Anyone ever RMA an intel CPU?

[MaxBurn]

You know I spend a lot of time on forums and I don't think I have ever seen someone mention an intel CPU RMA. Sure there are people that kill them through overclock and just own up to that and lose the CPU but just never heard of anyone doing a legit RMA on a bad CPU.

Anyone here RMA an intel CPU?

 

[aigomorla]

Actually intel is very good with RMA as long as you have all the required items.

They will ask for a stock sink on some occasions, and if you present them with a clean sink, they will assume overclocking.

You had to use the stock heat sink to hold onto your warrenty.

But ive seen a lot of people RMA early batches of 980X retails, because they would mysteriously die when you disabled cores @ stock settings.

RMAing with intel is very easy if its a real RMA.

 

[repoman0]

You probably won't find many people who have RMAd through AMD either. For whatever reason the two CPU companies make the most reliable computing products out there.

 

[Elganja]

i had to do this recently, the phone number to call is: 916-377-7000

I had a bad i7-920 I had to RMA. They asked for some information off the chip and heatsink (i had the retail box still w/ the heatsink never used)... They didn't really go through a debugging process w/ me since I told them I had already bought a new i7-930; didn't even ask if I overclocked it or anything...

But it was very simple... called, gave them the info, mailed back my old one (with the retail packaging and heatsink) and they sent me a brand new i7-920 after the received the defective one

overall, very easy and good experience

 

[Elganja]

Actually intel is very good with RMA as long as you have all the required items.

They will ask for a stock sink on some occasions, and if you present them with a clean sink, they will assume overclocking.

You had to use the stock heat sink to hold onto your warrenty.

But ive seen a lot of people RMA early batches of 980X retails, because they would mysteriously die when you disabled cores @ stock settings.

RMAing with intel is very easy if its a real RMA.

they didn't appear to care that I never used my stock heatsink. I know when I sent it back, they said they had to "inspect" my old cpu before they sent out the new one. But they never contacted me about anything... I sent the defective one back on a Monday, got the new one 8 days later (they even sent it by UPS 2nd day Air)

 

[mutz]

But ive seen a lot of people RMA early batches of 980X retails, because they would mysteriously die when you disabled cores @ stock settings.

exactly came to say that...

aside from that,
people are saying it's fairly easy for the companies to check out whether the chip was overclocked or not, maybe they have some inside probe they hook up to,
can't tell exactly how they manage, though by your sig. Elganja, seems you did OC it before it went off and they did not see it, or couldn't find it..

 

[Elganja]

exactly came to say that...

aside from that,
people are saying it's fairly easy for the companies to check out whether the chip was overclocked or not, maybe they have some inside probe they hook up to,
can't tell exactly how they manage, though by your sig. Elganja, seems you did OC it before it went off and they couldn't find it..

yes mine was OC'd to 3.8GHz, but that never came up in conversation and it passed their "inspection" (I didn't try any smoke and mirrors to hide anything)

 

[MaxBurn]

I was just thinking back about this the other day CPUs certainly do seem to be the most reliable part of the whole computer as long as there isn't a design defect, and those are pretty rare.

 

[Aptivus]

I was just thinking back about this the other day CPUs certainly do seem to be the most reliable part of the whole computer as long as there isn't a design defect, and those are pretty rare.

I agree completely. I can't think of one single incident where I've had to replace the CPU.

 

[bryanW1995]

true, I've burned out psu's, mobos, video cards, cases, power grids...uh, most of that is true anyway, but I've never hurt a cpu. I even ran my e6750 at 1.73v on air for a couple weeks when I was still determined to get into windows at 4 ghz, then dropped it back to 1.55v for another 6 mos after that, and I never have had a problem (knocking on wood).

 

[Ben90]

Which is why I don't understand the craze on purchasing an aftermarket cooler to lower temps on mild overclocks. If your going to be pushing 1.3+ then yea it makes sense, but I know people that got an aftermarket heat sink to run at stock voltage... What a waste of money.

 

[busydude]

Which is why I don't understand the craze on purchasing an aftermarket cooler to lower temps on mild overclocks. If your going to be pushing 1.3+ then yea it makes sense, but I know people that got an aftermarket heat sink to run at stock voltage... What a waste of money.

What do you do if you have high ambient temps for 6 months a year?

 

[Rhoxed]

Which is why I don't understand the craze on purchasing an aftermarket cooler to lower temps on mild overclocks. If your going to be pushing 1.3+ then yea it makes sense, but I know people that got an aftermarket heat sink to run at stock voltage... What a waste of money.

what if you wanted an almost silent computer? stocks heat sinks = rarely silent

 

[aigomorla]

what if you wanted an almost silent computer? stocks heat sinks = rarely silent

that depends.

