LOL ASUS says this is $200 in repair, Steve from gamers Nexus smokes ASUS, Steam Deck til I die boys!!!!

[Space Lynx]

Sapphire has a long history of making AMD boards. Back in the early 2000s they had models with ATI IGP on the board. I think it was when I was obsessed with the nForce chipsets and messing around with overclocking the Nvidia IGP. Anyways here is a review of the Pure Platinum A75 from 2011 - https://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/31359-sapphire-pure-platinum-a75-motherboard/

And right on about GN. They have become the best consumer advocate out of all of the big channels.

I did not know this, this is amazing!!! I'd love for my next motherboard to be a Sapphire.

After some thought, I will continue to use Asus boards. Its all I buy from them anyways.

And iPhone too

These handheld game systems mean nothing to me, so in my world it is a none issue.

I haven't had to send anything back to Asus in over 15 years, Our relationship is fine.

did you not watch the whole video? its not just handhelds, any RMA you send in you will get the run around and scam attempts to charge you as Steve demonstrates in the GN video.

as someone who did an RMA with my MSI motherboard recently, I didn't get tugged around once, and the turn around was quick they fixed nvme slot on my Mobo and returned it, all without any issue at all. MSI has a bad history too, but in my eyes they are doing damn good now, and on a consistent basis no less.

Companies I trust 100% so far: AsRock, XFX, Sapphire, Noctua, MSI, Valve (Noctua only because I needed a clip for an extra third fan, and they sent me one all the way from austria for free... just to be like yolo we love you) lmao


edit: EVGA used to be on that list too, but I mean without gpu's I just see no point for them anymore

edit 2: I also personally trust Thermalright (not thermaltake) - never had an issue with them, but I have heard issues with heatsinks being bent etc, but never had that issue myself. I guess if a piece of metal arrives bent, you get it replaced and move on? at least that one is a simple fix.

 

[freeagent]

did you not watch the whole video?

I haven't watched it yet, but I will.

I honestly not have had to RMA anything except an XFX GTX 295. I beat on my hardware a little, but I don't abuse it

I did send an Asus board in once when I was brand new because of a hosed bios, and they sent it back no problem.

I pretty much only buy Asus boards because they run well, and they last forever. Except my P8Z77-V I think it is.. lost its sata controllers.. but we don't talk about that

 

[Space Lynx]

I haven't watched it yet, but I will.

I honestly not have had to RMA anything except an XFX GTX 295. I beat on my hardware a little, but I don't abuse it

I did send an Asus board in once when I was brand new because of a hosed bios, and they sent it back no problem.

I pretty much only buy Asus boards because they run well, and they last forever. Except my P8Z77-V I think it is.. lost its sata controllers.. but we don't talk about that

I had an Asus Z68 Deluxe board for my 2500k, and it started to have ports die on me fairly quickly. I was really young then though and didn't even know what RMA meant, so I just sent it to the bin. lmao

nothing wrong with sticking with what you like, and it may just be the Canadian RMA center for ASUS is better staffed it may be that's what this all comes down to. depending where your RMA location is, I can see that being the case actually. human error / consistency is the greatest weakness of our species after all

 

[freeagent]

I had an Asus Z68 Deluxe board for my 2500k, and it started to have ports die on me fairly quickly. I was really young then though and didn't even know what RMA meant, so I just sent it to the bin. lmao

nothing wrong with sticking with what you like, and it may just be the Canadian RMA center for ASUS is better staffed it may be that's what this all comes down to. depending where your RMA location is, I can see that being the case actually. human error / consistency is the greatest weakness of our species after all

I typically just stick with their higher end stuff, not too much experience with their midrange stuff, other than it feels cheap and flimsy lol.

 

[Space Lynx]

I typically just stick with their higher end stuff, not too much experience with their midrange stuff, other than it feels cheap and flimsy lol.

in this case you should be fine then, I still recommend watching the video though.

this is one reason I dislike ASUS btw, the other companies including Gigabyte (which I don't like), but most if not all of the other companies all have proper VRM cooling in their budget/mid-range tiers, but ASUS still just uses a tiny tiny little heatsink. I find it a bit frustrating, like come on just throw the budget people a bone and put some extra metal there. MSI is the best example of these, even their low end $109 boards like my old am4 pro board from them had giant vrm heatsinks

 

[A&P211]

Yeah, my 2022 G14 is the last ASUS device I'll get (though mainly for different reasons).

