ASUS quality: Below expectations?

A main issue is that the whole idea of ASUS "quality" and "reliability" is pumped up in reviews and in these forums mostly by resellers. Fanboys voice their opinions much louder than the real customers.

I trusted the resellers and first reviewers who received the v1s-a1 and lauded its great design and build quality. I feel cheated and lied to.

I get flamed whenever I bring this up, but to call my problem "isolated" and individual makes zero sense. The actual plastic material used to build the laptop is completely wrong and is flimsier than Dell's cheapest material. It's possible that my laptop was the only one glued together by a monkey, but I paid almost $2k for it.

 

Yeah, I remember that issue with the G1S. I think that it is "only" a driver problem though... (I think people have solved it by using the audio manufacturer's drivers) I'm not sure it has been solved by recent ASUS drivers, if not then it shows the slow (or zero) speed with which ASUS releases driver updates.

About your V1S problem, I don't think it has been confirmed as a repeated issue. So it's not really a recurring problem, it's more likely to be a one-time thing that happened to you. Same with the F3F issue (except if it's the Dual Core CPU whine, which is a repeated issue, but it's not an ASUS-specific thing, happens with some Dual Core machines from every brand).

The purpose of this thread is not to keep a record of all the one-shot problems that ASUS owners have; rather, one of its goals is to identify the recurring problems with repeated, confirmed instances, which imply design faults.

Well, opinions on the V1S build quality differ. I've seen people that are completely disappointed (like you), and others who are quite happy with it. I'm not sure we can make a definitive judgment in this direction.

 

Unlucky me!

If you had to choose between the V1S-B1 and the Dell XPS M1530 what would you pick?

They are both in the same price range and display the same price and technology excepted that the Dell has a "true" DDR3 G8600GT and is about 500g lighter...

 

This is offtopic but I would probably go for the Dell (due mainly to the batt issues of V, the Dell XPS line also seems to have some quality control issues...)

 

Excellent overview on the last page there, EBE! I would add that one more issue contributing to the situation is that Asus' earlier customers, who expect a high-end top quality notebook, have influenced the forums so that on average, Asus customers have higher expectations of their notebooks than customers of most other brands. In consequence, even minor problems are sometimes viewed as intolerable, whereas such things would not even be considered by customers of other brand notebooks.

 

That's correct to a certain extent. I'm pretty sure for instance that a typical customer (of other brands OR ASUS) would not even realize that the battery wear problem exists. They would see that after 1-2 months the batt is dead, they would replace it from warranty, and think no more about it. However, more "tinkering" customers such as ASUS seems to get (I'm sure other brands get them as well, perhaps only to a lesser extent) WILL find this sort of problems.

This is more or less the point of all the people with complaints: they have come to expect more from ASUS (from reviews or personal experience, doesn't matter) than ASUS seems to offer lately. That is part of the reason for which I renamed the thread as it's called now. We have not made a clear, objective comparison with other brands (not yet at least).

Also, such serious problems as the chassis cracking cannot be written off as above-average demands of ASUS customers with high expectations...

 

I don't know if it makes much sens to compare Asus with other brands since they are probably all as bad.

The fact is that several of us are stuck with faulty laptop that have been sold for high-end products. The way of taking care of this type of situation by Asus is not good. Perhaps other brands would not respond very well either, it's not the question. Asus propose to "fix" the laptop, replacing parts until the warranty expires and may "offer" a new unit after 3 inneficient repairs.

When I give away nearly 2000$ for a laptop, yes my expectations are high for the product and also for the support and especially if I picked the wrong faulty unit. And I am one or two weeks more without laptop and it's a real pain for work...

I agree more with the idea that you mentionned above saying that these days the quality of electronics is going down and this is the responsability of the end consumer to assume this with his money and his time. I hate that.

 

Bah, still haven't gotten my RMA #...I'll have to call Asus back!

 

Yeah, I agree with this. Probably if you look deep enough you can find points to complain about every brand, and comparing them can't lead to a very useful outcome. It's better to focus discussing ASUS.

 

Woho! I sent in my laptop last thursday and I've already got it back. Nice, they beat the standard 1-week expected repair time. However, apparently they just replaced my screen (Which has no dead/stuck pixels that I could tell), the LCD cable, as well as the case itself. They didn't replace it as I would have though since this is my 3rd time sending it in? I mean, all the work they put on it seems as if they should have just given me a new one lol...after all they pretty much did. Weird.

 

Also, another thing...while they claimed to have redone the Top and Bottom part of the case (It smells like new plastic so at least the bottom part is new), the top part still has the creaking problem I complained about when I sent it in? I'm wondering why they didn't fix this part?

