ASUS Z70VA (M6VA) GPU Fan Failure

The GPU fan in my Z70VA has failed and I cannot obtain a spare anywhere?!

I have contacted ASUS and they say that they wont sell me the spare part and will not support my laptop because it is an OEM (in otherwords it was a barebone system that my reseller built for me).

I believed ASUS notebooks to be a good choice and now they are implying that my notebook which is just > 1 year old is a write off.

Anybody else have similar poor quality support from ASUS?

 

The pooor support comes from your reseller. Asus is not responsible to support you for the z70va. They are recently starting to do this. I think its a blessing becuase its just annoying to be bundled in with the rest of their resellers on their where to buy page who dont care and dont want to care for theo laptops they sell after they sold them. I think its a smart move on their behalf. There are very few vendors left that have full service bofore and after the warranty expires. Who was your resellers and why dont they help you? On a side note. how can your z70va be 1 year old it was only released last september!!!

 

Eddie, you are in fact correct, the laptop is less than a year old, my mistake.

That aside, it was purchased from Agear in the US and im in the UK so it would definetly be preferable for me to get the fan and fit it myself rather than having to pay shipping, wait 3 weeks and risk damage in transit. I am a qualified hardware engineer and it is a very simple job.

My basic point is that, reseller aside, why can I not obtain such simple replacement parts as I have previously done for other laptop manufacturers?

I have contacted Agear but I cant imagine they would hold GPU fans as they are part of what is essentially the barebone assembly, Agear simply fitted the CPU and memory I specified.

 

Ditto Eddie.....

Asus isn't responsible one bit for direct support to your notebook........ period. The 1 year barebone warranty comes from Asus to the original system builder who purchased it and purchased it through distribution.... if you buy a barebone from a dealer it doesn't mean you get the 1 year warranty through Asus. That warranty helps the dealer help you, but it's to them and not you. It makes me sick that people don't understand this and then they get pissed off becasue they think Asus is screwing them when in fact it's a no good dealer who refuses to help.

In your situation, you're not going to change the fan on the graphics processor yourself without voiding your warranty anyway as the entire motherboard would need to come out of the system to replace it. At the same time, how do you know it's bad? It's controlled by sensors and I've never actually seen them fail.... so this would be rather odd to begin with. With that said, anything is possible but we've seen blocked fan which can ruin a system and that would be the customers fault......... if the fan just stopped, then the system shouldn't really work and your dealer should be able to replace the fan..... legally they should be required to do it and Asus should be responsible for paying for that replacement for the dealer. If the system is fried because that failed, you're into another problem altogether..... and it's hard to say which happened first and why, but it needs to be done. The the gpu failed becasue of a blocked vent, voided warranty and it's all your fault....... if it failed because the fan just stopped working, that's a warranty issue all by itself. Both are easy to prove... so good luck with that..

 

Jones,

Your Z70va is essentially not an Asus Z70va... it is an Agear Z70va... All barebone notebooks built by any dealer become the brand of that dealer and their responsibility entirely. It's like having an Asus motherboard in an alienware desktop.... you don't call Asus for a replacement motherboard and if you did they'd laugh at you and hang on. Some might call that horrible support.... and yet you're looking in entirely the wrong place....... but regardless of what they did, Asus doesn't have a single connection to you, whatsoever...... and they will not ship out parts like that even if you pay for them because it would void the warranty if you did it yourself and if they gave you that part, you could replace it and then go back to the dealer and tell them you have a problem with your laptop and they need to fix it............ but they'll never know that you already cracked it open and replaced the fan, so figuring out why the gpu died is going to be mind boggling..

 

a) I am not talking about warranty, I want to buy a spare part.
b) The fan is seized solid so I think we can safely assume it is broken.

Im not wanting to start a big argument here about warranty responsibility, all I want to do is buy the replacement fan, I really dont care about the warranty. This is a spare part sourcing issue.

 

We do. We stock atleast 5 barebones of the z70va for parts only. Most of the parts are revolving in other words they go in and out. We send them to customers and customers send them back then we send em to asus. Its a simple service even if they dont stock the part you need they can obtain it for you. They are within their legal right to void your warranty if you request this part from them. We do not allow self service like this. You have a special situation being in the uk so i would aprove it in your case but i wouldnt have to deal with it becuase i decline 99 out of 100 requests for overseas shipping. Agear is within their right to decline to sell you this part but then again you do have somewhat of a problem being in the UK, You have to talk to them

 

This is the first time i have seen a gpu fan fail on a z70v/a. I have seen it twice on a z71v. You sure your gpu radiator is not just clogged. i have seen that many many times already. Happens after about half year of continuous operation. Actually happens to most laptops this way. Depends on the radiator construction

 

Sadly the fan is definetly dead, it is totally seized up. All the radiator vents are totally clear.

