I've dealt with RMA service from Gigabyte, ASUS, and EVGA.
They are all subpar if considering what "should be" in a utopian universe. But realistically, EVGA treated me the closest to par of the bunch. GIGABYTE and ASUS were both pretty bad, with ASUS taking the cake sending me a laptop with no keyboard way back in the day after almost a 1 month wait.
After a total of 4 escalation of cases according to
A). ASUS RMA customer service online chatting
B). ASUS Tech Support Phone Line
C). ROG Forum(This is where it actually helped)
I finally got an update this morning, Kudos to the ASUS Taiwan engineers that were stationed on the ROG forum. They actually shipped out a replacement board from Taiwan to one of ASUS North American distributors. So yeah, the ASUS HQ cares more about customer satisfactions than their US based partners.
As for the cause of the entire shit show, I was briefed by one the engineers as well.
It was the muther f*ucking UEFI BIOS!! GOD damnit. The BIOS chip is corrupted somehow and got stuck in a infinite looping. Due to ASUS cheaping out on providing their TUF line with only one BIOS now it would be impossible to recover the corrupted UEFI BIOS. Local service center doesn't even have the tools to program the UEFI chip out of the motherboard so they placed an order of the BIOS chip. Once they received that chip the board will not recognize the new chip due to some minor updates ASUS made to the line of TUF X99 during production. So the local service team went on an adventure of testing a shit ton of different BIOS chips. That is where the ASUS Taiwan HQ got my complain and finally decide to get everything right for me. They internationally overnight a board(at least that is what I was told) to their US distributor and FeDex next day to me.
Long story short. So 99.99% the 6950X is NOT damaged. Phew.
Would I still buy ASUS product? Probably not. This RMA experience has been as unpleasant as it can be. And it is still not over. Here is to me hoping the replaced board would actually work.
And thank you all for your support. I will report back once I have the system tested out. Wish me luck!
Good luck with it. Having a 6950X running ~should~ be a lofty experience.
I hope it's sorted out soonest.
I'm getting ready to build an i9-7900X box soon. Using a MSI-X299 board with it, and that's a brand that ~I've~ had problems with in the past.
I'm nervous about it.
Good luck with it. Having a 6950X running ~should~ be a lofty experience.
I hope it's sorted out soonest.
I'm getting ready to build an i9-7900X box soon. Using a MSI-X299 board with it, and that's a brand that ~I've~ had problems with in the past.
I'm nervous about it.
I have two ASUS boards that are running great. Both are Ryzen based. My usual choice when it comes to mainboards is Gigabyte Gaming series. I've never had one fail yet.
I do have one EVGA Z-170 M-ITX board in an InWin 901 chassis and I like it a lot. It has an i5-6600K and an EVGA GTX-980Ti in it. Gaming is sweet with it. It is WCG crunching 24/7 when I'm not using it. It's pretty bulletproof.
Looks like i spoke too soon. Got replacement today. Plugged in everything and nope. No go. Boot looping again. The attached diagnostic sheet shows it was code 00. Looks like CPU is dead
Bummer about the CPU, wonder if the mainboard had anything to do with the sudden death of the CPU besides the power supply? A CPU doesn't just suddenly die for no reason.
Edit: So another CPU for the X99 mobo or switch over to a x299 mobo plus new chip?
And I forgot to take the mounting screws of Noctua D15 off the motherboard. ASUS clearly had no desire to take them off for me and give them back. So now even if I get a new CPU i still won't be able to mount it on the board.
This is seriously shit piled over shit. Da fuck. I have not been this fucking pissed at hardware since the days of 486
And I forgot to take the mounting screws of Noctua D15 off the motherboard. ASUS clearly had no desire to take them off for me and give them back. So now even if I get a new CPU i still won't be able to mount it on the board.
Do you happen to know anyone nearby with a x99 mainboard that would be willing to let you test the CPU or mainboard? CPUs are fairly resilient to abuse or dying unless the something on mainboard is still causing trouble.
Edit: The Xeon E5-2603 v3/v4 is the least expensive for a test CPU if you had to. $115.00 at Ebay
That would be my last ditch effort too. Beg your friend again to let him use his X99 system just to double check.
So, ASUS confirmed your board was dead or they sent you a new board? Im confused by your statement earlier... like, you got a replacement, but a diagnostic code attached was 00? They didn't test your CPU and what would a diagnostic code on the new board matter?? So..........I dont get it.. Please clarify.
Do you happen to know anyone nearby with a x99 mainboard that would be willing to let you test the CPU or mainboard? CPUs are fairly resilient abuse or dying unless the something on mainboard is still causing trouble.
Nope. Carbondale is a tiny tiny town. Nobody here seems to be interested in PC. The only local computer repair shop still uses sandy bridge. Closest big city is St. Louis which is about 2.5hrs drive. Funny thing is my car is also down....
ASUS told me the original board showed QCODE 00, the board was dead dead. They plugged in their CPU it won't even boot. They sent me a replacement. I checked the stickers and some sharpie marks I did underneath the TUF armor. It is definitely a different board
Older CPUs were pretty robust. Somehow these X99 CPUs are just dropping like flies. Go look at ROG forum, Overclock.net and Newegg verified reviews. Tons of QCODE 00 problem, which almost always points to fried CPU
Yeah, I would beg that friend of yours to try on his PC, or try another RMA from ASUS...as painful as that may sound. Tell them the board took out the CPU as CPUs don't take out boards.
I have 128GB DDR4-3000 Ripjaws 5. Hopefully they can at least be around same speed on a different platform.
TR system maybe good, but the RAM compatibility and low IPC is kinda turn off. On top of that I don't know whether TR may have similar segfault problem as RyZen.
Yeah, I would beg that friend of yours to try on his PC, or try another RMA from ASUS...as painful as that may sound. Tell them the board took out the CPU as CPUs don't take out boards.
My "friend" has already politely refused me twice.
Now thinking about it he also didn't plug in the additional 8pin and 4 pin PEG that supply power to the PSU. Just like mine, if I unplug my 8pin PEG I would not be getting the boot looping
place
All he did was swapping out his 5960X with the 6950X. Due to his AIO placement he disconnected the 8 pin and 4 pin PEG on the Asrock board of his. The system turned on and stayed on but no display to the monitor. I took that as a sign the CPU was OK.
