Thermaltake Water 2.0 Issues

[slayernine]

In the fall I bought a Thermaltake Water 2.0 CPU cooler when it was on sale with a rebate. I thought it was a great deal...

Sent the rebate away soon after purchase, it was a decent one for $30. I'll get back to that in a second.

About a month after installing cooler it started making noises. I verified it was coming from the pump after disconnecting each fan in the system one at a time. I even disconnected all the spinning disks to make sure that is where it was coming from. I noticed my CPU temps climbed by about 10 degrees which concerned me that the pump was actually failing. So I emailed tech support, waited a couple weeks and no replies... Called in to tech support and they wanted serial number, proof of purchase wasn't good enough. Too bad I had sent the serial number and upc sticker with the rebate...

Oh and that rebate... they denied it and the stated reason was that I didn't supply the original UPC!!! I even taped the damn UPC cut out to the rebate form that I mailed them!!!!

Needless to say I will never recommend Thermaltake(not that I ever did) or purchase another one of their products again.

Edit: Does anyone have any suggestions about how to contest a denied rebate or to get them to honor the warranty? Thanks in advance and thanks for listening to my thermaltake rant.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

In the fall I bought a Thermaltake Water 2.0 CPU cooler when it was on sale with a rebate. I thought it was a great deal...

Sent the rebate away soon after purchase, it was a decent one for $30. I'll get back to that in a second.

About a month after installing cooler it started making noises. I verified it was coming from the pump after disconnecting each fan in the system one at a time. I even disconnected all the spinning disks to make sure that is where it was coming from. I noticed my CPU temps climbed by about 10 degrees which concerned me that the pump was actually failing. So I emailed tech support, waited a couple weeks and no replies... Called in to tech support and they wanted serial number, proof of purchase wasn't good enough. Too bad I had sent the serial number and upc sticker with the rebate...

Oh and that rebate... they denied it and the stated reason was that I didn't supply the original UPC!!! I even taped the damn UPC cut out to the rebate form that I mailed them!!!!

Needless to say I will never recommend Thermaltake(not that I ever did) or purchase another one of their products again.

Edit: Does anyone have any suggestions about how to contest a denied rebate or to get them to honor the warranty? Thanks in advance and thanks for listening to my thermaltake rant.

No, I can't think of any suggestions at this point -- you're on your own there unless someone else can be your "Erin Brokovitch" of rebate scams.

But I feel your pain. Way, way back in 2002/2003, I was experimenting with various fans -- all by Thermaltake. The 80's were noisy. There was a lot you could do with a Blue LED 92mm and a similar 120mm. But I'd come to think TT pushes a lot of schlock. I'd also tried their power supplies, and learned quickly: buy quality PSUs, avoid TT. Nowadays, TT is offering PSUs supposed to compete with others at the high-wattage end.

But I just don't waste my time or money.

 

[slayernine]

With other companies like corsair I've never had rebate issues. I might just need to take this as a valuable experience and add thermaltake to my shit list.

At the very least maybe this thread will pop up in some google results for Thermaltake rebate and make other people think twice before buying.

Still it bothers me that I can't find a serial number anywhere on the physical hardware, it almost feels deliberate.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

With other companies like corsair I've never had rebate issues. I might just need to take this as a valuable experience and add thermaltake to my shit list.

At the very least maybe this thread will pop up in some google results for Thermaltake rebate and make other people think twice before buying.

Still it bothers me that I can't find a serial number anywhere on the physical hardware, it almost feels deliberate.

The Japanese, assisted by a great statistician I once worked with, perfected a culture of quality control and a strategy to expand the loyal customer base. The Koreans -- who had been occupied by Japan since before the beginning of the last century -- probably didn't have so much trouble adopting the same approach. I think the Chinese are just wising up.

 

[slayernine]

The Japanese, assisted by a great statistician I once worked with, perfected a culture of quality control and a strategy to expand the loyal customer base. The Koreans -- who had been occupied by Japan since before the beginning of the last century -- probably didn't have so much trouble adopting the same approach. I think the Chinese are just wising up.

I take it that you are saying Thermaltake is a Chinese company?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I take it that you are saying Thermaltake is a Chinese company?

It's my best guess, although I could be wrong. But it's definitely not Japanese, not likely Korean -- more likely Taiwan or the Mainland.

A lot of our parts now come from China, but the companies were started elsewhere and took their industrial culture to the mainland.

I have seen some small companies or others who outsource to produce some cheap stuff -- thermal USB fan controllers with software that has missing parts on the PCB and doesn't work -- that sort of thing. It's not all that common, but you run into it. TT had produced a lot of budget parts before. They produced a decent heatpipe cooler that people liked, but their fans emphasized "bling" to sacrifice low dBA and other features.

Just my theory, but wherever open markets and capitalism are relatively new, wherever the labor is cheaper than elsewhere, there may be a tendency toward (more) short-run maximizing and thinking, and less of the strategy for "survivability" (as opposed to profitability) and acquisition of greater market share (loyal customers mean more long-run profits; quality costs more in the short-run and increases costs).