XFX Horror Story

ymetushe

Member
Nov 30, 2009
90
21
81
Hey guys, I have a little bit of a problem here, and would appreciate ANY help and suggestions. Thanks.

My XFX 4890 XT was making high pitched noise under load that was really annoying, even more so when I added the card to my WC loop and my system was generally quiet. So I decided to RMA it to XFX while I was gone over the winter break. The card was:

Dec 28 - Delivered by USPS
Dec 29 - XFX Acknowledged receipt
Jan 6 - XFX tested the card and determined it to be faulty
Jan 12 - I contacted XFX and they told me the card was being pulled and should ship shortly. Nothing happened.
I then contacted XFX about 7-8 more times between January 18th and 28th before they admitted to not having any 4890 XTs in stock, and telling me they have no idea when any will appear. In other words, I was out of luck.

After more calls, XFX finally offered me 3 choices:
1. Wait for 4890 XT to come in. May take en eternity.
2. Have them ship me a stock 4890 and then 4890XT if it ever arrives. Since I'm on WC-ing, this would mean me having to drain my loop a million times to swap the cards in and out. No-oh. More importantly, no guarantee an overclocked version would ever arrive.
3. Pay $130 to trade up to 5850. This option would be great for $100, but $130 is way too much. I mean, MSRP difference b/w stock 4890 and 5850 is $100, so difference b/w OC-ed 4890 and stock 5850 should be even less, not more.

I finally called and asked for a refund, which they refused; I proceded to leave a voice-mail for their manager, but my call was never returned...

It is now FEBRUARY already!

Anybody know of any consumer rights protection agency that might be able to help me out? I filed a claim with BBB yesterday. Thank you all.
 

Rifter

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,522
751
126
ouch, i had herd that XFX was good for warranty and purchased a XFX 4890 as well. Mine makes a whine to but its not loud and from what i understand a little bit of coil whine is normal on these cards. Guess i will go for sapphire next time.
 

Will Robinson

Golden Member
Dec 19, 2009
1,408
0
0
Actually XFX comes highly recommended by just about everyone on the good tech sites.
I just bought an XFX HD5850 after seeing a lot of positive stuff said about their double life time warranties and good overclocking etc.
If they are reading this thread it would be slick for an XFX guy to act on this.
The tech Internet has a loud voice.:colbert:
 

MarcVenice

Moderator Emeritus <br>
Apr 2, 2007
5,664
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You can't say XFX stinks, over just 1 case.

I do agree though, XFX should have gone out of their way to get him a good deal. He has warranty, and they can't get him the same model. So they should ship something equal or better.
 

yacoub

Golden Member
May 24, 2005
1,991
14
81
God forbid XFX doesn't have a vigilant rep who spots this thread before it gets any further out of hand with unnecessary negative publicity or they will be unnecessarily dragged through the mud even further.
 
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MagickMan

Diamond Member
Aug 11, 2008
7,537
3
76
One of my friends had a bad experience with Sapphire, another was screwed by Diamond, and yet another won't buy MSI because they voided his warranty for extreme OCing (even though the card itself was already OCed from the factory).

Thing is, sometimes all these major companies do some crazy shit. Usually, things go well and you don't have an issue with an RMA or tech support, but every once in a while this type of thing can go horribly wrong with any company. Just buy what fits your budget and has the features you want, and if they try to screw you yell at a manager until they make it right.

Sorry OP, but you've been a doormat for those guys, get their manager on the phone and ball him/her out. They will sort it out to your satisfaction.
 

Zstream

Diamond Member
Oct 24, 2005
3,396
277
136
One of my friends had a bad experience with Sapphire, another was screwed by Diamond, and yet another won't buy MSI because they voided his warranty for extreme OCing (even though the card itself was already OCed from the factory).

Thing is, sometimes all these major companies do some crazy shit. Usually, things go well and you don't have an issue with an RMA or tech support, but every once in a while this type of thing can go horribly wrong with any company. Just buy what fits your budget and has the features you want, and if they try to screw you yell at a manager until they make it right.

Sorry OP, but you've been a doormat for those guys, get their manager on the phone and ball him/her out. They will sort it out to your satisfaction.

Look, you can believe what you want. In this day and age with viral marketing and untrustworthy people I take his post with a grain of salt.

I would not refund his money based on him messing with the cooling setup alone. You people are batshit crazy.
 

Meghan54

Lifer
Oct 18, 2009
11,504
5,027
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I would not refund his money based on him messing with the cooling setup alone. You people are batshit crazy.


Why? That's one of the things XFX specifically allows and covers with their warranty on their video cards. To call anyone batshit crazy for doing something that XFX specifically covers is juvenile, if not batshit crazy in itself.


