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Recently, I have been active at Evga forums reading and trying to come to conclusion if EVGA motherboards or EVGA graphics cards are example of poor workmanship and poor quality control or just the impression that EVGA “sucks”. Well lets start off with what I have read so far on Evga Forums, these are few of the quotes from the forums.
Crazy thread titles. Please note : these quotes are all taken from EVGA public forums and represent actual customers posting their viewpoints.
“2nd defective 8800 superclocked Ultra”.
“Replacement board is not new??”
“We don’t know what we sent you"
“Worst RMA Experience EVER!” 

Here are few of the nasty comments you might find in such threads.
“So, Card has been out of my PC since July 3rd to July 18th now. Thats 15 days.. I am awaiting a responce from RMA saying "Shipped" still. I will keep ya posted as to what is happening next.”
“Is it my imagination, or do Canadian RMAs get a lower priority queue or something? Just look at the other thread.”
“I don’t want to RMA and get another 79xx. And wait another 3 weeks for it…”

“Well I finally reinstalled my system.  It took about 4 hours because I have a Antec P180 case which can be a real pain since everything is cramped.  Turn on the machine and what do you know… nothing comes on my screen!  Argh…  No POST.  So I double check all connections and try again.  Still a black screen.  I thought maybe it was my video card so I swap video cards.   Still nothing.  Maybe my CPU got fried.  so I try a different CPU.  still a black screen. everything has power. 

So much for that replacement board.  I knew things were suspicious when the thing was filthy with dust.   I’d had recertified parts before and this was not up to those standards.”
 
“I received my rma on the 9-12, it was sealed in the box like it was new, just opened it today, its a backup board so I wasn’t in a hurry to open it, it is the same has a lot of dust on the cooling fins of the northbridge where the fan would have been, if it was recertified why would it not have been cleaned off to look like new, makes me wonder if its any good, don’t have a spare cpu to test. and I was bragging on my rma.”

“My RMA Board arrived but it is missing a NorthBridge PIN?

EVGA says I can use one from my older board.

But my question is, aren’t these boards QC inspected at all?”

“Update:

Motherboard arrived today at 10:30am.
Total cost of motherboard:
$261.81 (cost of motherboard)
+40.03 (cost of Shipping to EVGA in california)
+31.33 (cost of customs dutys)

Total:
=$333.17

Total time for RMA:
Shipped out July 22nd
Arrived August 28th

Total:
1 month and 6 days.”

“So, I called EVGA to try and find out what card I was being sent as a replacement (I know a lot of people are getting a variety of replacement cards). I was told that they don’t have any record of what they have sent out as a replacement for an RMA.

I don’t understand how you can be sending out replacement cards to people and keep ZERO record of what you have sent them. Did I just get a lazy-ass customer support guy on the phone, or is the whole RMA system truly this lax?”

And so on… this entire blog will be filled if I continue posting such quotes from unsatisfied customers, so I will give it a hault you can just head over to EVGA forums and read up on the customers first hand experience with rma for evga products.
 
Now the question is, are Evga products really sucky or just few customers get unlucky ? Well, to answer that I tried to find on their forums, threads about excellent services and products from Evga. Now, do note here, most customers who are happy with evga products will not write about it much on forums cause they do not feel like ranting about it, and have nothing to vent out. Unlike those unsatisfied with EVGA support, and trying hard to get a product fixed, who will find time to vent their anger out cause they see their money go down the drain.

At times you might see posts like these:
“I have never had to return a motherboard in almost 20 years of building my own systems so I was pleased to see how painless the procedure was using their EAR program. I’m a satisfied customer.”
 
“Shipped my card back the next day and a week later got my new card today.
And was i surprised when they sent me back a 7600GT instead of and old 6000 non GT.
My card was allmost two years old and they hooked me up with a new better one EVGA rocks!

I was planning to build a new PC this holiday and i will be definitely using EVGA products”
 
“Well my RMA went well.
Submitted RMA, Got a response in 2 days. Submitted CC info and invoice that day.
Board was shipped out to me with in 2 work days.
Got my rig back up and shipped the old one back.

I just wanted to say thank you EVGa for your quality service and shipping you provided me with.
Your customer service was awesome and i will rate it A+ #1”
 
So, are evga products really bad? Well to be frank I do not think so, because with any company or hardware, failures are bound to happen from time to time, unless your company works for CISCO, in such a company I worked, where every product was checked and did tested rigoursly, because you cannot mess with CISCO. Now, I doubt EVGA ships any products to CISCO or works for CISCO, thus Evga does not have to worry too much about paying the extra bucks and hiring more people to make sure items RMA’ed are checked properly and the shipping department knows what’s happening and what product they are shipping. Companies like ATI, Intel, AMD , I bet get lots of RMA requests too every week, but since we do not see many companies running a public forum allowing users to post their RMA experience, good or bad, end users do not get to see the real picture. Luck can also play an important role something, for example I been lucky that I never had to RMA any of my computer parts ever. I have used, ATI, ASUS, Intel, BFG, ECG, OCZ and other small time local companies. Personally, have seen on internet awful stories about most of the companies (big time companies like Asus too has not been spared), with users warning others, that hey “blabla company sucks never buy any of their products”.
So, until if I ever get a chance to use EVGA product, will update this blog post sharing my experience and how the packaging shipping and what not was handled. Most companies like Gigabyte and DFI are taking over the market with good workmanship standards, kicking companies like Asus out of the picture, so who is bad and who is good is a relative term and depends entirely upon the reviews and views posted by on the web, be it good or bad. And remember users mostly post about their worse experiences to vent out their frustrations. So, if you see 200 people saying bad things about EVGA or other products, try to find out how many actually said anything about the same product, before you buy a product.
And remember electronic components do not last for forever (thing is nothing lasts for forever), my AT&T phone is an exceptional case been with me since 1993 !!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 12:09 am and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.