 

I don't know

As to why replacing almost the entire NB using parts, instead of a complete replacement: I think the logistiscs/paperwork are more difficult for them when they replace an entire notebook. So they prefer to replace all the stuff (perhaps several times around) even though in the end it costs the company maybe double or triple the cost of a new computer.

 

That's a weird policy...

 

Well, it's only what I think. But as repair technicians I think they just want to get rid of the machines with as little hassle as possible. As to what that costs the company... who cares.

 

Heh...I don't know if that sounds like the best way to treat your customer's property though. Especially since they're supposed to be taking care of you and all.

 

i have to quickly add that I bought one of the first A8JS's available, and part of my fan seems to be broken (at least, there is something inside that is jiggling around) and the top exterior of my machine has cracks. The one on the left top is significant, to the point that the left cover from the side has cracks and is separating. I'm trying to figure out how to get this fixed, but I'm pretty disappointed..

For what it's worth, the machine runs fine still, the screen is fine (so far,although the crack is going to have its effect soon). machine was taken care of, and the hinge issue -- I've seen a lot about it. other than never ever closing and opening the lid, i don't see what I could have done to prevent it.

 

Since the problem with the lack of quality of the plastics and hinges was already known on previous A8 models, I don't understand why Asus took so long to correct it. My only explanation is that bought/made supply contracts well in advance and a change would cost them dearly. Solution: do not interrupt the production of the laptops, and if consumers have problems just change the faulty components. Since, there is always a percentage of consumers that don't care and/or which will not be affected by these problems their losses are bound to be small on the total sales of the product.

Edit: either that, or they really don't care about the customers.

 

yeah, i remember reading about the hinge problem when I bought my A8js, but i figured they would have fixed the problem, considering how it had been known about the previous a8j (a8jms?) for quite a long time. Unfortunately not. I contacted tech support today and I have to send in my machine, free of charge. It's only unfortunate because I'm a law student and we depend heavily on our laptops, so it's inconvenient but I suppose I have to deal with it.

 

I will NEVER buy another ASUS. I purchased the z70va after they were supposed to have corrected their screen problems. My screen was dark, it started to flicker on and of within 6 months and I have had all kinds of problems with it. I basically use it to watch DVDs now with an external monitor from Dell. On another thread I just started asking for help, the ASUS suddenly stopped being able to make any internet connection through any means including dial-up. It then started to hang when shutting down. The only thing that happened just before that was that Adobe downloaded an update. I tried a system restore to before the Adobe update (I had already tried uninstalling Adobe completely -- it did not good) and now I am stuck with a machine that Windows won't even load on.

I do not like the fact that there is absolutely no tech support -- if I had known that from the start I would never have bought.

I bought at the same time, a mid- range HP. I have not had a single problem with it in the 2 years I've had it. I called tech support once a while back for something and they immediately troubleshooted it.

As far as I am concerned, ASUS is a loser.

 

Well, you struck out buying one of their other laptops.... I'd stick with buying more mainstream Asus laptops like the F3 (or M5), F8, etc.... The Z series ones just seem old and well crap to me.

 

I have the M6 which is the ensemble-correspondent of Z70 and it has proven excellent in my experience... so I don't know your might've been a lemon, or maybe the Z70 had problems the M6 did not

I don't think ASUS (or any other manufacturer) is much into fixing problems, unless it would cost them a lot not to fix them.

 

Hi Guys...
My 2 cents

I've had a Asus F3JA for 15 months and zero problems except maybe I find moving my screen backward an forward is getting quite stiff an when I plug in my headphones my laptop speakers (Horrible speakers) don't mute, so when my son's laptop which he uses in school went to digital heaven I told my wife "No problem ) I'll buy a new one an he can have my old one)...hehe It worked....an I bought a new Asus V1S....Now I´m starting to get nervous eventhough my mates at sea have mostly Acer an Toshiba an they have had countless problems with their graphic cards and with Acer IMPOSSIBLE to dual boot their machines with Xp Pro (most of them sold with Vista Home and 512mb-1gb memory) while me an 2 other have almost NO problems with our Asus laptops. Personally I think that under mass production almost all companies are cutting down on cost. Well I paid around $3000 for my laptop an I sure as hell hope I didn't buy a lemon cause after buying 6 AMD mobo's an 1 laptop eventhough I've had almost no problems I think that Asus support sucks and I think they are producing far to many laptop an mobo's as they seem to stop supporting their products with drivers the day before they release them...Have a god one guys

 

Seriously, i've read several other forums and many many people complain about the quality of Asus products.. Man..When i was buying this laptop i had confidence in this brand. From what i heard from people, friends, computer review web sites all were saying Asus is trustworthy brand.

But 2 months ago i bought Asus F3Sa laptop. It was working perfectly and everything but 1 day(4 days ago) when i would turn it on it would simply display black screen. I can hear that power is on and everything but screen is black and cant do anything. And that's only after 2 month of work...Almost brand new.. And from reading i've done- most of other people's laptop broke basically within 1-3 month of working.. WTF Asus..