As for RMA'ing video cards, I could get started on Asus and really slam them, but those are stories for another day. But I'll never purchase another Asus video card....ever, no matter how good the deal.
 

james1701

Golden Member
Sep 14, 2007
1,873
59
91
You could probably press it and get a 5850 no charge if you took it high enough up the later. Assuming, he is not exaggerating, I have never seen a company give you a downgrade for replacement. I have never heard of a company with any kind of decent customer service make a person wait indefinitely for replacement.
 

ymetushe

Member
Nov 30, 2009
90
21
81
Notice how one kid posts some exaggeration-heavy and therefore suspect post and reactionary forum-goers take off and run with it. What a shame. "XFX going down the drain" - hardly! ............ buy XFX even though they have no personal negative experience with them and they are one of the more popular brands today with gamers.

As for the topic post, those options he claims they offered him don't even make sense, as they would just as likely have offered him ANY of their available cards, including a much more affordable option like a 5770 or 5830, as they would a 5850. And he clearly likes to exaggerate (c.f., "a million times" = twice).

I do feel for the kid's timeline as waiting over a month for an RMA seems a bit much, but given everything else he wrote in his post, it's hard not to wonder if his own incompetence led to the problem and perhaps is related somehow to the delay as well. (And calling "7-8 times" in ten days isn't going to speed anything up, just annoy people.)

God forbid XFX doesn't have a vigilant rep who spots this thread before it gets any further out of hand with unnecessary negative publicity or they will be unnecessarily dragged through the mud even further.

Sorry for the strongly-worded post, but it really does rub me the wrong way to see this sort of thread.
...

Ok, you got a few valid points. I would need to change the WC loop only twice, but saying "a million times" is a figure of speech used to emphasize something. It was not meant to be taken literally.

As far as calling them 7-8 times, trust me, I would not be doing it unless I absolutely had to. Everytime I called I was promised a response back "within a day", which never happened. After speaking to Erik, Brian, and finally Mark did they finally offer me choices. Until then, it I was simply told that they have no control over it and the card is in short supply and they don't know when it will ship.

If you doubt the validity of my story, I would be more than willing to post up dates and times when I called and who I spoke to. Let me know.

Oh, a note about spreading bad rep. I hope somebody who has a similar problem with XFX finds this thread and is able to act more swiftly as opposed to waiting a month for XFX to take any action. If a company is doing something wrong, they should be called out on it.
 
Dec 30, 2004
12,554
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Actually XFX comes highly recommended by just about everyone on the good tech sites.
I just bought an XFX HD5850 after seeing a lot of positive stuff said about their double life time warranties and good overclocking etc.
If they are reading this thread it would be slick for an XFX guy to act on this.
The tech Internet has a loud voice.:colbert:

means nothing if their policies are changing.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
145
106
www.neftastic.com
They don't have a replacement for your card in stock currently. Get over it. What do you expect them to do, magically pull one out of their collective asses?

As far as your upgrade costs, just because YOU feel their prices aren't in line doesn't mean their prices aren't. Internally, they have a price sheet. Those are the prices they go by. Resellers get volume discounts, and in turn pass along the savings to you from the actual manufacturer's list price. Dealing directly with XFX, you go by their price sheets, not Newegg's.

Finally, they offered you not one but two solutions of convenience. You declined both, hence you wait. You want a working video card while you wait? Take up their offer on a stock 4890 and get over your minor inconvenience of messing with your WC setup.

In my opinion, XFX has actually gone above and beyond already what most manufacturers would have done or offered to do for you. Consider yourself lucky.
 

crisium

Platinum Member
Aug 19, 2001
2,643
615
136
Pretend you sold your 4890 for $170. Then paid an additional $130 for a 5850. Feel better about doing it now?

Or grab the normal 4890.
 

Voo

Golden Member
Feb 27, 2009
1,684
0
76
They don't have a replacement for your card in stock currently. Get over it.
Wow that bastard just because he has warranty he really wants a replacement, how dare he! I mean the whole meaning of extended warranty is clearly to pay more to get absolutly nothing, right? And I don't think a downgrade is a reasonable alternative.

If they cannot replace his card with a comparable one they have to bite the bullet and give him a better one, after all he paid for the warranty.
 

smackababy

Lifer
Oct 30, 2008
27,024
79
86
Wow that bastard just because he has warranty he really wants a replacement, how dare he! I mean the whole meaning of extended warranty is clearly to pay more to get absolutly nothing, right? And I don't think a downgrade is a reasonable alternative.

If they cannot replace his card with a comparable one they have to bite the bullet and give him a better one, after all he paid for the warranty.

Are you serious? They offered him a slight downgrade with the promise of sending him the card when it came in stock. Why should a company be obligated to give you an upgrade card when the one you want is simply out of stock. It isn't out of production, mind you, just out of stock.

He should be happy they just didn't tell him to wait until it was in stock. And the upgrade for the money is also something they don't have to offer, but we willing to. I would say customer support did what they could. Just because he wanted more than they were offering doesn't mean they weren't offering him something good.
 

