Continuing issues with poor ASUS support

[[Grevane]]

I suppose I am probably clutching at straws but I was hoping someone on these forums "might" have some advice about this situation.

For almost the last 2 weeks I have been speaking with some woman from ASUS called "Maggie". Almost every day she replied to my request for Technical Support with either "I'll chase it up for you" or "I'll pass it on for you" and I never hear anything from ASUS.

I have a 2month old P5B Premium Vista Edition Motherboard which died after rebooting after using the Windows Based ASUS Updater (in hindesight, stupid I know). The board has also had issues with not booting up 1st time (i.e. no post and just sits at a black screen, also does this if you try to go into the BIOS too quickly after the DEL/F1 prompt appears), the USB controller not being recognised, the ASAP drive disappearing from the BIOS randomly etc... etc...

I've asked for contact details of someone I could lodge a complaint with, but nobody takes responsibility for that. And i'm almost at the point where I am thinking my only options are to seak external advice as ASUS don't seem at all bothered in addressing the fact that my mobo covered by their warranty needs fixing.

Does anyone have contact details of anyone in ASUS who handle complaints? Or anyone got any idea's of how to force ASUS to respond? Any external bodies who can lean on ASUS?

And I would say to anyone considering purchasing an ASUS product, think long and hard before buying anything off them, I am appauled with how they have treated me so far and am unlikely to ever by from them again. Abit or Gigabyte will most likely get my business next time.

How long does it take to get Technical Support out of ASUS? Not 48hrs like they quote on their website thats for sure.

[Clunk]

Why dont you just RMA it to the retailer you bought it from and have done with it?

Asus do make some great boards, but their support is widely known to be piss poor.

Save yourself a load of time an bother

[Blitzen]

Lets be honest. No matter how good their boards are, it isn't worth the hassle when it comes to problems if no-one wants to help.

I nearly bought an Asus board a few weeks back when i did my upgrade (Striker) and i am glad i didn't!
I went for an ABIT board (AW9D-MAX Wifi) and couldnt be happier. I had a few issues with it tbh, but it was all sorted VERY rapidly by ABIT here at Hexus.

I dunno what everyone else does, but i think its always been a wise move to count in the 'support' factor when buying as invariably something will go wrong with any kind of electronics and to be left high and dry when spending £100's is never pleasing and adds to regrets afterwards.

[Clunk]

The thing is, there is pretty much unlimited support on the various forums for Asus boards, so for me, it is worth the gain in performance most of the time, but there have been a couple of occasions when the boards have been dire cough**Commando****P5N32-E SLI**cough**, and no amount of support from Asus could have helped anyway.

Swings and roundabouts unfortunately.

[[Grevane]]

Yeah, the problem for me at the moment is my "contact" at where I bought the board is on holiday and no other bugger, like ASUS, is currently responding to my emails.

(Btw, thank you both for the replies)

I'm wondering to be honest, and for the benefit of other people, if its worth taking this up with Consumer Direct...

I just can't put into words how disappointed I am with ASUS.

To take peoples money and then to ignore them when their products go wrong is totally dispicable behaviour and I can't believe there isn't some sort of legal protection for customers from manufacturers behaving like this.

I think I will, while I am considering what to do, call "Consumer Direct" tomorrow and ask their advice.

Of course I'll post any feed back here for people to refer to in the future.

I believe on Monday I should be able to speak with my contact and get the board replaced (I'm hoping he's not on a 3 week holiday)...

/sigh

2 weeks without Oblivion... without any gaming... t..t...t...torture.... c..c..c..can't...t.take..it...any...more...

[[Grevane]]

Originally Posted by Blitzen

Lets be honest. No matter how good their boards are, it isn't worth the hassle when it comes to problems if no-one wants to help.

I nearly bought an Asus board a few weeks back when i did my upgrade (Striker) and i am glad i didn't!
I went for an ABIT board (AW9D-MAX Wifi) and couldnt be happier. I had a few issues with it tbh, but it was all sorted VERY rapidly by ABIT here at Hexus.

I dunno what everyone else does, but i think its always been a wise move to count in the 'support' factor when buying as invariably something will go wrong with any kind of electronics and to be left high and dry when spending £100's is never pleasing and adds to regrets afterwards.

Yes, I believe the "Support" aspect is very important. I bought an Alienware before this PC Build (I had a real good paying job at the time and since I build PC's all the time through work, I couldn't be bothered to build yet another one for myself) and if anyone ever asks why I was prepared to pay so much for a PC, all I need to say, is the "Support" and "Personal Treatment" Alienware give is literally 10/10, 5 stars or whatever you want to call it. My PC was delayed after ordering it, as the 6800Ultra's had only jsut come out and they were in short supply, and almost every day someone from Alienware called me to update me on any progress with my order. Amazing stuff, made all the difference. And when the original 6800Ultra I had in it was faulty, they sent me out another one by courier the next day and the courier took the old one back. Absolutely Grade A service. I would always happily recommend Alienware to anyone in the future.

[Clunk]

If the support aspect is so important, why didnt you buy it from a retailer that has more than one person that can deal with returns? Seems a bit odd to me. (dont take that the wrong way )

I'm almost sure that Asus arent obliged to do anything for you (not saying they wont) as your contract is with the seller (unless it says different in the warranty), but maybe someone else can clear that up.

Who is the retailer, just out of curiosity?

[[Grevane]]

Originally Posted by Clunk

If the support aspect is so important, why didnt you buy it from a retailer that has more than one person that can deal with returns? Seems a bit odd to me. (dont take that the wrong way )

I'm almost sure that Asus arent obliged to do anything for you (not saying they wont) as your contract is with the seller (unless it says different in the warranty), but maybe someone else can clear that up.

Who is the retailer, just out of curiosity?

My contact (mate) got back from holiday. It's a Network Support company I used to work for. I bought it through them because I get the hardware at cost price i.e. what they buy it from Computer2000 for. Turns out, his boss who I emailed about it, just forgot to email me back so I'll just get it sent back and replaced. Normally, wouldn't be a problem, just sods law this happened on the day my mate went away on holiday AND the "retired gent" who normally works part time to do things like returns etc... was also on holiday and they had a bit of a manic 2 weeks.

Ah well, nevermind... Just gets frustrating when I was really getting into Oblivion AND I had a lot of interviews and stuff coming up.

Start my new job tomorrow so fortunately it didn't affect my ability to pick up work.

Stuck with playing the limited number of games that work on Windows 2003... So far it seems like I'm limited to B&W2 (and the expansion), FM2007 and C&C3. Even PES6/2007 doesn't work. No sound ingame. Sound on the menu and intro is there but the ingame stuff isn't... /sigh (and I managed to get the xbox360 controller to install on win2k3 with xp drivers (fudged it)

[EtheAv8r]

My first ASUS board was a "cough**Commando**" and I soon replaced it with an abit QuadGT.... and very pleased I am that I did. I am not a constantly tinkering enthusiast, I just want a fast PC that I can use. abit support has been excellent. Commando lives on in a less demanding role for my daughter. but no more ASUS for me.