Death of my G73JW

After receiving a new RMA for my definitely non-functional Ethernet port, I'll be shipping my system out for repair once more tonight, dear friends. But, lo, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Asus tech support, I shall fear no evil. For, I say unto you, all of you whom have bought your systems via an authorized Asus reseller, let them handle the RMA process for you and life will be easier! I am not angry as I send my machine in again, but feel as if a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Ken from GenTech not only spoke directly to Asus in Fremont for me (ensuring I could avoid Indiana), but was also able to get a confirmation from them that they had the parts in stock my system needs before I send the system in. And they've been reserved for my RMA! Simply knowing that I won't have to wait several weeks for my JW to return is such a relief. This is what customer service should be like and I am so very appreciative of GenTech and every dealer who cares this much for their customers! Somehow, I can't imagine Best Buy's Geek Squad doing anything of the sort for people (but please let us know if it happens so they get the credit they deserve). On top of the Ethernet replacement, I'm getting my screen exchanged to hopefully rid myself of the halo of light bleed around its perimeter (which wasn't there pre-Indiana RMA). Perhaps the halo was a gift to show I've had the patience of a saint dealing with this...

I find it fitting that Star Trek V came on tv the past couple of nights as Scotty perfectly summed up the JW's return from its last RMA:

"'Let's see what she's got,' said the captain. And then we found out, didn't we?"

The Excelsior's failure to go to warp in Star Trek III would be apt, as well. Or, for the Star Wars fans, Han crying "It's not my fault" as the Millennium Falcon fails to make the jump to light speed.

 

Too bad they can't just send you a new LAN board. It's just unscrewing one screw and plugging it in if that is the only problem. Everytime you send it in it may or may come back not looking as it should inside depending on the tech who works on it. Not to mention the weeks or months they may have it.

 

The Wireless LAN is just one screw to take out and replace. But the wired ethernet LAN port on the left side of the system requires complete disassembly of the unit.

 

The system is en route to Fremont now and should arrive there on Tues or Wed afternoon, according to my tracking info. Hopefully I'll have it back ikn my hands (and fully working) the following week!

 

Your insane story of RMA hell was a read, and then some. As the beginning of the week arrives, do you have any word of your machine?

 

Oh man, reading through this thread... I'm headed the same direction.

My G73JH is doing the same thing as your OP Ninjak, and I just sent it to Asus Indy... My fears start now.

On the upside, if Asus Indy really fails, I'll just send back to Asus Corp and tell them to fix, they did a great job with my touchpad. But it's sad yet to stay, I've owned this laptop for about 7 months and I've already RMA'ed it twice. Is a third time Lemon Policy?

 

When I checked the tracking number a couple of hours ago, my system was in Oakland, CA, so it looks like it'll be getting to Asus in Fremont tomorrow as FedEx originally predicted. Hopefully it won't take more than a day for it to be listed as received in their RMA system. Then maybe a week before it's on its way back to me.

cohowap, I sincerely hope your system is returned to you in a timely manner. I know it sucks to endure such a wait. I'm additionally annoyed by the fact that, since I've had my system for such a short amount of time that I probably could have held out for a G73SW.

Unfortunately, I don't believe Asus has any sort of lemon clause with its repairs. I'm pretty sure I've seen people in the forums here who have RMA'ed their systems five or more times. It'll likely depend on whom you speak to or if a reseller can handle your RMA to determine what Asus will do for you. Kind of like working with Verizon cell support here. Their policy is to replace your problematic phone with an identical refurbished one repeatedly until the end of your contract, but if you speak to the right sales rep, they'll let you get a new one or a different phone entirely. Personally, I'm not intending to ship my G73 out to Asus multiple times in that manner. Should anything else major happen to the system in the course of typical reasonable usage, I'm going to see if I can get a brand new full replacement. Ideally, the system will just work the way it should.

 

FedEx shows my JW as having been delivered to Asus a few hours ago. Now to see how long it takes to come back since my parts are in stock. After I see how long it takes for Asus to check the laptop into its RMA system as received in the first place.

 

I bought it from GenTechPC back in mid September. Ken's taking great care of me over there is handling the RMA for me personally this time, so I'm expecting a vastly better result than when I last dealt with Asus myself. He called Asus HQ in Fremont, told them the nonsense I endured last time, and confirmed they had parts in stock for me. I couldn't ask for better support.

 

Update! An Asus tech called me from Fremont a few hours ago during my commute home to let me know that my motherboard has been replaced and the system is ready to ship back to me! Now that's a fast turnaround. He did check out my screen but said the bit of light bleed looks comparable to other G73 systems he compared it to over there, so he didn't think it was worth switching out, but offered to check the internal connections. Since I'm sure those were fine (and it's not as if the bleed looked bad anyway), I told him to just go ahead and ship it back. So, I'm guessing I should have my system back in-hand on Friday or Monday, depending if they were able to get it shipped back out today or not. Tuesday at the latest.

 

I hope everything goes well... :S

 

I see that your karma has made a drastic turnaround since your last RMA. You must have donated some money to the Red Cross or perhaps purchased a lot of Girl Scout Cookies or something?

 

Hm, maybe I just can't buy rubberized things. I bought the new Linksys E4200 router which was just released on Tuesday. New design, slick rubberized coating, eliminates dead zones, and dual radio. Was excited until I found the 5ghz radio to be completely dead out of the box and now I have to go exchange it...but only one of the Best Buys near me still has it in stock. And this was after having to exchange three Droid phones months ago. lol.

 

You have serious FAIL issues

 

Yeah, scarier that I'm a systems admin.

 

You just have to go to these companies and tell them that you'll torture test their products. If you can't kill it in a month, then it's good .

 

Might not be a bad idea. I exchanged routers at another Best Buy store and that one had the exact same defect. Even Linksys support was surprised. Hopefully, like my incoming G73 with yet another new mobo, third time'll be the charm for this router. At least the G73 should be back soon.

 

My G73JW has returned quickly this time, arriving back home on Monday afternoon. Asus double-boxed it (thankfully, since the outer box got punctured) and packed it nicely with styrofoam peanuts. So far, everything appears in order, the ethernet port on this new motherboard works, and the system maintained an 80 C average temp during a quick 40-minute Furmark run. Once again, my OS partition was left untouched, but I'm going to perform a clean install in the next few days. Hopefully this is the end of the long saga.

 

Well, Atlast you got what you want.

 

I'll be content with peace of mind and a chance to finally enjoy my system.

 

Yep, for both of us, though your saga was much longer than my month and a half, and I did get a brand new N71JQ.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...r-theyve-had-my-computer-month-already-4.html

 

The system is, thus far, still happy following a Win7 clean install and it handled five passes of IntelBurnTest v2.5 at maximum. Next step is to get some actual gaming done on it.