I've RMAed two electronic devices, an MSI motherboard (bricked itself after changing memory timings) and my Steam Deck (died emulating PS3 games while plugged into a JSAUX dock), and both times I had excellent experiences. Both RMA replacement devices are still going strong, and both were done at no charge (other than one-way shipping for the motherboard)

My G14 already has over 10% wear on the battery after a little over a year, and the bottom case is cracking around the corner screws. But hearing all the horror stories about ASUS customer service, I guess I'll just have to live with them or fix them myself.

I don't hate the G14; it has issues but is a great laptop. I just can't recommend anyone buy it, especially after hearing about this kind of stuff.

I switch from a MSI laptop to Asus laptop. I have the g16, I might look into a Lenovo laptop next.

 

[remixedcat]

what motherboard company is safe these days?

 

[Space Lynx]

I switch from a MSI laptop to Asus laptop. I have the g16, I might look into a Lenovo laptop next.

I will never trust Lenovo.

Bought a Lenovo recently? Enjoy the pre-loaded Malware!

A vulnerability has been discovered in a piece of software that ships pre-loaded onto Lenovo computers that could grant hackers access to a user's secure browser data, allowing third parties to potentially collect passwords, bank details, and other sensitive information. Superfish, an adware...

www.techpowerup.com

show your true colors once is all I need to know

 

[A&P211]

I will never trust Lenovo.

Bought a Lenovo recently? Enjoy the pre-loaded Malware!

A vulnerability has been discovered in a piece of software that ships pre-loaded onto Lenovo computers that could grant hackers access to a user's secure browser data, allowing third parties to potentially collect passwords, bank details, and other sensitive information. Superfish, an adware...

www.techpowerup.com

show your true colors once is all I need to know

Care to say why?

 

[tabascosauz]

Are the current gen ROG Zephyrus G14 laptops terrible or something? I've bought 2019 and 2023 models and thought them both great offerings - certainly a far better deal and more rounded products than their budget plastic rubbish in the sub-$£€1000 arena.

Not unless they've suddenly gotten significantly worse without anyone knowing? But it also has no real competitors, so anything is better than nothing - coming from the owner of a G14 2022. They still have their fair share of issues, and a number of them involve Asus directly (e.g. Asus reneging on their USB4 promises, Asus doing a piss poor job of LM even repeatedly after RMA).

G14 and Flow X13 have me by the balls because they're the only sort of laptops I'm interested in and no one else is interested in competing. But just Asus' assholery alone is enough to counterbalance that appeal.

The path that Asus is going down with AM5 motherboards was an easy way to ensure I went with another brand.

 

[A&P211]

Not unless they've suddenly gotten significantly worse without anyone knowing? But it also has no real competitors, so anything is better than nothing - coming from the owner of a G14 2022. They still have their fair share of issues, and a number of them involve Asus directly (e.g. Asus reneging on their USB4 promises, Asus doing a piss poor job of LM even repeatedly after RMA).

G14 and Flow X13 have me by the balls because they're the only sort of laptops I'm interested in and no one else is interested in competing. But just Asus' assholery alone is enough to counterbalance that appeal.

The path that Asus is going down with AM5 motherboards was an easy way to ensure I went with another brand.

The only issues I have with Asus laptops is there horrible armory crate software, horrible piece of software.

 

[thesmokingman]

The only issues I have with Asus laptops is there horrible armory crate software, horrible piece of software.

Use the alt crate app?

GitHub - seerge/g-helper: Lightweight Armoury Crate alternative for Asus laptops and ROG Ally. Control tool for ROG Zephyrus G14, G15, G16, M16, Flow X13, Flow X16, TUF, Strix, Scar and other models

Lightweight Armoury Crate alternative for Asus laptops and ROG Ally. Control tool for ROG Zephyrus G14, G15, G16, M16, Flow X13, Flow X16, TUF, Strix, Scar and other models - seerge/g-helper

github.com

 

[Denver]

what motherboard company is safe these days?

MSI has honored its warranty, and I now have a preference for the brand when it comes to motherboards.

The list of brands with good customer service gets shorter every day, I assure you.

 

[Waldorf]

well i doubt the top floor of most companies (as in those that make decisions) will very likely never see those vid(s),
so not really holding anyone accountable..

my first Asus part that broke, was an nforce mb killed by ocing gpu with a crappy psu,
repaired and returned within 2 weeks, no charge for anything.

the open box 32 moni i purchased on A. started having issues with one hdmi slot, and asus offered pre-paid shipping to them.

anyone buying something, should be able to compare parts/features and make a decision based on price, and why i never care for low/mid tier GB,
so blindly buying an "inferior" product from a brand isnt really the brands problem...

and while i had no issues with MSI until now, contacting them for rma showed me, they will give the user a runaround if they can, like any other brand,
saying i need to ship the board back to seller (MC) for repair, which would have not only cost me almost as much as decent new board (+250E from EU to US),
i would have been without the pc for at least 4 weeks, and worst case, would have gotten it back unrepaired (m.2 slot issue).

