A tale of two G75's

[zeromod]

A lot of people state that the unhappy customers will be the most vocal. And while this is certainly true, it doesn't mean that you should ignore what the unhappy customer is saying. I recently purchased two G75 models from Newegg. Out of the box, my wifes ac adapter was dead. This turned into a ridiculous ordeal in where I had to track down some "customer loyalty" rep to get a simple cross ship to me. By the time it was all said and done, my original timeframe was shot and I paid 99 dollars to next day the broken one to Asus lest they charge me for it. I could have bought one for that price from their store.

Her screen has the faint lines in it, that I've read about so often here. I bit the bullet and bought an external 22 inch monitor as I didn't want to risk sending the notebook in for a panel swap given how poorly the cross ship of a power adapter went. Both notebooks have the issue in where the audio doesn't pick up on the fact that there is a device plugged into the audio line. Iv'e spent hours trying to resolve this on both machines (hers is a slightly faster i7 on win8 mine is win7)

Not totally satisfied, but operational, we went about our business. This morning I turned my laptop on to see that the idle temp that is normally 40-45c started climbing until it hit 75c with no rhyme or reason. I've verified that both fans are clear and working, and I don't have any software that overclocks the card etc. This coupled with the faint horizontal lines I've been dealing with on my own panel, I'll now have to RMA this machine to Asus.

I fully expect to have to dance in circles with a "customer loyalty" rep and will be without my notebook for a month. And of course it could come back to me with the same or new issues depending on how well that goes. My profession is one that deals with Workstation Management for rather large field forces. We have facilities across the globe and are certified to repair many many types of laptops and other equipment. We strive to meet our service level agreements of clients, and to keep the client in the loop as we do so.

On the other side, we operate call facilities that field the calls from the users with defective machines. So I'm all too familiar with what makes a good experience for an end user. Sadly, I don't get that feeling with Asus at all. In fact, I purchased these two machines due to the fact that my old ROG is still kicking after 3 years! But it's no coincidence that both of these models suffer from issues so widely reported.

At the end of the day, it's not about defection rates, it's about the response to those issues. I'll be giving competitors a hard look when it comes to the next upgrade. And I hope that potential users looking at these forums don't glance over negative reviews based upon percentages.

[Clintlgm]

Sounds like your not having a good day with these NB's. I would be nice to the CL guy's they are all we have dealing with the Repair Stations!!
I myself have just has a good experience with an RMA to Calif. Repair. they did have my NB for 2 week maybe 3. However it came back fixed and with no further damages. And CL-Albert kept me posted with the progress as things went along. They did restore my SSD back to factory new condition. With old drivers and all. All issues resolved. This was the 2nd RMA with this NB the first RMA my NB came back with the same problem it went to the them for. Good Luck with yours.

[dstrakele]

If those defective G75 's are recent purchases, contact Newegg and see if you can return them for a complete refund. Since you've been on this forum for a few months, I'm surprised you didn't do that initially.

[zeromod]

Newegg has a no refund policy on these purchases as I saved 100 bucks on them. Ironically, I've already spent that in returning one defective adapater and I'm sure I'll spend that in time on the coming RMA.

To the other gentleman, I know more than the average Joe what kind of nonsense that the CL's have to put up with when dealing with the public. My agents deal with the private sector and that's not pretty at times either.

That being said, the CL's actually fit almost perfectly into a role that most in the IT field would be familiar with. It's called a subject matter expert or a technical account manager. These individuals are generally handling escalated cases of strange nature. They work to get these odd issues resolved in a timely and favorable manner. However, Asus seems intent to bring on a small number of CL's and allow them to handle ALL issues. Even a common RMA issue! That does not speak well to their support structure and is unnecessarily frustrating for both the end user and likely the CL. While it may do some good in the area of damage control, it's not winning me over as a consumer. It's not as if you call Asus and they immediately tell you, "hey, our support front line is horrid. Go find a CL rep and you may get a slightly more favorable end result." But that is ultimately what you have to do.

