Am I being unreasonable?

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 16:00:12 -0700, "|||| || | ||||| ||||||||"
wrote:

It's not about the money, it's about being charged for checking a mobo whilst
it's still under warranty.

Is this common practice?

Yes. Companies will often charge you a testing fee if no fault is
found.

--
Mike Jenkins
Dreamcast/Gamecube FAQs - http://www.washu.clara.net
Private replies to , ta.
Mike's Auctions: http://makeashorterlink.com/?W49D31BA1

"|||| || | ||||| ||||||||" wrote in
message ...


Nine months ago I bought a Gigabyte mobo along with a 246 stick of mem.

From day one the machine hasn't really been what I'd consider stable. It
would suffer random and frequent reboots, often resulting in loss of data.
I
didn't do anything about it because the pc it was in was rarely used, and
so
it wasn't that much of an issue.

Recently the pc has been getting more usage, and because of that the
reboots
have been far more difficult to live with.

Last week I decided to bite the bullet and thoroughly test the mobo,
swapping
processors, cpu fans, psu, graphic cards, hdd and mem. None of which
prevented the pc from rebooting. The pc would reboot (not bsod'ing). The
other thing it did was corrupt data as it was being installed from various
sources.

My conclusion was that the board had a dry joint, or that there was an i/o
error. The pc itself ran a cool 35 to 45 degrees (5 case fans and a
massive
cpu fan) so heat wasn't an issue.

I removed the board and took it to my supplier for replacement/repair/rma.
The engineer insisted that he soak tested it first, and surprise surprise,
he
couldn't get it to go wrong (I often question whether they soak test
things
at all).

I went to collect the board this morning, and found myself presented with
a
bill of £35, but as it was me, I could have it for £15.00.

It's not about the money, it's about being charged for checking a mobo
whilst
it's still under warranty.

Is this common practice?


My last PC did exactly as you describe, only it waited until it was 2 years
old (ish) before it started to play up.
After much board / HDD swapping it turned out to be the power supply. All
the voltage rails checked out ok, so I can assume it had a dry joint
somewhere.
You could also consider checking the silly stuff:
Mains lead from PC to wall socket.
The wall socket itself

In message , |||| || | |||||
|||||||| writes
I removed the board and took it to my supplier for
replacement/repair/rma. The engineer insisted that he soak tested it
first, and surprise surprise, he couldn't get it to go wrong (I often
question whether they soak test things at all).

I went to collect the board this morning, and found myself presented
with a bill of £35, but as it was me, I could have it for £15.00.

It's not about the money, it's about being charged for checking a mobo
whilst it's still under warranty.

It all hinges on whether the supplier made it clear there would be a
charge if found OK. TBH its only right you pay a testing fee if you
return defective goods - else the cost of YOUR error is passed on to
other customers. But if your certain you testing methods were as
thorough as it seems they were contact the Motherboard manufacturer some
have Uk testing facilities and if they confirm the fault demand your
"testing" fee back. Only company that has ever chareg me a testing fee
were Microdirect and that was a fraudulant charge as they only low level
formatted a duff HD - then claimed it was perfect and charged me for the
privilige of defrauding me..



--
njc AKA (Paypal & nochex e-mail)

I went to collect the board this morning, and found myself presented with a
bill of £35, but as it was me, I could have it for £15.00.
It's not about the money, it's about being charged for checking a mobo whilst
it's still under warranty.

Perhaps next time, you`ll remember to use a Megger on the board and some
delicate components first... :-}

In message , nigel. carron
writes
TBH its only right you pay a testing fee if you return defective goods

Insert non- into appropriate place?



--
njc AKA (Paypal & nochex e-mail)

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 04:46:24 UTC, "|||| || | ||||| ||||||||"
wrote:

So tell me..... how does one go about duffing a mobo without it looking as if
it's been thrown in the bathtub along with an electric heater? (curious minds
want to know

Have a look a few weeks ago on comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware.

But in that case the guy wanted a new mobo and this was his way of
getting round his wife's 'NO'!

--
Bob Eager
rde at tavi.co.uk
PC Server 325*4; PS/2s 9585, 8595, 9595*2, 8580*3,
P70, PC/AT..

Perhaps next time, you`ll remember to use a Megger on the board and some
delicate components first... :-}
I never thought of it. I damn well wish I had.
So tell me..... how does one go about duffing a mobo without it looking as if
it's been thrown in the bathtub along with an electric heater? (curious minds
want to know

I can`t imagine a Megger making that much of a splash - they generally
kick out 500v with almost no current, so the odds are it`ll blow some
chips internally and not be visible.

"|||| || | ||||| ||||||||" wrote in
message ...
On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 00:56:57 +0100, "Julian Hales"
wrote:

What sort of mobo is it? if its not stable enough for you and rather than
trash it maybe its still some use.

It's a gigabyte GA7-VRXP (AMD).

Having just pulled it out of the stat bag, I'm convinced that the bloody
thing hasn't been touched. I'll give it another try on Thursday, I'll let
you know what happens.


Yes seen that happen, too busy or dont really care to test it.
If its still unstable and no use and its not going back for a refund its the
sort of thing im looking at, hate to see things binned, would be useful for
some things im trying to learn and wouldnt want to screw a decent reliable
mobo!

In message , |||| || | |||||
|||||||| writes
It's a gigabyte GA7-VRXP (AMD).

Having just pulled it out of the stat bag, I'm convinced that the
bloody thing hasn't been touched. I'll give it another try on
Thursday, I'll let you know what happens.

I find the Gbyte boards rock solid these days - not had that model in
mind.
--
njc AKA (Paypal & nochex e-mail)

"|||| || | ||||| ||||||||" wrote in
message ...
On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 00:56:57 +0100, "Julian Hales"
wrote:

What sort of mobo is it? if its not stable enough for you and rather than
trash it maybe its still some use.

It's a gigabyte GA7-VRXP (AMD).

Which revision do you have? Do you have an NVidia graphics card? How big
is your power supply?

I've got a revision 1.1 which is rock solid using an ATi 8500 LE graphics
card and a 300W power supply. The 1.0 revision is considered more unstable.

Things you can try.
Swap the graphics card. NVidia ones were particularly bad with my board.
It used to lock up during games really frequently. Swapping to an ATi card
sorted it.
Change the AGP rate to 2x or 1x in the BIOS. You'll never notice any
performance degredation. My NVidia card was pretty solid at 2x AGP but
would lock up every time at 4x AGP.
Slow down the memory timings. This didn't make much difference for me but a
lot of people have had success.
Get a bigger powers supply. Some people have got a more stable system using
a 400W supply.

Hope this helps.

Dave.


Having just pulled it out of the stat bag, I'm convinced that the bloody
thing hasn't been touched. I'll give it another try on Thursday, I'll let
you know what happens.