G51VX GPU Warranty Issue

Just sharing my experience and the stupidity of ASUS "Customer Service".

Since I purchased my G51VX in Sept my GPU had been hitting 100 constantly through gaming. Yesterday I decided to replace the thermal paste with MX3 and discovered something interesting. Once I removed my GPU heat sink I realized that it hadn't even been making full contact with my GPU die (only about 1/2 contacted the die). I tried to bend the heat sink slightly but was unable to full rectify the issue.

The Freemont CA, office refused to sell me a new heat sink since they "cannot accept payments" and, I was told that I would have to ship my whole laptop in for them to replace it. Furthermore, my warranty is now void so I obviously prefer not to ship it back to them over a cheap part that I can easily fix.

I escalated the issue but the manager was no help. When I asked to speak to her superior she told me she was at the top of that office (which I'm fairly certain isn't true but since she refused to pass me on to her superior I am at a loss as to who else to contact).

In any case, I will likely RMA it but as far as purchasing another Asus; never again. I cannot believe that they are willing to loose honest customers over a 10-15$ part ???? Just thought I would share my experience and warn future customers of what they may be in for. Also, if anyone knows the management structure please let me know as I would like to report my experience and the name of the manager I was dealing with to someone who cares. Thanks

 

Well, unfortunately you did knowingly void your warranty when you elected to take the repair into your own hands. As such, Asus is under no obligation to fix it, regardless of your opinion on the manager's helpfulness , and Asus NA Fremont tech support is a pretty small operation so there may be a good bit of truth to her comments. If you would have RMAd it initially they pay shipping both ways and fix it for you too. For others here who are reading this, Asus NA support is historically quite good although may have slipped just a little recently, in fixing issues that are the result of manufacturing error.

My only suggestion is to look through the eStore and see whether the heatsink happens to be there.

 

Thanks for the reply Clearskie although I don't think I was clear enough.

There was no way for me to know that the GPU heatsink was not working properly without voiding the warranty. Others here (a quick search will tell) have had no luck in shipping their units back for this issue (no change).

The warranty isn't an issue for me, the way I see it, what good is a two year warranty if it dies shortly thereafter due to heat? I wanted to address the heat now so that it will last longer than two years.

Their unwillingness to ship a small item (at my expense) definitely shows a lack of good customer relations. They sold me a laptop with extreme temperature issues and extract more money from customers who try to fix it. How does this make sense???

If they had a fix for the issue in the first place I wouldn't have had to open it up. I know there is someone who could have shipped the part (or just sent one) but they were not willing to help me even in escalating the issue. I've worked in the customer service field for years and I can tell you that this is is not the way to handle this small issue (hence they lost at least one more customer). Thanks for the reply though.

 

The reason your paying for shipping and any work is due to you VOIDING your warranty by tinkering with your laptop BEFORE your warranty expired. Had you contacted them and said I think something is wrong with my laptop, its getting extremely hot, they would have issued you a RMA and all costs would have been covered by them and they would have fixed the issue most likely and had it back to you in 1 or 2 weeks.

I don't think you can rightfully blame ASUS TS for this when you clearly caused the issue your complaining about by tinkering.

 

l3g4cy99 I don't think you understand the issue. The problem is not my "tinkering"; If ASUS could fix the heat problems, don't you think myself (and many G51 owners) would have sent them in?

If you look at the forums, there is no "fix" for the problem other than "tinkering"; thermal paste, copper add-ons, undervolting etc. Sending the unit to ASUS will not fix anything and, in my case, I didn't even discover the additional problem until I "tinkered".

Once again, I'm not mad at ASUS for voiding the warranty but for the way they handled it. Why can they not sell a small part to a customer that just spent 1500 on one of their laptops?

 

I think the replies in the post are a little harsh. RMA is a time consuming process that often doesn't lead to the problem being fixed. Further you have to pay shipping yourself. ASUS did in fact sell a defective item in this case. Just because the OP took a little initiative to fix the problem doesn't mean he should be punished for it.

I had a RMA an ASUS laptop recently and did what the above post suggested: I just sent it back without trying to figure out what was wrong myself. After a month + paying for shipping, I got the laptop back with a note: "Unable to reproduce issue, laptop reset to factory settings." Furthermore, they reset it to Vista when the laptop was qualified for the Win7 upgrade which I took advantage of. Overall it was a complete waste of time + money. Finally, I did some research and was able to fix the problem myself (loose RAM).

 

They handled the situation properly, IMO. If your looking for parts for your laptop, try searching here estore.asus.com

But as far as the warranty part and you bashing there TS, I still think your in the wrong. Maybe its not something they have on stock for sale to regular customers.

 

Thanks for sharing johngaltjr; this is exactly what others have eluded to with regards to returning for the heat issue.

l3g4cy99 I would gladly purchase from the ASUS estore if they had them listed. So far they only have two parts listed there (Keyboard and bottom panel). It's obviously not something they sell to regular customers but why?

IMHO it's poor customer service not to sell parts that they obviously make (they even sell them for the G50). Forcing customers to send models in for a minor fix is poor business ethics in my opinion. Let me put it a different way; how would customers feel if they forced you to return you laptop to change out your ram or hard drive? I suspect may would be cautious before purchasing so, I'm just cautioning people now regarding my experience.

Finally, sorry if you feel my "bash" is unwarranted but, I'm sure others reading this will not feel the same. I really don't think I was asking for too much (to pay for a GPU heatsink)??? For you and others maybe this is unreasonable but, I think it is and am sharing my experience with others who might appreciate it.

 

The part you are looking for can be found in the g50v area as the heat sinks are the same.

http://estore.asus.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=5056&catid=606

 

pretty sure they aren't the same:

http://www.notebookjournal.de/storage/show/image/image4a3fa2aca1109

 

hmm the person I talked to at the estore said they would work...but you might be better off calling them and asking about that. Alot of the stuff they carry isn't on the estore and alot of times they have it in stock but it shows out of stock online.

 

well I'm pretty sure the image doesn't lie..lol.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=318551


there is the disassembly guide. the heatsinks are NOT interchangeable. and even if they were- the new one is smaller, and covers less of the GPU's ram and other areas, and would be less effective than his current "bent" or whatever one that isn't making contact.

 

Yeah; They're definitely not the same and at this point I'll need some of the blue thermal pads for the ram and such as well (which I'm hoping will be included).

I am bringing it in tomorrow so I'll report on the process later in the week. Thanks for trying to help fellas!

 

if they aren't look for bergquist thermal pads from ebay

 

Great find; Thanks EIement!

For those interested, I ended up driving to the RMA center (about an hour away), they fixed it within a few hours and didn't charge me They were very helpful and understood my situation (unlike the manager on the phone who suggested I update the bios after I explained the problem to her???) She didn't even know what the yellow warranty sticker was.

Anyway, I still unlike the fact that they will not ship parts out (basically we cannot work on them ourselves after our warranty is up ...unless the parts are in the store). Other than this, they handled the situation well and I am very pleased with the RMA service. Talking with someone in person makes a world of difference.

Now I have a new GPU heatsink but my temps still hit 100 - 102 during stress testing and I'm back to where I started ...not going to try the MX3 again just hoping it'll last well beyond two years at these temps