I have been running the Vista betas and they make the GPU fan work much harder with Aero Glass enabled.

So Eddie will you sell me a GPU fan!!? name your price!

 

I wish it was that simple. Between customs forms shipping charges and Just the fact that this will take about an hour to dismantle the barebones we have on hand to take one out it will cost well over 100$ just for a simple fan. The problem you are facing is that it may not be the fan. It may be the capacitor on the motherboard that fried as i have seen on other models. If you think you can dismantle this unit i would urge you to do that and test the fan in the cpu faqn outlet. Not 100% sure but i think the socket is the same if not you can always jerry rig it. Make sure the fan is infact the problem here before you buy a replacement. I was not pitching you into a fan just giving advice. I doubt i will be able to aprove your order. My good nature backfired in the past and now the only parts we do sell can be found here on our site under accessories. I think shipping the notebook to agear is not a bad deal if they agree to fix it for free.

 

...Could also do with buying the Bluetooth module if you sell that?

 

Ok, thanks anyways Eddie.

I hooked the fan up to my test rig and it is definetly seized. I checked the power on the motherboard connector and it's fine.

I guess I will have to re-assemble and ship it :-(

 

I really think its best. Just hope that agear does the service them selves. If they dont then they send it to asus. Its not a bad thing but lets just say there is a chance they may send it back the same way they got it. Just like any other manufacturer the attention to detail is only as good as the detailer. Talk to agear make sure they test the fan before they return it to you which will most likely be your expense too. I dont know why you guys in Britain buy from the states. The warranty problems make the price not very appealing

 

I lived in the US (LA) at the time and have since moved to the UK

 

im curious how does ASUS/retailer deal with an ensemble unit that someone buys from North America and then goes to the UK and it breaksdown, what happens? Can the person send it to ASUS UK because its an ensemble unit?

Can you shed some light on this. Just wanna make sure for the future

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

You must ship to the US to your reseller.

 

Ensembles have a global warranty normaly. You just send to the asus repair center whatever country you are in. The reseller doesnt have ensemble warrantys at all.

 

Ok, now im confused.

Does this mean I can send my Z70VA to any ASUS repair center? rather than my reseller?

 

No, the Z70Va in NA is a Built-On Asus model (barebone) that really aren't suppose to be 'Asus' laptops. They should be reseller branded laptops and the reseller handles warranty servicing (but most resellers will just ship back to Asus for repairs which is probably what confuses most people).

SRD and MysticGolem are talking about Ensemble models, which are fully branded and sold as Asus systems and Asus provides support.

Would Asus UK be willing to sell you the fan if you disclosed to Agear and Asus NA that your Built-On warranty is now void because of fully dissassembling and servicing the laptop yourself? Because that's the only reason I can see why Asus UK wouldn't simply treat your case like out-of-warranty and let you pay for parts/repairs.

 

Ah I understand.

Re: the out-of-warranty spares, ASUS stated that they would not sell me spares and that I had to go through a UK dealer. I rang every UK dealer and not a single one would sell me spares...totally stuck.

Went back to ASUS UK and they said there was nothing more they could do.

 

Well that certainly sucks. Seems like even Asus notebook owners who purchased in the UK would be screwed then when their warranty runs out and they need parts?

Back in the US and Canada, Asus has set up an Estore that sells spare parts, but they don't ship internationally and as of right now they don't have fans listed for sale for the Z70Va.

 

I just contacted ASUS, they are going to add the cooling assembly on the estore website for me woohoo!

ASUS UK completely sucks.

ASUS US completely rocks.

 

Nice! I might get another fan myself, the one I have currently doesn't slow down as much as other people have reported with the use of Speedfan and I'd like to quiet mine down as much as possible.

It sounds like Aero Glass is going to be pretty GPU intensive, wonder how that will affect battery lives when the GPU is gonna be under some load even when doing light tasks.

 

This assembly is now listed on the estore website.