Scan & Intel CPU Warranty Issues

[Supershanks]

We received an E8400 on Monday 28th to put in a new silent HTPC air cooled build , I decided to test it on Wednesday night and was extremely alarmed about the high temperatures even running on my water-cooled system. Accordingly we sent the following request for an RMA on Thursday :-

Query Ref OLQ571333

Hello,
I got the E8400 on the above invoice. It's for a new build i intended to put together. I decided to test the cpu yesterday., my pc. I primed it last night at

stock using the VId from the chip of 1.1225v. Whilst it passed i am very concerned about the cpu temps. On Idle it shows an average of about 41C (up about 8C over my

Q6600 Go see *) on load it shows a maximum of 50C an average of 47C

My concern is that i am on water, the intended pc will be air cooled.
By comparison i normally run a Q6600 Go which is at 450x8 with a vcore of 1.40v Load temps are at 51C. Now yes i am certain that thermal paste has been applied
correctly & the water block is correctly secured.

AS a result of the foregoing , i'm not happy running the cpu on my rig yet alone use it in the new air cooled build. I had expected a lower power 45nm chip to run
significantly cooler , not hotter.

I have screen shots & coretemp logs should you wish to see them..

Accordingly I'd like to return the cpu & get a refund as i will have to find an alternative cpu for this project

Can you please supply an RMA Number



thank you

Having heard nothing , my wife rang this afternoon, eventually she got through, but was told she couldn't have an RMA

I then spoke to Ian in technical support who explained to me:-
1) The temperatures were within Intel's guidelines. I asked what these were and was told to check Intel's website, no value was given.
2) I asked if he'd actually read the original message, did he understand that the test was run with water cooling.
3) Ian confirmed he had, and told me i was in breach of warranty by using water cooling. He went on on say using any other cooling method other than the stock cooler is a breach of warranty and that Intel and Scan would not accept an RMA.

So we are left with a CPU which has a lower power rating than my Q6600 Go, yet runs hotter, is not fit for the purpose we purchased it for.
I am yet to find what these guidelines of Intel's are is it the Intel® Core™2 Duo Desktop Processor E8400 72.4C shown here ??

We purchased the CPU on the basis it would be First 45nm Chips: Eco-Friendly. Faster. ‘Cooler’

We have shopped at Scan for many years, and are staggered by the ramifications of what we have been told today.

Does this mean that :-
Anyone choosing a water cooled or non stock cooling solution in these systems
Scan Built Systems have no CPU Warranty ??

Why are Scan selling

Coolers for CPU - Intel

This is surely encouraging people to breach warranty ?? , whilst clearly giving them a false understanding of their warranty rights.

As you have now indicated that the chip is no longer in warranty because of the cooling method used, why isn't there any mention of this anywhere on your website? I have looked in the CPU pages, the water cooling pages, but there is nothing to indicate this.

Edit:03/02/08
I have today run a 3hr prime at stock with stock cooler on the E8400 together with a similar test using my Q6600 Go. Results are posted here
E8400 Temp Comparison

Digg This Thread

[Saracen]

....

3) Ian confirmed he had, and told me i was in breach of warranty by using water cooling. He went on on say using any other cooling method other than the stock cooler is a breach of warranty and that Intel and Scan would not accept an RMA .....

If that's the case, I can see that putting a serious dent in Scan's sales of aftermarket coolers.

[moogle]

you should have just put the stock cooler on and showed them the temps. idk why using a better cooler than a mass produced cheapy aluminium heatsink voids it..
lesson to everyone not to mention water cooling I suppose.

[Hicks12]

Those temps are high? I have a e8400 stock around 45C idle(after gaming etc) 35-40 on start up, upto 60 C load, on air. As far as i remember intel stated 61.2C something like that is the acceptable temps.

[Agent]

Supershanks, you're not alone : Heat probs reported for Intel E8400s - The INQUIRER

[Blitzen]

Those temps are high? I have a e8400 stock around 45C idle(after gaming etc) 35-40 on start up, upto 60 C load, on air. As far as i remember intel stated 61.2C something like that is the acceptable temps.

Thats still warm.
My E6400 runs cooler than that.

