HIS voided r9 290 warranty - Options?

Thanks for the posts everyone. I did not take any pictures prior to sending it out. I can honestly say I have never had any issues with RMA'ing anything like this before. I'll take blame for the lack of prior documentation on my side.

I agree that it does NOT appear to be physical damage. At least not to me. I have blown the picture up and cannot find any signs of scratches, knicks or anything else around the "damaged" piece that would indicate abuse. Nor can I fathom how it would be possible to be damaged while inside of a sitting still, running machine.

I have e-mailed Lexy Pacific and opened a 3rd ticket with HIS to try and get more answers. Both parties are stagnant and silent; I have not heard a single thing since the last time I posted that they responded to me.

At this point, the RMA process was started on February 17th. I have not heard anything from either party since 3/25 and that was from Lexy Pacific stating, and I quote, "The last we heard was that they were going to re-examine the damage on the video card." They told me the same thing on 3/17. Keep in mind, Lexy Pacific did not get the card until 3/10 (I mailed it out 2/17).

Thankfully, I was able to get rid of my other HIS 290. I certainly will never deal with this company again.
 
Small claims court time. Couple of weeks of no response, not even sending the card back... Take them to court and when they are no shows you win. Might take a long time to get your money back but at least it is something.
 
Fuckers. Companies like them ruin it for everybody. I agree, you should take them to court if simply out of principle.
 
Yeah, time to get aggressive. For the record, I usually buy eVGA or Gigabyte. I've had to RMA through both and they've always been fantastic.
 
Thank you for sharing this story and I'm sorry for all the hassle you've been through.

I've never bought any HIS product yet but this story has made me to NEVER PURCHASE HIS product from now on. Companies need to understand that customer service is critical... Heck, you can win a loyal customer for years to come if you have successfully solved the problem. They need to view these issue as an opportunity to get loyal followings.
 
Cruros said:
Thanks for the posts everyone. I did not take any pictures prior to sending it out. I can honestly say I have never had any issues with RMA'ing anything like this before. I'll take blame for the lack of prior documentation on my side.

I agree that it does NOT appear to be physical damage. At least not to me. I have blown the picture up and cannot find any signs of scratches, knicks or anything else around the "damaged" piece that would indicate abuse. Nor can I fathom how it would be possible to be damaged while inside of a sitting still, running machine.

I have e-mailed Lexy Pacific and opened a 3rd ticket with HIS to try and get more answers. Both parties are stagnant and silent; I have not heard a single thing since the last time I posted that they responded to me.

At this point, the RMA process was started on February 17th. I have not heard anything from either party since 3/25 and that was from Lexy Pacific stating, and I quote, "The last we heard was that they were going to re-examine the damage on the video card." They told me the same thing on 3/17. Keep in mind, Lexy Pacific did not get the card until 3/10 (I mailed it out 2/17).

Thankfully, I was able to get rid of my other HIS 290. I certainly will never deal with this company again.
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Other than getting all over you about taking pictures, you are truly getting screwed by HIS.
First comes ASUS and their bullshit about "customer-induced-damage" and now this.

That just isn't damage. It's a defect in the card circuit board that is not your fault at all.

It sickens me that we buy these high end products and then have no recourse when they break, except to call the company out on a forum.

Man, I feel for you. Good luck with this.:D
 
TraptPatriot said:
Small claims court time. Couple of weeks of no response, not even sending the card back... Take them to court and when they are no shows you win. Might take a long time to get your money back but at least it is something.
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Here's the problem. HIS appears to have abandoned their US assets. Their last known US address is at the Miami airport with 30 other companies sharing the same address. Their listed mailing on their website is Hong Kong based.

They have no corporate/LLC filings for Hightech Information Systems, HIS, nor HIS Digital under Florida, Delaware, or California. So unless they're in another state, or under a holding company, they let them lapse.

They no longer hold the trademarks for HIS and dropped the registered mark from the logo back in 2009ish.

Who is he going to sue? And even a default judgment means jack if he can't properly lean their stuff to collect.

http://www.zoominfo.com/s/#!search/profile/company?companyId=44615616&targetid=profile

http://www.bizapedia.com/addresses/5201-BLUE-LAGOON-DR-PH-MIAMI-FL-33126.html

http://sunbiz.org/scripts/ficidet.exe?action=DETREG&docnum=G03227900007&rdocnum=G02308900082

Best bet at this point is to post a negative review at every retailer you can. Post negative marks to their Twitter and Facebook pages. Try and smoke'em out. At the very least, they need to give the card back.

