My recent eVGA RMA experience.

[blurredvision]

I just wanted to make a post about my recent eVGA RMA experience. I feel it's good to have posts like these for helping people make purchase decisions as well as having a searchable archive for those in the future looking for answers to questions.

I purchased a vanilla eVGA GTX 275 card back in August 2009 from Newegg. I registered it upon receiving it in the mail (this is VERY important to do since eVGA warranty must be claimed within 30 days of purchase). It developed a problem in late October where, during gaming, W7 would continually reboot the driver due to some hardware issues that I couldn't pin down. I tried 3 different driver versions while using appropriate driver cleaner programs in between, I kept an eye on temps and clock speeds, but I couldn't seem to figure out any solution I could take care of myself.

Being a WoW addict, I waited as long as I possibly could to call about it, since I knew I'd probably have to send it off for a period of time. I called in mid-December, told them of all the steps I had done up to that point, and that was good enough for them. I didn't even have to go through anything other than checking voltages in my BIOS for the tech guy. He escalated me to a second level guy, who simply told me the hardware was failing, and gave me an RMA number to submit online when I was ready. I was on the phone overall no more than 8-10 minutes.

About a week later, I submitted the RMA online, which needed to be approved. In order to verify my purchase date, they simply asked for a screenshot of my Newegg purchase order, which was easily obtained by accessing my order history with Newegg. The RMA was approved less than 48 hours after initially submitting it.

I had to pay for shipping to CA. Mailed it out December 29th (via UPS), it got to CA January 6th around mid-day. They had my replacement card in the mail the morning of January 7th (via UPS), and I received it on January 13th. So a two-week turnaround for cross-country shipping with a holiday thrown in the middle. All the while, they sent me update emails to verify they had received and shipped, and I could also see this info on their website. It seemed to update within a few hours of something actually happening.

The new card works great, the process was completely seemless. It arrived in a white box, but looks brand new. My guess is that it was a step-up card possibly. Overall, very good experience with eVGA RMA. Just make sure you register your card within 30 days! They also offer some premium RMA where they will cross-ship so you can get your replacement card faster, but you apparently have to sign up for this the day you register (it does cost money), otherwise it's unavailable. However, when I asked during tech support if cross-shipping was available, the guy said that we could probably talk to a manager and make it happen if I wanted to, but I declined.

 

[xboxist]

Interesting, thank you. I've been fortunate enough to have avoided any RMA-ing needs in my time with computer components, but I'm sure the day will come when that changes.

 

[spinejam]

i wish crucial rma's were a little more customer friendly instead of the usual end-user being interrogated as if they know nothing about memory. it's always the customer's fault that the memory suddenly failed after months of use -- blaming it on: incorrect timings / voltage, case-cooling - insufficient airflow, our "crappy" PS and having too many drives w/ a power-hungry videocard.

i understand these variables do have an influence, but they need to be more considerate that their product failure may have caused more harm than just replacing a stick of ram -- (corrupt windows / data loss...)

end of pissy-pants!

 

[alyarb]

i had a similar experience with western digital. they told me to keep the dead drive and just sent me a larger one.

 

[v8envy]

Always nice to hear about people NOT having problems. Most of the time you only hear from the disgruntled.

I had a very similar experience with EVGA. No muss, no fuss, some basic troubleshooting from their end and off it goes to be replaced by a different card shortly thereafter. Now two years later the replacement card is showing signs of dying again (can't blame it, it's from 2006 after all) and once again I'm not really worried.

 

[sisq0kidd]

EVGA's customer service/RMA department is excellent.

My experience with them was a few years back so memory is a tad hazy but...

I remember picking up an LCD from someone off of craigslist and it turned out he worked for eVGA. We got to talking and I mentioned that I had a 7900GTX that died, but had no proof of purchase. He told me even though the RMA department asks for a receipt, etc., they don't really check for it and for me to send the card anyway. So I RMAed (may have been online) the 7900GTX anyway and eVGA sent back a 7950 GX2. Came in a plain white box and looked basically new.

I really can't say it's their policy to ignore receipts and such, but my situation worked out well

Also, I wanted to point out something similar with BFG. I sold someone a 6800GT that died on him (he tried putting on a fatal1ty/zalman fan). He was kind of enough to RMA it on his own even though he had no proof of purchase. He fully disclosed his mishap with the 3rd party cooler, mentioned he was in the military (I sent the card to an APO address) to the RMA person and they sent him out a new 6800GT and said thanks for serving.

Awesome companies.

 

[Eddie313]

I have built a lot of systems and used there video cards and motherboars there excellent.
And you get someone on the phone that really know's what there talking about :}

 

[CurseTheSky]

I had to RMA my eVGA 680i SLI board back in 2007ish. I had installed a waterblock with a backplate that caused some of the small capacitors on the back side of the motherboard (right in the area of the CPU socket) to break. I explained the situation to them, and said that I had heard from others that it was just a bad design. They asked me to upload a screenshot of the receipt, and I had a new board within a week or two.

Logitech is by far my favorite, though. I've had several Logitech products fail over the years due to high usage, and every time I've bothered to contact them, they've sent me a replacement with minimal questions asked. One time my G9 mouse's (it was top-of-the-line at that point) wide grip cover began to peel, and the scroll wheel started to get a bit gummed up. I simply emailed them to ask where I could by a new grip (since there's a secondary, interchangeable grip anyway), and if they could give me instructions on how to clean it. They emailed me back saying that it sounded like a failing product, and asked me for my address. I had a new mouse by the end of the week, and they didn't want the old one back. Both mice are currently still in service.

 

[bloodugly]

My experience with eVGA was that my rebate submission never seemed to make it there or get in their system. I gave it a few weeks, just in case they were slow to process the acceptance of it. I sent them an email and a scan of the original documents (I always scan them and keep them for situations like this), and they processed and mailed the rebate within a couple of days.

With Logitech, I had some speakers develop a problem. I called and talked to someone who either was a native english speaker or was amazing at sounding like one, and after discussing the problem, he just told me to keep the speakers and they shipped me some new ones. These weren't one of their really expensive sets, so I don't assume they use this policy for all RMA requests.

Acer...I'll never buy from them again. I was having some minor issues with a monitor, sent it to them, receive it back still with the same issue, only now with a bunch of specks of dirt under the screen. I called them again and I didn't get the impression from the rep that they were overly concerned with customer satisfaction. Ended up just giving it to a family member who didn't mind the specks and the minor issue and needed a monitor badly...I didn't feel like continuing to spend money on shipping a cheap monitor, figured I'd feel better helping someone than creating more headaches for myself dealing with their RMA department.

 

[nitromullet]

EVGA rocks.

I've processed multiple rebates through them, I've received them all, and usually quicker than most others.

I've also done three Step-Ups over the years, and each one has gone smoothly.

I had to RMA a 6800GT years ago, and that also went smoothly.

Yeah, I have nothing but good stuff to say about EVGA.

 

[extra]

Yup this is why if I get an nvidia card I always buy evga. I've always gotten my rebates promptly as well (although I know those are fulfilled by an outside company, but still).

Edit: and yeah, good customer service surprises people lol. I work for a company that supports photo lab equipment and we act as a sort of advanced first level support for one of the companies that makes dye-sub photo printers. I had an event photographer call in saying their printer was failing, cutter wasn't working....i'm like is it under warranty? Yep, it was. Okay, I'm shipping you a new one, it'll be there tomorrow...just put the broken one in the box and ship it back and you won't hafta pay a thing... "Do I hafta pay anything? Shipping?" ... "Nope." Guy was flabbergasted.

Good support really surprises people, but it wins customers.