MJinZ

Diamond Member
Nov 4, 2009
8,192
0
0
A 5850 is $300 right? That makes an overclocked 4890 worth $170, which sounds about right to me.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
145
106
www.neftastic.com
Wow that bastard just because he has warranty he really wants a replacement, how dare he! I mean the whole meaning of extended warranty is clearly to pay more to get absolutly nothing, right? And I don't think a downgrade is a reasonable alternative.

If they cannot replace his card with a comparable one they have to bite the bullet and give him a better one, after all he paid for the warranty.
Were you not paying attention? They offered him an INTERIM card of a stock 4890, which is most similar to the card he had mind you, until they could get him a proper replacement.

That's it, right there. They need do nothing more than that. They are working with him to honor his warranty for his card. They went above and beyond by offering him a discounted upgrade - just because it wasn't discounted enough for his liking is irrelevant.

Tell me this, if you took your little Honda Civic into the shop for some minor cosmetic warranty repair (which is this case - loud coils on 4890's is a common issue across all brands), and they offered to replace the entire car for you but didn't know when they would have another Civic with your exact feature set on the lot - would you throw a tantrum and demand they give you an Acura instead?
 
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Voo

Golden Member
Feb 27, 2009
1,684
0
76
Were you not paying attention? They offered him an INTERIM card of a stock 4890, which is most similar to the card he had mind you, until they could get him a proper replacement.
So if I had a warranty for a i7-975 and Intel could only send me a 920 that would be fine, because after all that's more or less the same CPU after all?

At least in european law that's rather easy, the seller has to remedy the defect or deliver a new product (the same or better but not worse; though that's a edge case and yeah I wouldn't be too picky about it.. what's the price difference between the two cards?). And you can't just tell them to wait for a indefinite amount of time just because you want to. After all that would lead the whole thing ad absurdum
 
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SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
145
106
www.neftastic.com
So if I had a warranty for a i7-975 and Intel could only send me a 920 that would be fine, because after all that's more or less the same CPU after all?

At least in european law that's rather easy, the seller has to remedy the defect or deliver a new product (the same or better but not worse). And you can't just tell them to wait for a indefinite amount of time just because you want to. After all that would lead the whole thing ad absurdum.
And if the i7-975 being the top-of-the-line CPU was not available due to some production issue from Intel? Please tell me how to extract blood from a stone... I'd like to know this. Even European laws will have limitations. You're either going to wait or take the best possible alternative. And in this case, XFX isn't telling him to wait just because they want to. If they don't have supply, then they have to wait just like the customer does.
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
3
76
It should also be mentioned that the difference between a stock 4890 and a factory OCed one is negligible and probably completely impossible to notice if you don't put an fps counter up or run benchmarks. Hardly a downgrade, and it would only be temporary.

@ OP: If you don't like high maintenance and lots of hassle when swapping hardware, why are you even using watercooling?
 

Voo

Golden Member
Feb 27, 2009
1,684
0
76
You're either going to wait or take the best possible alternative.
Which would be true if and only if there wasn't a viable better alternative (although this would still have to be in line with the value..), which in this case there is.

But yeah it's a edge case, probably depends on the cost difference between the normal 4870 and the Xt version..
 

ExcaliburMM

Senior member
Jan 24, 2009
613
5
81
www.Staredit.net
In simple terms, I find XFX's actions unacceptable simply because the card is under warranty. If it wasn't, it would be a different story.

In my mind, a good manufacturer has two options in this case:
They can either ship you an equal or better card at no charge, or refund you, they refused both these options. They cannot charge you for a better card simply because they don't happen to have an equal one, that is their problem not yours.

In this specific case XFX's double lifetime warranty is coming back to bite them, and that is their own doing.

According to XFX's site and its listed warranty information:
What will XFX do?

During the duration of the limited hardware warranty, XFX or its authorized representative will repair any XFX-branded hardware products returned to us that prove to be defective in materials or workmanship. If XFX or its authorized representative is not able to repair the product, we will replace it with a comparable product that is new or refurbished.
When you contact us via phone or web, we will issue a Return Material Authorization Number for you to include with your return. You must return the products to us in their original or equivalent packaging with all original components, prepay shipping charges, and insure the shipment or accept the risk if the product is lost or damaged in shipment. We will return the repaired or replacement products to you. We will pay to ship the repaired or replaced products to you if you use an address in the United States (excluding Puerto Rico and U.S. possessions and territories). Otherwise, we will ship the product to you freight collect.
If we determine that the problem is not covered under this warranty, we will notify you and inform you of service alternatives that are available to you on a fee basis. If you want the product returned, you will have to pay the shipping fees.


Get them on the phone and quote it. You want your replacement of comparable performance now, and you're not giving them a cent.
 
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crisium

Platinum Member
Aug 19, 2001
2,643
615
136
How is a stock XFX Radeon 4890 not comparable to an XFX Radeon 4890 XT? It's slightly slower in the slightest sense of the word slight. Hence it is comparable. It didn't say 'equal or better' but "comparable" which implies negligibly slower products.