Never buy from a company that doesn't have offices in the country.
 
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Spidey329 said:
Here's the problem. HIS appears to have abandoned their US assets. Their last known US address is at the Miami airport with 30 other companies sharing the same address. Their listed mailing on their website is Hong Kong based.

They have no corporate/LLC filings for Hightech Information Systems, HIS, nor HIS Digital under Florida, Delaware, or California. So unless they're in another state, or under a holding company, they let them lapse.

They no longer hold the trademarks for HIS and dropped the registered mark from the logo back in 2009ish.

Who is he going to sue? And even a default judgment means jack if he can't properly lean their stuff to collect.

http://www.zoominfo.com/s/#!search/profile/company?companyId=44615616&targetid=profile

http://www.bizapedia.com/addresses/5201-BLUE-LAGOON-DR-PH-MIAMI-FL-33126.html

http://sunbiz.org/scripts/ficidet.exe?action=DETREG&docnum=G03227900007&rdocnum=G02308900082

Best bet at this point is to post a negative review at every retailer you can. Post negative marks to their Twitter and Facebook pages. Try and smoke'em out. At the very least, they need to give the card back.

Never buy from a company that doesn't have offices in the country.
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Hes got a point, not sure how easy international court is to deal with and it may not even be worth the money...
 
Yea very good point, did not know that about them. Like you said, never buy something like this unless they have US offices. Only things I buy from overseas are cheap cables and other cheap items, nothing I would ever worry about returning.
 
I've had to RMA a HIS 7870 IceQ. I had to ship it to some company in CA who didn't have any in stock so they had to ship it to CHINA for repair... last HIS I ever purchased.
 
I got an actual answer back today. I'm going to copy and paste our conversation so it is evident what is going on here. This is clearly a blatant attempt to not handle a real faulty issue by trying to push it onto AMD. Last I knew, AMD did not do RMA's for manufacturers. It was up to the man. to handle them. Let me know what you all think. I may have actually gotten to them by being a smart a$$ this time. They also attatched the same picture I posted before, nothing new;

"Dear Eric,

You're heard and the picture proofs of your R9 290 were shown below.

The first picture showed that a surface-mount component peeled off near to the golden-fingers. The damage may be caused by a severe impact to the components when installing into the computer or improper handling. As you may know, your R9 290 board was a MBA board and AMD would reject our RMA claim due to so-called " Customer Induced Damage", according to our past experience.

As a result, we have to reject your RMA claim due to the above reason.

BUT, as you may like, we would try to submit your R9 290 card for AMD to examine and wait for their judgement. "


I replied,
"Perhaps my blowing up of the picture is losing some sort of the damage claim, but it appears to be scorch marks by the area the arrow is pointing to. As previously stated, the card was installed into a machine where it, nor the machine, has moved in months while working fine. It would not be feasible to me that the scorch marks could possibly have appeared while the card was not under electrical load. Meaning that it went bad in the machine, not due to damage but due to the faulty area indicated by the arrow. If my only recourse is to see what AMD will say, then so be it.

I have posted a thread on hardforum.com about this rma process and the negative dealings with it. At this point, a repair or replacement would be the only way to save the other users from avoiding HIS products.

Thanks for the update. Let me know what AMD says.

Eric "

The fastest response time I have gotten. Literally 15 minutes later the same guy replied,
"Dear Eric,

I'm really sorry for what you've encountered and let me check internally what we can specially do for you.
Best Regards,
Tommy Lam".

Perhaps this will help? No idea at this point. I have made my point beyond clear to every person I have dealt with at Lexy Pacific and HIS (first HIS employee I have directly communicated with).
 
I find it funny how some manufacturers think that using third parties to process their RMAs and then having their customers screwed over by them (or screwing them over themselves) somehow saves them money. They're probably chuckling, patting themselves on the back for "saving" the cost of a replacement card. Unfortunately, the currency of a company's reputation is the hardest-won of all, and to see this currency frittered away so willingly and readily by some companies makes me really question their sanity.

I've had good luck with EVGA, and when I had to have a card exchanged once, there was some resistance because I hadn't registered it in the specified amount of time (I had the proof of purchase, however) but otherwise the RMA proceeded well and without any delay or other issue.
 
A SURPRISE TURNAROUND HAS APPEARED.

Seeing as I can be irrational at times, I would post this everywhere, provide them links of all the threads, and then tell them to take that replacement card and go f*ck themselves with it sideways.