[merdat]

There appears to be something wrong with the core sensor or the fact the the software -Core Temps , Tat etc are not up to reading the correct core temps ( this is a similar situation to the E 4300 where some batches of the chip had a T junction of 85 as opposed to 100 -thus giving a 15 degree difference. Intel unfortunately are denying everything ATM but there are lot of people having the same problem with this chip but others are finding temps to be ok . This may as I have said turn out to be a 'batch' problem but until Intel take there head out of the sand we are not going to know. As far as the RMA go well that is a ' SHOCKER' indeed with the implications it has.

[Supershanks]

you should have just put the stock cooler on and showed them the temps.

Yes well as i said it started pretty much on a whim , to see how it ran, I certainly wasn't aware of the restrictive warranty conditions I certainly hadn't planned on taking out my motherboard to fit the stock cooler

Those temps are high? I

yes & their on water. In a restricted case with the stock cooler i shudder to think what they would be. as i say we purchased the e8400 on the basis of the

Eco-Friendly. Faster. ‘Cooler’.

claims.
I haven't got figures to hand but i would think that my Q6600 Go could run stock cooler than this E8400, as Blitzen says , think most things would

Yep thanks Agent have been seeing a nit more myself. doesn't look good.

As far as the RMA go well that is a ' SHOCKER' indeed with the implications it has.

yep, suprisied us too

[Oldjim]

I have a feeling that the Intel rep was referring to the three year limited warranty.
There is no way that a blanket rejection within the first year would be legal under UK Customer Protection Legislation.
Now if you used a non standard cooler and the CPU showed signs of overheating or water/thermal interface damage then that would be a different argument.
The fact that the limited warranty is for the complete package (CPU + cooler) is the reason for requiring both parts to be returned.

[Blackmage]

This may help you

Heat probs reported for Intel E8400s - The INQUIRER

e8400 temperature problems - Google Search

[Supershanks]

thanks Blackmage it's the same article that Agent linked a few posts up.

Looks like Scruffy has similar issues here :-
Faulty e8400?

[w3bbo]

Using any other paste and indeed any other HSF other than those within intels specs will void your warranty. As will overclocking and overvolting ytour cpu. Question is how honest you are when returning a cpu.

If the CPU is not throttling or shuting down due to thermal issues then I wouldn't worry too much what temp monitors say as its a brand new chip which means CoreTemp, Everest etc will not have had chance to update there specs and so will show a wrong temp readout.

Give it a try with the stock intel cooler at stock speeds and stock vcore, if it shuts down or throttles then its faulty. If it dosn't then maybe its time to setup an Ebay account .

[Supershanks]

Coretemp only reads the CPU register see directly access the data from within the Intel CPU register that holds the digital thermal sensors (DTS ) for the respective core. The absolute temp is purely TjMax (105C on 8400) - DTS value. I have verified this myself using the method described. (cpu-z dump). Now that basically is so simple it puts the onus firmly with the CPU. This leaves us with the following posabilities.

1) TjMax is overstated.
2) DTS is understated.
3) Or the cores are running hot, in the same way thw Q6600 B3 chips did.

In any of these scenarios the purchased product is at fault.

luck

[GSte]

3) Ian confirmed he had, and told me i was in breach of warranty by using water cooling. He went on on say using any other cooling method other than the stock cooler is a breach of warranty and that Intel and Scan would not accept an RMA.

Surely that can't be right, superior cooling causing a breach of warranty? And where would that leave you with OEM chips? Nowhere does it say that you have to use a stock Intel cooler with them....... Could someone from Scan clear this up please, no doubt this will be very important to most people on these forums.

[Clunk]

So, what about OEM CPUs? Are we saying that all of Intel's OEM CPUs come without a warranty now? Has anyone ever bought an OEM cpu and then gone and bought an Intel heatsink to go with it? There will be a lot of people unaware they don't have a warranty

I can't find anything on Scan's site that mentions anything about the warranty voiding issue when using watercooling, or even regarding using a different air cooler

I am also interested in the watercooled 3XS systems warranty. How does this work? Is there a warranty on the CPU? Just a 12 month Scan warranty? If so, why do you cover this, and not retail CPUs that are used with watercooling?

And regarding the paste, are we saying that we have to use the supplied thermal paste that comes pre-applied to the stock heatsink for the 3 years of the warranty? What about when you have to remove the heatsink to check if you have fitted it correctly because your E8400 appears to be overheating? Where do we get genuine Intel paste from?

Please shed some light.

Edit: GSte beat me to it

[Blitzen]

If Scan are saying that using any other cooler than an reference Intel one will void a warranty then they are wrong.

I have never heard such rubbish!