IF you have them set @ PWM, they are fairly quiet.

 

[MaxBurn]

Yeah, I run my current CPU fanless with a really big heatsink and a couple of case fans right next to it and it is a really quiet setup. But again I have nothing against retail boxed CPU fans, some of those things are really nice with a copper slug up the middle and as long as the motherboard manufacturer does a good job with the speed controller they can be quiet for the most part too.

 

[aigomorla]

all the cpu's which are in my main system never see's a stock sink.



Infact i havent seen a retail stock sink in so long, i keep getting amazed at how much bigger the stock i7 sink is compared to a standard LGA775 sink.

But meh... i decided since im a big boy, if i break my toys while playing... i should buy them myself, and not act like a little kid to the vendor for a rma.

Meaning... if your doing this legally, then i have no complaints, and im 100000000% sure intel will say SURE!

If your trying to trick intel because u burned your chip out @ 1.5V+ and now you want a new cpu... bleh... KARMA is a bitch. meaning it will come back to ya.

 

[Elganja]

all the cpu's which are in my main system never see's a stock sink.



Infact i havent seen a retail stock sink in so long, i keep getting amazed at how much bigger the stock i7 sink is compared to a standard LGA775 sink.

But meh... i decided since im a big boy, if i break my toys while playing... i should buy them myself, and not act like a little kid to the vendor for a rma.

Meaning... if your doing this legally, then i have no complaints, and im 100000000% sure intel will say SURE!

If your trying to trick intel because u burned your chip out @ 1.5V+ and now you want a new cpu... bleh... KARMA is a bitch. meaning it will come back to ya.

I played no tricks and they still RMA'd mine. I don't think they are that picky

 

[Ben90]

But meh... i decided since im a big boy, if i break my toys while playing... i should buy them myself, and not act like a little kid to the vendor for a rma.

I one billion percent agree with this. So often do I see reports of someone RMA a part that they overclocked. If overclocking is included in the warrenty (EVGA + Others?) then I really don't have a problem, but most vendors are not that lenient.

 

[Gillbot]

I played no tricks and they still RMA'd mine. I don't think they are that picky

They may not be, but it's still dishonest and costs more for everyone in the long run.

 

[ehume]

that depends.

IF you have them set @ PWM, they are fairly quiet.

Hmm. If you have a mesh window on your side panel and you have your computer on your desk a half meter away from you, you might not be so sanguine about stock coolers on non-OC'd chips. A Megahalems running a quiet fan, OTOH, is almost inaudible even when ambients are high.

 

[Elganja]

They may not be, but it's still dishonest and costs more for everyone in the long run.

well now I feel bad because I didn't really think about it when I RMA'd it (the costs or the fact oc'ing would void it)

 

[bryanW1995]

it's not dishonest if you didn't know that overclocking SHOULD void the warranty. also, intel didn't ask him about it and had the cpu in their possession for testing for several days before sending him a replacement. they didn't even ask him if he had overclocked it. If they had asked him and he lied about it, then sure it's dishonest.

it seems highly likely that intel didn't ask him about it because they wanted to look at the part and see why it failed. If the part failed because he tried to overclock it then they would have told him sorry, you overclocked it and it failed. However, he obviously had a defective part, which their tests showed, so they replaced it.

edit: btw, I think that the correct procedure for somebody who is knowledgeable about these things is to call intel/amd, tell them what exactly you did, what your oc was, etc, and see what they say. if they tell you "send it in and we'll test it", then they determine that it wasn't your fault that it failed, shouldn't they still be able to rma it (at their own discretion of course)?

 

[aigomorla]

Hmm. If you have a mesh window on your side panel and you have your computer on your desk a half meter away from you, you might not be so sanguine about stock coolers on non-OC'd chips. A Megahalems running a quiet fan, OTOH, is almost inaudible even when ambients are high.

They only get bad when you overclock tho.

Oh high ambients too, your correct.

But the PWM selector does quiet it down.

 

[MaxBurn]

I would be fine ethically if you were up front with what you did that killed it and they replaced it anyway. I'm guessing that doesn't happen much and they could be on a don't ask don't tell policy for public relations reasons.

 

[dopee123]

Extremely easy to RMA with Intel. Call them up and tell them the problem and humor them with their questions and you should get a return authorization. They just asked for the cpu back and they shipped me a brand new retail processor back complete with heatsink right away.