*sigh* Anyway, I hope this turns things around and you get a replacement from these dirty bastards.
 
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I agree with sonsonate on this one, post up all your talks and responses where they sell there cards so people can see what they are getting for customer service when a company doesn't want to honor a warranty.

Never bought a HIS product, and certainly never will now.
 
I got an e-mail early last week that stated they are having AMD come to their location to investigate the case and will let me know some time "next" week. We shall see
 
lutjens said:
I find it funny how some manufacturers think that using third parties to process their RMAs and then having their customers screwed over by them (or screwing them over themselves) somehow saves them money. They're probably chuckling, patting themselves on the back for "saving" the cost of a replacement card. Unfortunately, the currency of a company's reputation is the hardest-won of all, and to see this currency frittered away so willingly and readily by some companies makes me really question their sanity.

I've had good luck with EVGA, and when I had to have a card exchanged once, there was some resistance because I hadn't registered it in the specified amount of time (I had the proof of purchase, however) but otherwise the RMA proceeded well and without any delay or other issue.
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Hear hear. In this day and age of internet communication, word spreads and spreads fast when companies cut corners - It simply isn't worth it for a company to cut corners when it comes to customer service. It will cost them a loyal customer and perhaps more due to word of mouth which is pretty far-reaching on the internet.

This is *precisely* why EVGA has such a loyal customer base, because they treat their customers right (for the most part) without fucking people over to cust costs. There are other companies like this as well on the GPU scene, i'm just pointing EVGA out as a prime example that comes to mind; while i'm not always super enthusiastic about their custom cards (I think the ACX cooler is good, not great) I will buy them anyway simply because it's EVGA. And I know EVGA will take care of any issues. I know of my two experiences with EVGA CS has been nothing short of excellent.
 
Potential scenarios like this are the reason i have hd photos of all of my components while they are both new, and then functioning.
 
Cruros said:
I got an e-mail early last week that stated they are having AMD come to their location to investigate the case and will let me know some time "next" week. We shall see
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Oh good lord. How about they provide some customer service and just send a damned new card at this point. No, they are going to supposedly drag out an AMD rep to inspect the card? Really? Fuck HIS.
 
SilverSliver said:
Oh good lord. How about they provide some customer service and just send a damned new card at this point. No, they are going to supposedly drag out an AMD rep to inspect the card? Really? Fuck HIS.
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You'd think it'd just be cheaper to send a new or refurbished card out vs having a proper investigation, hahah.
 
How did you pay for the card? I have never tried to deal with a credit card company and refunds, but my mom and dad say amazing things about american express and how they will bend over backwards.

I won't buy another HIS product after reading this, and I have been a big proponent of them for years, I never had a problem. But this is ridiculous.

Might want to link this thread to HIS customer service if you haven't.
 
what is next? DNA samples to see if you touched the insides of the card?
 
I am guessing vaginal ultrasounds will be a requirement for RMA approval in the near future.
 
Sodapopjones said:
I think it went over your head, there is no "Investigation". HIS is just blowing smoke up HIS ass.
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Maybe you're right -- I never had a run this silly a run around ever. Might be worth a soap opera by the time it's done.
 
I've noticed that no one ever sides with the manufacturer when people post online about their negative experiences. Let me be the lone guy.
Cruros said:
Installed a r9 290 in a spare computer to play BF4 and Titanfall back in december '13. Went bad in February '14. Did the RMA process, static bagged it and had UPS package and ship it. I did insure it for up to $500 because of the horror stories I have heard being a computer repair technician by trade.
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Scrypt mining, you mean?

I'm not saying that the damage was done by you, but you sure as hell didn't build a quad 290 rig as a spare computer. I was trying to zoom in on the photo with the damaged component when it went to the next image. Cgminer, nice. I have been using sgminer and kalroth's variant recently.

This does not necessarily change the story, but it makes things more interesting.. You weren't trying to use an unpowered x1 riser, were you? The vdrop from those ribbon cables could increase the current (there is ~75w going through the mobo, iirc) and could potentially blow the component.) If you weren't using an unpowered riser, were you quad stacking 4 reference GPUs and mining with them? :eek:

All sides of the story, please.

On a sidenote, I've had 1 bad gpu out of 80 or so.. an XFX 280x which they RMA'd reasonably quickly, though they sent out a different cooler design. NIB, though.
 
I don't see how mining matters at all though.