@Assimilator
while i cant speak for asus, while working mil channel for sony, their repair centers are not paid by them, just authorized to work on sony products.
one of my customer had purchased a +1200$ dslr kit and returned the next day, and i decided to exchange it, and have the store take care of the fix.
it took a whole week of going back and forth with emails/calls, with them refusing the repair, just because it was one of the first units shipped out,
and "over" the date they would accept for warranty repair.

only after getting with my boss at sony, him in return contacting the center, was the repair finally accepted/authorized.

most customers would not have done more, than say sony has crappy warranty/service, while in reality, sony didnt even know anything about it.

 

[remixedcat]

MSI has honored its warranty, and I now have a preference for the brand when it comes to motherboards.

The list of brands with good customer service gets shorter every day, I assure you.

noted... might keep them in mind

Care to say why?

efi level malware and vulnerabilities...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I did not know this, this is amazing!!! I'd love for my next motherboard to be a Sapphire.

If EVGA made an affordable AM4 board I'd buy it too. But Sapphire will get me money if they make a AM5 board for under $300 because reasons.

I have been recommending to anyone that asks to avoid Asus for well over a decade if they have the slightest inkling they will need service/RMA. They are the worst of the worst and almost always have been. I have an Asus TUF Gaming X570 and it's been a jewel. But I got it used for $100 on another for sale forum. I'd never touch Asus stuff NIB.

 

[sam_86314]

MSI has honored its warranty, and I now have a preference for the brand when it comes to motherboards.

The list of brands with good customer service gets shorter every day, I assure you.

It's also worth noting that when I first got the board (MSI X470 Gaming Pro), I had accidentally bent a bunch of pins on one of the USB 3 headers while trying to plug into it.

MSI didn't hold that against me (they didn't even bring it up), and with the RMA, they ended up sending me a new board of the same model (without a bent header, obviously).

I currently have an ASRock board in my main system, but I haven't really heard anything about how their RMA process is.

 

[Chrispy_]

efi level malware and vulnerabilities...

I'm just WAITING for some massive exploit of the stupid Armory crate/MSI Center/Gigabyte Control Center.

Those BIOS packages are basically poorly-checked rootkits that do stuff blindly without proper certificate chains and without you needing to consent to anything. If any one step in the process gets compromised, you've got a global rootkit epedimic breaking out, for sure.

 

[freeagent]

I'm just WAITING for some massive exploit of the stupid Armory crate/MSI Center/Gigabyte Control Center.

You can close the Asus back door in UEFI. Not sure about the other guys, I would assume you could too. But I reckon that does not help if you are using the software.

 

[remixedcat]

I'm just WAITING for some massive exploit of the stupid Armory crate/MSI Center/Gigabyte Control Center.

Those BIOS packages are basically poorly-checked rootkits that do stuff blindly without proper certificate chains and without you needing to consent to anything. If any one step in the process gets compromised, you've got a global rootkit epedimic breaking out, for sure.

Holy moly!! That's worse

 

[Assimilator]

while i cant speak for asus, while working mil channel for sony, their repair centers are not paid by them, just authorized to work on sony products.

And that authorisation takes the form of a contract between Sony and that repair centre. Again, nothing to do with the consumer buying a Sony product.

most customers would not have done more, than say sony has crappy warranty/service, while in reality, sony didnt even know anything about it.

Once again, irrelevant. Sony authorised the repair centre to act on their behalf to fulfil the contract between Sony and the consumer, the fact that the repair centre tried to shaft the consumer is thus ultimately Sony's responsibility. If Sony gets a bad reputation as a result that is, again, Sony's fault for contracting with a shitty repair centre.

How a company chooses to facilitate its consumer warranty fulfilment, whether by keeping things in-house or contracting out, is that company's choice and therefore responsibility. Never the consumer's.

 

[Vayra86]

That reminds of another bone I have to pick with Valve

View attachment 346970

View attachment 346969

Zero effort, you'll get to preorder the Deck 2 before I have the chance to see one unless I get it smuggled in... Ally is sold officially over here though.

Ah, now we can place the perspective on Deck in the right... perspective. Just say so right away then lol instead of bringing performance into play as if its really a player for you. Desktop perf didnt matter at all; Ally doesnt really do that either anyway. You DID want to buy this slow calculator after all then.

