Mobo RMA Rejected despite fault?

[Milo]

Hello all,

I recently sent in my ASUS P8Z68 V-PRO motherboard for RMA for two reasons:

a). Since purchase 2 years ago I have had network problems with the board and restarts are required on every launch in order to get certain features to work - namely any net connection whatsoever. I've lived with this but then b). happened.
b). The board recently completely died on me, not being able to get past post at all.

SCAN have been very timely with their handling of my request, and my board arrived yesterday. Today I received notification that they have found no fault whatsoever with the board.. which baffles me! If they managed to fix the problem with the board posting somehow without even knowing they were doing so (aka perhaps some other part of my system is causing the problem.. not sure how this could be possible though) then fair enough, but the longstanding network problem surely wouldn't be quite so easy.

I fear that they may not have tried to test the specific net-connection problem and wonder what it was they did to solve the posting issue. Either way they say there isn't any fault at all!

Has anyone else had an experience like this? Scan have been really helpful so far in the process which I'm very grateful for, but this one aspect of my RMA has left me a little perplexed.
If I receive the board back and the problem/s remains, what options do I have? Mailing this thing all over the place isn't cheap!

Thanks.

- Milo

[kalniel]

Are you sure it's the board, not another component that's died?

[Milo]

Quite sure, yeah. At some point I'll be able to test all my components with my brother's PC parts, but just from the nature of the problem itself and how it arose, I feel that it pretty much has to be the mobo. I already tried some stuff like switching out my RAM to no avail.

Also, like I said, even if the board worked fine during boot and everything, there's still the networking issue. Admittedly this isn't nearly as serious and I've lived with it for 2 years (rebooting every time I boot up the PC in order to be able to connect to the net) but I still feel like they should have at least noticed/identified this problem when they looked the board over.

Thanks

- Milo

[Mick@SCAN]

Milo,

Can you please provide me with your RMA number and I will take a look at the engineers fault report.

Kind regards,

[barry2811]

I've had strange issues like this before with onboard LAN that I've cured by doing a CMOS reset. I assume the issue was initially caused by a power surge corrupting the CMOS values.

Maybe Scan did a CMOS reset?

[Milo]

Milo,

Can you please provide me with your RMA number and I will take a look at the engineers fault report.

Kind regards,

Hi Mick,

My RMA number was 329563. I'd definitely be interested in hearing what the engineers had to say! If the board booted fine and they did do a test concerning the networking issue then all this will be cleared up!

Barry, that's interesting to hear. I tried resetting the CMOS via the steps in the mobo manual (involving the little blue plastic pin header) but it didn't seem to make any difference to my problem, both before and after the board died. Is there any other way to reset it?

Thanks,

- Milo

[peterb]

Hi Mick,

I tried resetting the CMOS via the steps in the mobo manual (involving the little blue plastic pin header) but it didn't seem to make any difference to my problem, both before and after the board died. Is there any other way to reset it?

Thanks,

- Milo

Removing the header just disconnects the power supply to the CMOs chip and real time clock (you should have found that the clock had reset, and the system should go straight into thje BIOS set-up page. If that didn't happen, the CMO values probably weren't reset.

You can also remove the CMOs backup battery (and ensure the PSU is disconnected from the mains supply to make sure the PSU auxiliary output isn't maintaing the clock/CMOS)

[Mick@SCAN]

Milo,

Our engineers have advised that the motherboard powered up and displayed first time, they were able to access the bios and change various settings. They had then booted the system into Windows and carried out a full driver install and rebooted the machine back into Windows.

I will ask them to check for the network/Internet connection problem you were having.

Kind regards,

[Milo]

Hi Mick,

Well, good to hear it powered up alright. Wonder what the problem was on my end.

Regarding the Internet connection issue, it's specifically when the computer is turned on for the first time (first time being first time since I last turned it off). So say I get home and turn on my PC, I'll have to wait for it all to turn on, then restart the PC, and only then will the internet work. Quite a specific problem, but a problem nonetheless!

Thanks for helping out. Much appreciated!

- Milo

[Milo]

Any update on the Internet connection problem Mick?

Thanks.

[Mick@SCAN]

Milo,

Our engineers have advised me that they did not experience any problems with the network/internet connection with your motherboard, I could only assume that this could be software based.

Kind regards,

[Milo]

Very strange!

Well, thanks for helping out. You've been very helpful. If I get the mobo back and the problems persist, do you have any advice as to what I could do to follow up the problem? Obviously it wouldn't be the board so I'd have to try other avenues - any suggestions?

Thanks again.

- Milo

[Lee H]

Have you checked the cable at all to see if the problem is located outside the system?

[Milo]

Yup, I've tried multiple cables (ethernet) but none of them have fixed the internet issue - plus, as rebooting fixes it (temporarily) I doubt it is related to the cable.

[BobF64]

Yup, I've tried multiple cables (ethernet) but none of them have fixed the internet issue - plus, as rebooting fixes it (temporarily) I doubt it is related to the cable.

Try using some sort of Linux live CD, it might be a driver issue rather than a hardware one.