Product failed under warranty. Manufacturers benefited from the mining craze with a boost in sales. There is no excuse for them not to act with integrity if a product failed from a use that boosted their sales exponentially.
 
stealthy123 said:
I don't see how mining matters at all though.

Product failed under warranty. Manufacturers benefited from the mining craze with a boost in sales. There is no excuse for them not to act with integrity if a product failed from a use that boosted their sales exponentially.
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No, I feel that not all sides of the story have been represented.
You can quite easily break a card if you what I mentioned above.
 
OP posted this.
Cruros said:
Installed a r9 290 in a spare computer to play BF4 and Titanfall back in december '13. Went bad in February '14.
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What reason do you have to doubt him?
csshih said:
I've noticed that no one ever sides with the manufacturer when people post online about their negative experiences. Let me be the lone guy.

Scrypt mining, you mean?

I'm not saying that the damage was done by you, but you sure as hell didn't build a quad 290 rig as a spare computer. I was trying to zoom in on the photo with the damaged component when it went to the next image. Cgminer, nice. I have been using sgminer and kalroth's variant recently.

This does not necessarily change the story, but it makes things more interesting.. You weren't trying to use an unpowered x1 riser, were you? The vdrop from those ribbon cables could increase the current (there is ~75w going through the mobo, iirc) and could potentially blow the component.) If you weren't using an unpowered riser, were you quad stacking 4 reference GPUs and mining with them? :eek:

All sides of the story, please.
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Sounds like he was playing games on this particular `puter. Where does it say he built "a quad 290 rig as a spare computer"? Makes me wonder DO YOU work for HIS? Just sayin.....
 
Although the OP may have been misusing the card (by coin mining), they claimed it was physical damage from insertion / shipping, not improper use.

I sort of understand HIS's position on this, in that reference design cards are produced by a sapphire factory with AMD's reference design. The so called manufacturer (HIS) only sticks a sticker on it, sometimes sets the clock rates, and then stick it into a box with accessories that they choose to include with it. That's why AMD has to handle warranties on the card, HIS had nothing to do with the faulty design / or production of it (assuming that's what caused it to be damaged). And how much do they really make on cards that are handled this way (designed by AMD, and produced by sapphire)? Maybe there's 30 dollars to work with for shipping, box, accessories...

edit: I had heard that sapphire made all the refrence design cards, but I found another site saying that foxconn makes them for amd. Not sure who makes them, but its not HIS, ASUS, Powercolor producing the initial cards based on reference design.
 
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GP40X said:
Where does it say he built "a quad 290 rig as a spare computer"?
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The cgminer screenshot shows 4 GPUs, with hashrates that cannot rule out 290s.

I'm not gonna point a finger at the OP or accuse him of doing this, but I hate people who abuse the system by mining the shit out of cards and/or cherrypicking cards, only to RMA them when they give out (like it shouldn't happen even under ridiculous stress). It not only screws over the manufacturers but fucks over the ordinary gamer and anyone who does not mine because unnecessary costs are introduced to the system.

In any case. I will also stay away from HIS. Fuck them.
 
rastaban said:
The cgminer screenshot shows 4 GPUs, with hashrates that cannot rule out 290s.

I'm not gonna point a finger at the OP or accuse him of doing this, but I hate people who abuse the system by mining the shit out of cards and/or cherrypicking cards, only to RMA them when they give out (like it shouldn't happen even under ridiculous stress). It not only screws over the manufacturers but fucks over the ordinary gamer and anyone who does not mine because unnecessary costs are introduced to the system.

In any case. I will also stay away from HIS. Fuck them.
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If and when manufacturers state that mining with cards voids warranties, I think it's a silly point to make. That's like saying a CPU or a mobo needs a voided warranty for folding. Or a hard drive needs a voided warranty for server duty. Or a fan needs a voided warranty because it was on too much. Pure silliness.
 
Mining would most likely fall under "unauthorized commercial use" which invalidates the warranty.
 
Yeah I checked the xfx warranty and didn't see anything similar, although it says use outside of the product instructions isn't covered, I'm to lazy to log in to view the manual. But the manual might say to play counter strike once a night, and grease the grease nuts every 30 miles for all I know :), usually the English is so bad you could interpret it many ways.
 
GP40X said:
OP posted this.

What reason do you have to doubt him?

Sounds like he was playing games on this particular `puter. Where does it say he built "a quad 290 rig as a spare computer"? Makes me wonder DO YOU work for HIS? Just sayin.....
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Because that's not what he posted on other forums. If that part wasn't true then well.. unreliable narrator.

