Help
A few weeks earlier, my Asus 8800GT TOP decided to overheat and die -- graphical artifacts are permanently attached as the card is damaged beyond just temporary insufficient cooling or whatever -- it was using the stock cooler. In that case, I quickly supported a new ticket to Asus online support, who replied a few hours later telling me to phone in.
So I called in, and after listening to around 15 mins or so of the Asus "radio" (Read: Propaganda loop) someone called Andrea picked up the phone and I quickly explained my problem. The person spoke fluent North American English, and quickly gave me an RMA number which took less than 5 minutes. After asking for my address and email, the information was emailed to me as well just in case. Everything came through and I sent to Asus' RMA department in central USA. Surprisingly it was not their Fremont office.
Anyways, I sent it via Canada Post Air which was the second cheapest shipping method since I don't really care when I get the card back or not. I sent it on Tuesday, April 1st and by Tuesday the 8th everything was "repaired" and good to go according to Asus' RMA tracker. To be honest, it wasn't "repaired" like MSI, it indicates a new serial number on the site which means the board was replaced with a new one. The board was sent back via FedEx 2-day and I got it on the 11th (Yesterday) with everything very well packed in lots of foam and paper and antistatic bag around the card itself. Inside was a brand new card with a piece of paper indicating RMA repair status. I noticed something was wrong.
So I quickly plugged it into my test platform and turned it on, where I already have the NVIDIA drivers installed for the 8800GT because I was testing another 8800GT. Firing up EVEREST, I was right -- they sent me the wrong card. The one I RMAed was the EN8800GT TOP/G/HTDP/512M, and they sent me a EN8800GT/G/HTDP/512M. It has the same heatsink, but the factory overclocked version... costs more
I sent in a complaint and we'll see what happens next.Generally speaking, the warranty and service was excellent, but someone is quite careless at Asus to distinguish between a 8800GT TOP and a regular 8800GT which is my only complaint. When you get an Asus product that's not a 'sleeper' overclocked product like mine, you are definitely in great hands in terms of warranty. Reasonable phone answering time, person that speaks English fluently, and no-questions-asked RMA process that's fast and hassle-free. I'm sure that was just an innocent mistake because both cards are identical on the outside.