[pathfindercod]

This so why I don't order laptops or other items newegg list as mon refundable from them. If I go to order and it says non refundable I order elsewhere.. To big of a risk ordering expensive times I can't sen back. I order a msi gt70 from A@;,&n and had it 40 days and it started over hearing and they sent ups to pick it up from my house, refunded total order including my shipping. Or since I'm a silver rewards zone member at Best Buy I get 60 days to return any item, no questions asked..

[zeromod]

If a refund were my only means of reprieve I would agree. However, I have a one year warranty for each notebook from Asus, and a 2 year extended warranty from Newegg. Ironically, If my warranty were expired for Asus, I could likely then use the vendor that Newegg provides for repairs and get a more seamless repair process.

As for my heat issues, I'm actually taking a dollar pool with some of the technicians on my side. I'm putting my money on poor thermal job. The second highest bid is faulty board that is over volting the GPU. I can test that with GPUD. Thinking I'll take a second pool on how long it takes to get this back.

[Shawnnepc]

zeromod wrote:
If a refund were my only means of reprieve I would agree. However, I have a one year warranty for each notebook from Asus, and a 2 year extended warranty from Newegg. Ironically, If my warranty were expired for Asus, I could likely then use the vendor that Newegg provides for repairs and get a more seamless repair process.

As for my heat issues, I'm actually taking a dollar pool with some of the technicians on my side. I'm putting my money on poor thermal job. The second highest bid is faulty board that is over volting the GPU. I can test that with GPUD. Thinking I'll take a second pool on how long it takes to get this back.

It's generally recommended to contact the vendor within the 15 day period and have them exchange the units. It's significantly easier for the retailer to handle a cross-ship than it is for ASUS to do the same.

It's possible that you have a faulty thermal sensor (Had it happen with my G75VW)

Contact me via PM if you don't hear from a CL rep soon.

[zeromod]

Shawnnepc wrote:
It's generally recommended to contact the vendor within the 15 day period and have them exchange the units. It's significantly easier for the retailer to handle a cross-ship than it is for ASUS to do the same.

It's possible that you have a faulty thermal sensor (Had it happen with my G75VW)

Contact me via PM if you don't hear from a CL rep soon.

Shawn, I want to point out that Asus has a specific program for cross shipping. The process involves an authorization form and if you so wish, you provide your credit card for expedited shipping. I followed this to the letter, even going so far as to scan my form to pdf and provide it via email.

Everything went fine until I made a simple inquiry as to the process time. After repeated promises of a call back from "supervisors" to actually speaking with supervisors, being told different things. A CL rep had to step in to sort a process that Asus provided and stated it would be easily achieved. Hell, at one point the adapter was going to ship, but a previous "supervisor" misconstrued my last communication with him and the CL emailed me frustrated that I had cancelled my cross ship!

The CL did a fine job, but it was a process that Asus clearly outlined, including the standard turn around etc. It's funny that at the end of it, I ended up getting half of an adapter as they apparently didn't have power cords. I paid 99 dollars to send them just the brick back..

[dstrakele]

Surely, Newegg allows you to at least exchange an out-of-the-box defective laptop for new one?

[zeromod]

dstrakele wrote:
Surely, Newegg allows you to at least exchange an out-of-the-box defective laptop for new one?

In the first instance, the Newegg support rep was talking nonsense. Without going into too much detail, she stated that this was going to take a lengthy amount of time as they would be refunding to my card, and then giving me the credit in form of a gift code. In a perfect world, I'd love to get a free laptop (which is what she stated) but in reality she was confused and by that time, CL Jeffrey had stepped in and offered to assist.

In this new instance, you've stated yourself that I've been here for 4 months. I'm actually beyond that time since I've purchased the notebook from Newegg. Any retailer, respectable or otherwise, is going to decline a swap at nearly 5 months of ownership.

And all of this does nothing to change the quality of support from Asus in this situation. Which is why this post exists. I think it's only fair that potential customers get the good and bad. If the RMA / Support process were better, this would be a non issue. Perhaps I'd even be writing to state that I'm glad that it went so well. No hardware manufacturer can make a line of product that is 100% defect free, it's an impossibility. But they can make the experience smooth when the customer is interfacing with their support team.

At this point, I feels as if we are kind of flogging a dead horse. I've said my piece and added it to the other experiences here. Let's hope that something constructive comes from this feedback.