Yes, I signed up back in 2011 and have been posting ever since just in case HIS came under fire. :confused:
If I worked for HIS I would not have purchased 50 gigabyte 270s to mine with. Although, I do have 6 280x HIS cards. They're ugly as all hell. :(

Again, mining by itself would not have broken the card (or should not have). There are various component failures attainable by poor connections that I mentioned above and I was wondering if that were a possibility, and this company is under fire for no reason. This could have been any other company and I would have posted the same thing. I own cards from: evga, gigabyte, sapphire, his, xfx, powercolor and have had everything from budget consumer gpus to nvidia teslas and quadros. (no firepros, as of yet).

If mining is under "unauthorized commercial use" I would be upset, though.
 
So a manufacturer is supposed to benefit from the mining craze because...profit.

Then bale on the consumer when the product fails?

I will never follow or agree with that line of thinking.
 
Cruros said:
Installed a r9 290 in a spare computer to play BF4 and Titanfall back in december '13. Went bad in February '14. Did the RMA process, static bagged it and had UPS package and ship it. I did insure it for up to $500 because of the horror stories I have heard being a computer repair technician by trade.

The card would block the machine from posting. Removing it and running another card or the on board chip set worked fine. RAM, cpu, HD, psu etc all tested fine. I've got a r7 240 in it at the moment to be able to use it so I know the computer is fine.

HIS e-mails me yesterday stating, "We have voided your warranty due to missing components resulting from physical damage". Again, I fix computers and build gaming computers for a living so this is baffling to me. The card has never been out of that machine, nor was it ever moved other than to send it for RMA. :mad:

I have e-mailed them back late last night to see if there is an option to pay to have it fixed. I assume they are going to say no, but I can hope.

Any ideas of other options? I now have a dead $600 GPU. Can I go after UPS for the "physical damage"? If anyone has any experience on this I'd love to hear it. I can't really probe they did cause the damage other than my memory and trade, but they can't prove it was physically damaged before it went out.

Thanks in advance
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I am sorry to bump a old thread! But this just really burns me up! We pay good money for this crap to have a nice solid gamer, Not to get ripped off by money grubbing corporate fat cats! I bought a HIS R9 270 with Elpida chips from Newegg, And it played good for a couple of weeks, And then I started to see artifacts! I called Newegg But I got lucky, Because they exchanged it for me and even paid shipping, And the new card they sent me looked exactly the same, But it had Hynix chips instead of Elpida, And I have had my Hynix version now for about 5 months, And I have had no problems with it at all. But I have heard allot of stories about Newegg, And stories about GPU companies burning people. And it really disgusts me! It's almost like they pick a person to help every now and then, So they can get people to say they got great service from them. This way when someone gets ripped off and posts about it, You will get someone responding saying it must be a lie, And they will explain how they got great service from them. This is how they can pull the wool over people's eyes. But they do not realize that this only works for so long before everyone catches on. I mean Newegg will actually bend your motherboard pins to get out of honoring your purchase with them. It's starting to get old Newegg! And pretty soon you are going to loose sales! Because people spend money to get products! Nobody want's to spend good money just to help you profit, So you can buy a new Mercedes for your stepdaughter/girlfriend. I hope Newegg straightens up, Because the more stores we have the better the prices. Take Wal-Mart for example, When they first come to every town they always had great affordable prices, But after they ran every other store out, Now they put up any price they want, And they no longer care if you like the prices at all. And why? because they have no competition, When this happens they no longer care about being better. Now the number one priority is getting as much out of you as possible. And this is the crappy attitude of all companies now!
 
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How the fuck is coin mining misusing the card? Card is put at 100% load 24/7 which it should be able to handle anyways. Atleast within the warranty period.

Either way, never purchased a HIS product due to the bullshit I read here on hard forums. In addition to HIS, Sapphire and XFX are also on my list of products I will never purchase.

I have used Gigabyte, MSI and Diamond for Radeon products without issue.

Given where AMD products are at, I am anyways not going to buy their products anytime soon but it is good to know that I can strike off another company for its shitty RMA service. What a bunch of horse crap. If AMD also does not honor replacement of his card; I WILL STRIKE AMD PRODUCTS OFF MY LIST as well.

Btw, you should post this on overclockers.net, guru3d and techpowerup forums. I think HIS can forget even shipping a card in North America or Europe then. lol
 
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