For good reasons I might add but given the topic here that requires no explanation. I personally think most of these copycats are one day flies at best. People want the plug and play experience Deck offers, I think. Windows handhelds are / appear to be kind of like the Linux gaming PC, ironically, more fiddly and the compatibility/support advantages wont overcome that disadvantage.

Lets face it there is no way any company like ASUS or MSI is going to make a sound and smooth OS like Steam's got going on Deck now.

 

[Space Lynx]

Ah, now we can place the perspective on Deck in the right... perspective. Just say so right away then lol instead of bringing performance into play as if its really a player for you. Desktop perf didnt matter at all; Ally doesnt really do that either anyway. You DID want to buy this slow calculator after all then.

For good reasons I might add but given the topic here that requires no explanation. I personally think most of these copycats are one day flies at best. People want the plug and play experience Deck offers, I think. Windows handhelds are / appear to be kind of like the Linux gaming PC, ironically, more fiddly and the compatibility/support advantages wont overcome that disadvantage.

Lets face it there is no way any company like ASUS or MSI is going to make a sound and smooth OS like Steam's got going on Deck now.

you trying to get me to bring you a magic booster pack to open with that sweet talk? cause it's workin.

I'm just WAITING for some massive exploit of the stupid Armory crate/MSI Center/Gigabyte Control Center.

Those BIOS packages are basically poorly-checked rootkits that do stuff blindly without proper certificate chains and without you needing to consent to anything. If any one step in the process gets compromised, you've got a global rootkit epedimic breaking out, for sure.

I always made it a habit to turn off the auto install on my MSI AM4 board in the BIOS, the board never used to have this either, it came with a BIOS update. Kind of pissed me off. Which is why I went with AsRock this round, I will have to look around in BIOS some more just to make sure this option isn't there. I didn't have anything auto install on clean install of Windows, so I think I am good.

 

[Chrispy_]

You can close the Asus back door in UEFI. Not sure about the other guys, I would assume you could too. But I reckon that does not help if you are using the software.

The thing that terrifies me is that a vendor (like Asus) can push firmware to Microsoft, have Windows Update install firmware on a system automatically (more of a laptop thing IME) which then resets the "install crap from this rootkit-esque UEFI code" setting.

This is a pre-OS rootkit that launches an executable from a URL without any kind of control from the user in question. From a security perspective, even being able to turn it off isn't good enough if there's a software route (Windows automatic updates) to turn it on again. All it takes is a man-in-the-middle injection or a simple bit of DNS redirecting from malware and you've got a completely compromised system at the rootkit level.

The bad actors are plenty capable of tricking Windows update to fetch content from a source of their choice, and from there they can not only obtain full control of the OS, but through OS-based UEFI updates then also control the rootkit embedded in your BIOS.

Nothing is truly safe if you connect it to the internet, but these UEFI rootkit installers for something as unnecessary as driver UIs is like hanging your labelled door keys on a hook next the door matching that label. It completely defeats the purpose of all the other security.

 

[remixedcat]

The thing that terrifies me is that a vendor (like Asus) can push firmware to Microsoft, have Windows Update install firmware on a system automatically (more of a laptop thing IME) which then resets the "install crap from this rootkit-esque UEFI code" setting.

This is a pre-OS rootkit that launches an executable from a URL without any kind of control from the user in question. From a security perspective, even being able to turn it off isn't good enough if there's a software route (Windows automatic updates) to turn it on again. All it takes is a man-in-the-middle injection or a simple bit of DNS redirecting from malware and you've got a completely compromised system at the rootkit level.

The bad actors are plenty capable of tricking Windows update to fetch content from a source of their choice, and from there they can not only obtain full control of the OS, but through OS-based UEFI updates then also control the rootkit embedded in your BIOS.

Nothing is truly safe if you connect it to the internet, but these UEFI rootkit installers for something as unnecessary as driver UIs is like hanging your labelled door keys on a hook next the door matching that label. It completely defeats the purpose of all the other security.

yeah I don't do capsule upgrades for bios I use the USB method to make sure nothing fucky happens... I disable capsule upgrades in bios but I use linux so... but I hear that windows can ignore this bios setting and push it anyways and there's a jerry rig fix to prevent it but it also disables all driver updates thru windows update and that's irritating... they really need to classify bios updates as being optional and not critical or required because some bios updates have either hosed systems or decreased performance or disabled options people need. I know some lenovo ones disabled some thermal and throttling options there was a few posts on here about it as well as reddit.