 
Fair, I upgrade alot less frequently now that I have kids, and as they get older they'll get the hand me downs so having the long warranty wouldn't be un-ideal.
I do agree the bios are pretty meh especially on the older boards, but its been functional enough it hasn't been a problem for the basic OC'ing I do.
Its a one and done for me, so on the flip side I only have to deal with it being crappy a little bit, the new Z390 bios I found to be extremely robust and easy to use though.

I finally upgraded earlier this year and sold my EVGA P67-SLI last month, still has a 2 years of warranty left :D

Damn 2 years of OG warranty. Only thing EVGA offers with a huge warranty is PSUs. Wonder what they`d do on a warranty RMA for that board? Would they still have inventory to cross ship?
 
Damn 2 years of OG warranty. Only thing EVGA offers with a huge warranty is PSUs. Wonder what they`d do on a warranty RMA for that board? Would they still have inventory to cross ship?
Ya know I'm not sure, at that age they'd likely just give me some credit on their site towards a new board, or they may keep stock of some of the high end ftw/classified boards (or the Z77).

Thats what tends to happen with the GPUs, my brother-in-law sent in a dead 980ti and got a 1070ti back.
 
The problem here is that Asus boards tend to have a significantly better bios that is regularly updated even years after the board is relevant (Sabertooth 990FX for example). EVGA bioses are terrible.

This is only a problem if you are buying someone other than ASUS and you tend to keep boards more than say 2 years. Me, I always "overbuy" a bit and keep a board for at least 5 years, then "demote" it to some secondary system. As much as I like having a "hot" system, I don't truly enjoy the process of selecting components, etc. So for me, up to now it's always been ASUS for motherboards. Only big issue now is if I go to AMD for my next build, becuase their new CPUs support PCI-E 4.0 and Intel does not.

It used to be Corsair for RAM, but I've had too many problems. RMA there is great, but since I've switched to G. Skill, I have had zero problems.

I'm still a Corsair fanboy for power supplies, but those last almost forever.

Sorry if I've been rambling here.
 
Sometimes putting the pin protector back on the socket can cause that. I think they are mostly to prevent damage in the factory before the board gets boxed up.
 
Sometimes putting the pin protector back on the socket can cause that. I think they are mostly to prevent damage in the factory before the board gets boxed up.
Not unless you put it on wrong, you're supposed to install it with the metal clasp open, not while its closed to prevent damaging the pins while installing the protector.

imgDownload?uuid=3247f1dd13a04517bd60492eb387dc57.png
 
Also works well on bent CPU pins on AMD CPU's (and older Intel ones I suppose if you still have any).
Sounds good, but exactly how do you identify bent pins. I've tried and so far I haven't been successful. (Is it my aging eyes, even with a magnifying glass?) And how do you know the right amount to bend such pins back into alignment?

x509
 
Sounds good, but exactly how do you identify bent pins. I've tried and so far I haven't been successful. (Is it my aging eyes, even with a magnifying glass?) And how do you know the right amount to bend such pins back into alignment?

x509

Intel or AMD? Pretty much all you are looking for is something that is not uniform to the rest of the socket or CPU. Not every socket is going to be mangled, and some of the time it is just a little off compared to all the rest of the pins. With AMD, it's a little easier because of something is really bent, it won't physically fit into the socket.
 
That’s good to know. I’ve been doing it wrong. Hope I didn’t fuck up this new board.
I can say I was doing it wrong for many years also, I was lucky enough not to mess up any.
I finally bought a fancy board when doing a build for a friend a couple of years ago showing a similar picture and it finally clicked.
 
I can say I was doing it wrong for many years also, I was lucky enough not to mess up any.
I finally bought a fancy board when doing a build for a friend a couple of years ago showing a similar picture and it finally clicked.

I definitely fucked up an 1150 board a while back by doing it with the clasp closed. I tried numerous times to fix it. Pins look good to me now, but it still hasn't booted since.
 
Intel or AMD? Pretty much all you are looking for is something that is not uniform to the rest of the socket or CPU. Not every socket is going to be mangled, and some of the time it is just a little off compared to all the rest of the pins. With AMD, it's a little easier because of something is really bent, it won't physically fit into the socket.
Last time I used AMD was Athlon 2000, where I did the pencil trick to make the CPUs work in a 2 processor board. Unless you are building a honking big workstation I guess you don't need 2 processors on your motherboard these days.
 
Last time I used AMD was Athlon 2000, where I did the pencil trick to make the CPUs work in a 2 processor board. Unless you are building a honking big workstation I guess you don't need 2 processors on your motherboard these days.

back when CPUs were single core, it made a lot of sense. Now that you can get 32 core consumer CPUs.... there just isn't demand for dual CPU boards outside of servers or computing farms. I had dual opteron 275s back in the day, which I thought was hot shit, but pretty sure a single q6600 was faster.
 
The problem here is that Asus boards tend to have a significantly better bios that is regularly updated even years after the board is relevant (Sabertooth 990FX for example). EVGA bioses are terrible.
Asus ROG Rampage VI Extreme(Their highest tier motherboard)

Version 1704 2019/02/21
Version 1503 2018/09/07
Version 1401 2018/06/15
Version 1301 2018/03/20
Version 1201 2018/03/20
Version 1102 2018/01/17
Version 1004 2017/12/10
Version 1002 Beta Version 2017/11/09
Version 0802 2017/09/15
Version 0601 2017/08/04

EVGA X299 Dark

5-31-2019 BIOS 1.18
3-08-2019 BIOS 1.17
12-07-2018 BIOS 1.14
10-26-2018 BIOS 1.12
9-04-2018 BIOS 1.09
7-13-2018 BIOS 1.08
3-21-2018 BIOS 1.07
3-21-2018 BIOS 1.07
1-12-2018 BIOS 1.06
1-05-2018 BIOS 1.05
12-18-2017 BIOS 1.04


I dont think that is the case anymore. EVGA rebuilt their bios from the ground up. Gigabytes bios are probably the worst now.
 
