Gamers Nexus: Asus Scammed Us [video] | Hacker News Reader

Gamers Nexus: Asus Scammed Us [video]

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54 pointsjustinclift26 comments

Asus has been on my shitlist for decades, precisely because of their scammy after-sales support. This is seriously not new.

Their products are genuinely crap these days though. Check some of the electronics repair channels on Youtube, an astonishing percentage of motherboards and graphics cards that come in are Asus.

On the flip side, what brands would you recommend for motherboards and GPUs?

There isn't any great manufacturer of motherboards. Gigabyte is mostly adequate, while ASUS and MSI are less preferred for me.

For GPUs eVGA was the king, but they exited the GPU market because of Nvidia's requirements for the 4000 series. Again, nothing is particularly standout now.

Honestly I pay the premium at Amazon just so I can do hassle free exchanges, just drop the box off at Kohl's.

ASRock / ASRock Rack for motherboards.

GPUs depend on the make and model, but mainly, you look at board design, warranty, and RMA turnaround.

That’s wild because 10 years ago they were known as the cheap brand. Will take a closer look at them, thanks!

I’ve been all asrock and asus for a long time. Asrock had been the better value for me for awhile now. Think I started using them for the original threadrippers. Been happy.

Definitely ASRock, as they seem to make reliable stuff and have explicit ECC support in their AMD (Ryzen) motherboards.

Looks like ASUS have turned to crap.

I've only been getting ASRock motherboards (due to ECC support) over the last few years, but ASUS would have been my second choice. Until now. :(

I’m also big on Asrock and I don’t understand how it’s not a more popular manufacturer

I only do a build about once every 8 years these days and for me I had just not heard of Asrock. I do a bit of research when I do a build but I'm far from a hobbyist.

I'll definitely look them up next time because I've had issues with a relatively expensive Asus board in the past.

They're not gamerfied to the extreme, and they don't cater seriously to Western aesthetics.

ASRock are just solid, dependable boards with good design and great firmware. They segment for all ranges of computing so you have to know a little bit about what you're buying before you pick one, because spending the most money won't necessarily net you the best hardware for your task.

They're bigger in SEAsian markets, and I end up searching Chinese and Japanese blogs when I'm looking for substantive post-sales information.

It's been quite some time since I've heard them referred to as the "gold standard". Might be time for Jonney Shih to step down. Across their product lines, I've known them for high failure rates for years upon years and no longer recommend them.

By contrast, AsRock back during the heyday of Asus was seen as second-rate, but they've been delivering solid reliable products year after year after year. They also make plenty of niche stuff as well that appeals to the prosumer cachet.

I tend not to put that much stock in brands and think all of them will release lemons though, but Asus has been producing more crap than most.

Interesting. My brother had a very similar experience with an ASUS laptop when doing a RMA several months ago, in Europe. It seems that it's systemic.

I'm never buying Asus again.

Ordered a motherboard from Amazon Germany which was sent from Amazon US. The IPMI card is defective. I contacted Asus support, he was playing on time, I could've replaced the motherboard no questions asked 1 month after purchase, but since Asus support wasted my time now I can't.

Asus support told me to do a RMA, which I did. I would've contacted Asus US, but that wasn't possible, I had to talk to Asus Germany. They said they wanted an invoice. Amazon refuses to give me an invoice. Asus Germany RMA says I should talk to Amazon support. I did. 1st time I have to do a lengthy explanation and the Indian support people promise the world and lie to you, after being reached around a few times. They said that they contacted Asus and that Asus will send me a replacement in 3 days. It never arrived. Next time same story. 3 days, it's 3 months later now and no sign of a replacement.

Idk what to do. Probably go to the police.

https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/beschwerde

Probably also worth contacting Gamers Nexus (as per the video), as they seemed to indicate they'll be following up the complaints to make a subsequent video.

So, probably a decent time to see if they'll add yours to their list. :)

why didn't you just get Amazon to refund you for the defective product?

>Amazon refuses to give me an invoice

? you have one in your account purchases history

1. On the Amazon website, you can download the invoice (Rechnung) from the order page. Search for it, I think it's in a menu triggered by a small button at the top right of the order information.

2. In Germany (I think it's even EU-wide), never use the warranty (Garantie) of the manufacturer during the first two years of ownership, but use the Gewährleistung which says that Amazon (the seller) has to make sure your product works. If it has a problem, they (the seller) have to either fix it, replace it, or give you the money back, which is what Amazon does if they were the seller. It's a bit more cumbersome if you bought it on Amazon Marketplace (which I avoid for this reason) because then you have to get in contact with them and not with Amazon directly. They can also ship the board to ASUS to see if they fix it for the seller under warranty, but if they don't, then the seller must find an appropriate solution for you (replace or money back). They have to prove that you broke it (Beweislastumkehr)

If you first tried it via warranty, you can show the seller the communication with the manufacturer to speed up things up for the seller, but you need to send the product to them.

That the board is now lost is a problem, but they should have sent it with a tracking code.

Then again, you say you bought it from Amazon US via Amazon Deutschland, which could be a Marketplace transaction and Amazon Deutschland could say it's not their problem, that you should talk with Amazon US. But even then Amazon US would need to adhere to the Gewährleistung, since it was sold in Germany.

I had a poor experience with an ASUS laptop several years ago. Several of my college friends also had issues with their laptops around the same time. I would recommend avoiding them entirely.

I bought a 32 inch 4k screen from them in 2016. Lot of dead pixels. Replacement had more. Second replacement had a bit less but still a few. Left a bad review, Asus contacted me, they sent me a replacement directly telling me it would be perfect. That screen was worst of the previous 3, lot of uneven backlight and tons of dead pixels. I kept the third once and shipped back their « replacement ». I’m still using it, but the menu is slow and it take forever to wake up. I haven’t bought anything from Asus since.

>I kept

why would you???

The one thing I wished the video provided a bit more context on was about the joystick and sd card problem. Knowing that this was a big problem and that Asus has been doing warranty service would have shifted my focus more on the ridiculous auxiliary repairs Asus recommended. I was surprised to see that they would work on the joystick and found the sd card problem, but now I realize that work was "expected," and the real focus was the other problem.

This has all the hallmarks of genuine scammers, where you agreed on one thing and then they aggressively upsell you into something else, maximizing confusion and time pressure.

It's something you expect from small-time grifters, not the customer service department of a major, successful electronics company.

Specifically, it's not mentioned on the video but it's likely they wanted to replace the screen because it's an expensive part that they can then "refurbish" into another device.

Ugh. ASUS released a statement saying they think the problem is RMA communications, rather than their RMA staff being dishonest fuckwits:

https://www.asus.com/ca-en/news/y2vzd3jkg5fir3qw/

Doesn't seem like anything is going to be fixed.

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