Good warranty service

[Mercutio]

Nine days ago the fan on my ATI 9700AIW died.
Since I was in the middle of a multi-hour UT2004 session I didn't notice it demise (the fan itself is normally audible over other things in my case, but not when I'm blowing reactor cores and piloting raptors).

... until the moment when my screen blanked, my PC rebooted and gave a "no video" beepcode.

Whoops. I spotted the problem pretty much right away, and moved three feet to my left to fill out ATI's online RMA form on another PC.

I didn't even get a reply until last Wednesday - it looked like ATI's RMA was pretty much worthless - but it did finally come. Here's your RMA, ship the card to upstate New York.

So I did ground-class UPS shipping with the expectation it would arrive Monday or Tuesday (which would be today).

Today I came home at lunch to find a spiffy new 9700AIW in my appointed delivery spot. It'd been mailed next-day air, and is now back in its home in my game PC. I even got a note that said what went wrong with my card

I know I frequently sound like an apologist for ATI, but I can't remember ever having an RMA turn around that fast. I guess it's probably normal for you guys in California but it's something that genuinely impressed me.

ATI is officially the anti-Sony.

Anyone else found a company that does warranty service well?

 

[ddrueding]

Good to hear of your good experience, you deserved it after your ordeal with Sony.

Anyone else found a company that does warranty service well?

Antec. I've had nothing but great interactions with them. Their primary phone number takes you directly to a live human who speaks proper english and is aware of all of their products. They are able to process RMAs and place special orders directly, usually shipping the same day. As they are located about 30 miles away, this means next day delivery. Here's a sample phone call I made yesterday.

Me: Dial the number, wait 3 rings
Them: "Antec, can I help you?"
Me: "I like your 3U chassis, but I need one with an EPS power supply."
Them: "Alright, that is a special order item, but we have one currently in stock, they are $350."
Me: "Great, I'll take it."

After giving her the billing and shipping information, I hung up and thought "Damn, that was awesome!".

 

[blakerwry]

i usually have poor service.. i've been corresponding with promise for the last week or two (2 emails there, two back)...

looks like my card is no longer under warranty.. decent service..



antec gave me great service...


still hate guillemot after them taking my card (and making me pay for shipping) only to later reject and no honor their warranty...


linksys was a lamer and would not accept warranty unless I had a reciept...

 

[sechs]

ATi support was better when they did advance replacement. I had a noisy fan on my old Radeon 8500. Filled out the webform, and had a replacement at the end of the week.

The paragon of poor support is Dell. I've been trying to order a replacement AC adapter for a flat panel monitor. Since I don't have a service tag, nobody can send me a part, and, even though I have a part number from the broken adapter, no one can send me one of those. Each department points to another which can't help me. This is on top of people who not only don't speak English well, but haven't a clue about the product.

 

[P5-133XL]

Kensington is my favorite company with quality tech-support. My last call to them consisted of requesting four balls for their expert mouse (Track balls). Their track balls are unconditionally warrenteed for 5 years. In this case, a two year old child had hidden all the balls. I had free replacements within two business days.

 

[blakerwry]

lol

 

[sechs]

You should have called support for the child, and gotten that replaced as well.

 

[Mercutio]

I've got Logitech to send me a bunch of the little tiny grey bearings that support the actual trackball in their Trackman products. I lose them sometimes when I clean my pointing devices. It was really hard to explain to them wanted, but they sent me several dozen for the cost of shipping.

I've had good luck with Linksys, Blake. I sent in a couple 24 port, 10BaseT switches that HAD to be pushing on their 5th birthday last year and got back 100Mbit managed-type units (however, it took 'em forever to send them, if that makes you feel better).

Adaptec support once blew up a 2940UW of mine - when that was a fairly new card. They next day'd me a 3940 and I got a nice talk with someone high up in their service organization about what they did wrong and how sorry they were.

 

[time]

That's impressive, Mark and Merc. Now, see if you can find replacement mouse feet - preferably Logitech.

Now that optical mice last forever, their feet don't.

 

[Mercutio]

Promise: Several months ago I called Promise because of what I thought was a defective SX4000. It was around 6:30PM local time, but I got to speak to a live human quickly enough that I didn't notice a wait.
We did some diagnostics, up to and including their tracking down one of the same type of DIMM and testing on the same motherboard (mind you, they guy I was talking to was the first person who picked up the phone).
Turned out, that particular Promise card doesn't like to load its BIOS when you don't have a keyboard attached
They sent me a tweaked BIOS the next day. I loaded it and the card started sucking less.
Wasn't warranty service but still plenty impressive.

 

[Bozo]

Western Digital: Fill out the on-line form, get an instant RMA, ship product, receive a replacement. Turn around time is based on the shipping time.

Newegg: The best warranty/replacement service that I have ever gotten from an online vendor. Same setup as WD. You need a receipt though.

I am about to contact Crucial about some memory problems. Hope it goes well.

Antec: I gave up trying to RMA a bad power supply. Warrenty/RMA service sucks.

Seagate: Seagate tech support and RMA system is great. Almost as easy as WD.

Plextor: Sucks. I only RMA'd one time but that was a hassle. Aparently an e-mail problem on their end. :?:

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Mercutio]

Western Digital has to have good warranty service. I'm sure they get plenty of practice.

Newegg's return policies seem pretty typical to me. No big deal. I've had trouble with 'em in the past. Just this week I called to ask for an RMA refund/cross ship instead of repair. The phone monkey said he'd issue an RMA, but I never got it. Their site won't let me do a refund RMA directly. Newegg refused to replace a physically damaged 120GB Samsung drive of mine. And ask Blake about the fun I had getting back a part that was mistakenly shipped to them.

 

[sechs]

An update on the Dell escapades... The easiest way to get a replacement AC adapter is to order a new monitor and then return it with the bad adapter.

Woohoo!

 

[LiamC]

Crucial. When PC2100 was new, Crucial were cheaper than any I could get here in Aus. Bought five x 256MB sticks.

One went bad - but I had tracked it down via swapping sticks/slots mobos and using memtest86.

Call Crucial (lifetime warranty) and their first question was "How do you know the memory is faulty?" I explain the troubleshooting steps, they ask for the invoice # (I give them one of the three I had) and they ship a new stick out straight away - debiting my CC. I ship the faulty module back by surface mail and they credit my CC when they received it. Pretty painless for shipping something halfway around the world.

 

[blakerwry]

yeah, i returned a stick of crucial.... good service... didnt do the advance RMA.. took about 1-2 weeks though.