Yeah they have horrible RMA...my Strix I had bent a pin and they had just sent it back the same two weeks later still boot looping and like the memory not being installed lol.
Maybe they gave up too. Still got my EVGA FTWZ270 though...it's fine of course.
 
Intel or AMD? Pretty much all you are looking for is something that is not uniform to the rest of the socket or CPU. Not every socket is going to be mangled, and some of the time it is just a little off compared to all the rest of the pins. With AMD, it's a little easier because of something is really bent, it won't physically fit into the socket.
OK. So about six months ago I went through this agony with trying to do an RMA on a new ASUS board for my friend's build. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that it wouldn't boot right, and the issue was bent pins. This was an 1150 or 1151 socket, I can't remember which.

I tried to find the bent pins so that I could fix them but damme, there are just these rows and rows and rows of pins. How do you spot the one or two bent pins. Maybe it's my aging eyes and everyone else has no problem with this. :unsure: (I am past 40 and then some.) I used a big magnifying glass. Are there any other tools or techniques that could help to find these problem pins?

x509
 
OK. So about six months ago I went through this agony with trying to do an RMA on a new ASUS board for my friend's build. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that it wouldn't boot right, and the issue was bent pins. This was an 1150 or 1151 socket, I can't remember which.

I tried to find the bent pins so that I could fix them but damme, there are just these rows and rows and rows of pins. How do you spot the one or two bent pins. Maybe it's my aging eyes and everyone else has no problem with this. :unsure: (I am past 40 and then some.) I used a big magnifying glass. Are there any other tools or techniques that could help to find these problem pins?

x509

You have to look at the pins from an angle so you can see the rows. It is very easy to spot the mis-aligned pins that way.

One of those desk mounted magnifying glasses with the lamp built it works great for this type of thing.
 
Agreed, my current mobo will be the last asus product i ever own.

We ordered 5 290x's bnib for work use, and they disappeared into Asus RMA system. 2 years later I'm going thru inventory and chase them down bc the last guy gave up.

They sent back 2, still artifacting and thermally shutting down.

I was working for a AAA title video game publisher at the time. I was on the E3, PAX, and Comicon circuit. If I was at Computex I would read them the riot act.
 
This is sad. My one encounter with ASUS RMA was pretty good. Returned a board that would only boot 20% of the time and got back a new one. Of course it took 6 weeks, and I think I had to pay shipping, but still.

Also, MSI is the uncontested champion of the shitty BIOS. I really wish manufacturers would include a text-only UEFI option. MSI's GUI is horrible.
 
MSI isn’t bad once you turn on “expert mode” or “pro mode” which is basically a text only mode.
 
I got the Crosshair IV Formula with heatsink terribly attached and wondered the 100C temps, found out that like half of the boards were like that. I just took my PC and the heatsink apart, applied new paste and fastened it properly, and promised myself to never touch Asus premium boards again.
 
I got the Crosshair IV Formula with heatsink terribly attached and wondered the 100C temps, found out that like half of the boards were like that. I just took my PC and the heatsink apart, applied new paste and fastened it properly, and promised myself to never touch Asus premium boards again.
Sounds like a poor manufacturing process. However, if you could fix it easily enough, then is this problem sufficient to avoid ASUS completely in the future?
 
Sounds like a poor manufacturing process. However, if you could fix it easily enough, then is this problem sufficient to avoid ASUS completely in the future?

Given Asus typically has a price premium, I don't see the point in getting them knowing how poor their warranty service is.
 
I've had multiple cases open with Asus RMA about 4 years ago and never had such weird answers. Meh, support went wrong direction. I would agree that contacting their social channels should help you getting a RMA request fulfilled.
 
I've had multiple cases open with Asus RMA about 4 years ago and never had such weird answers. Meh, support went wrong direction. I would agree that contacting their social channels should help you getting a RMA request fulfilled.
I have contacted ASUS only by email/phone, and I have no idea how to contact ASUS support through social channels. It may sound weird these days, but I am still a Facebook and Twitter newbie.
 
Ive had great luck with Asus RMA over the years.. But i guess i was lucky... I agree with the toothpik to bend back, Wood or plastic only... Using metal can cause damage , But wood or plastic shouldnt hurt anything if you hit the board, Good Luck!
 
There used to be an ASUS Rep on this forum. (Handle was Raja I think)
He could be a bit upp-idy but every once in a while he actually was helpful.

I got into it with him over a GPU RMA that was clearly an ASUS issue, finally after about 2 weeks of abuse on here the company saw it and corrected it.

MB RMA can be a real crap-shoot with ASUS and their usual comeback is a bent pin or a customer abuse issue.
You really need someone at ASUS to talk to and be your advocate.
 
RoG B450i rma went smooth under two weeks.
One benefit of Zen is no pins to bend ;)
 
I'm not sure if MSI or Gigabyte offer quick swaps when RMA meaning they ship your replacement while your shipping your RMA'd part. I haven't had to RMA an ASUS part for about 5 years or so but when i did they offered this cross shipment service and it went pretty smoothly. It took about 3-5 business days turn around time. Those pins are extremely easy to bend. Another reason to buy AMD.
 
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