They also have horrible Tech support. The guys there are awfully angry and dont know anything but tell you to take out whatever you replaced or send it to them. I think the reason they're mad b/c too many people have problems w/ their products and their Tech line is super busy with all those people calling..I also was wondering how long it'll take them to repair my laptop? Some people said it took them 2 month...

Srry for wall of text

 

So the first thing you do is post a "POS" thread, as your 1st post?

No, help questions, nada. Enjoy your flame. For all we know you threw it around treated it poorly so on and so forth.

You do know how warranties work right?

These type of posts are becoming ridiculous.

 

Let me state something: No matter where you go, people will complain. Okay? Do you know why people aren't saying how great anyone is? It's because they're having too much damn fun with the thing. So you can go buy the greatest computer in the world, and someone will find fault with it. It's almost become human nature, we need to be spoon fed. And do you know why those people didn't get good service? They didn't stick up for themselves or they were rude. The company does what they can, and we always expect better.

 

Actually i took really good care of it. Would never leave it on for whole night, never dropped, never spilled anything on it. I was taking perfect care of it.

2Crimsonman: I was very polite with them, actually. Even after the guy was talking to me in anger...

Yes this post is to flame Asus and express my discontent with them despite my ideal care of laptop etc. Also, i asked question there to see how long it took for other people to get their computers back from service.

 

There is no perfect product out there, everything has multiple views, thus exponential possiblity for dislike and failure. I love my Asus and feel it is a fine warrior. While I may not appreciate some things that are present or occur, in time each item will have an Achilles' heel. The Asus support (since I bought it off Newegg) has been great for me so far, I had one issue, called and the guy was quick with me, but got the issued fixed considerably faster than my marathons with Dell have been, but right there is a difference.

Something you will have to live with is sending in your laptop. I did it with my acer and it was not fun, but fixed the issue at hand. While I will do everything in my arsenal to not have to send in my laptop, if it has to be done, you have to accept they cannot ship their tech's to you.

 

Regarding your black screen problem..... have you tried plugging your laptop to an external monitor? Most likely it's your connection from your mobo to your screen has come loose.
Also, as a side note, none of my asus notebooks ever broke down within 1-3 months of purchase. As a matter of fact, none of them ever broke down (touch wood).

 

So you said you researched that it had problems but heard it was trustworthy from other people? So basically it was a bit of a mixed bag? Yeah that's actually most computer companies these days. My Asus has been pretty bulletproof except for being shipped with an inadequate/fault PSU but that didn't damage anything permanently. But with every company you get some that work and some that don't. Plenty of dell's have suddenly died, HP products give me nothing but headaches but others can seem to sue them for years without a hitch. I always find myself giving friends with Acer computers tech support advice yet that brand keeps going so obviously not all of them grenade. Really I've seen that Asus' failure rate is actually below average. We are just more likely to post problems here becasue the knowledge level of an Asus owner is typically higher than a dell owner or an HP owner and most definitely higher than a dedicated Apple owner (burn!) .

May I inquire as to which reseller you went through? That makes a huge difference in tech support and getting warranty claims filed. I got my C90 through Gentech and they are very fast, helpful, supportive, and knowledgable. Depending on which reseller you went through, you might even be able to ask them for tech support and they will deal with Asus for you.

 

@Shadowz777

i agree totally with you. I did the same, like you, surfing in some forums.
Asus have always modern Components, that shines on advertisings and works on young users.
But poor build quality!
You have always a big channce to send your Asus to
repair, twice!! within two years!
No reliability!
And that is never mentionend in any review!

kind regards

 

Hi, this type of threads is being posted once every few weeks and very much of the info and arguments are repeated, so I won't read in detail. Instead, I will give some references and try to address the problem.

First of all, for background on ASUS quality issues please check this post: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2950778#post2950778

Secondly, for the black screen, please look here for a few troubleshooting steps:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3020173#post

If you are not able to start the computer with those, your motherboard is probably bad and you have to send it in for repairs. Sorry about that, that's life. Things break down sometimes.

Thirdly, the F3 is shall we say not the ASUS product with the most stellar quality... In fact some variants have some severe build quality issues... (see the F3 chassis crack thread)

Finally, let's keep the discussion civil. I'm not saying that it isn't now, but this type of thread has the habit of degenerating, so let's prevent that. Thanks.

In fact, I will merge this thread into the old ASUS Quality thread, since it fits perfectly there. Edit: done.

 

I have my 1st and the last ASUS laptop Z63A. Palmrest dicolored within 3 months of use and the battery worn out just past one year, HDD died after 1-1/2 year and the S/N printed at the back of Z63A faded away within 3 months so virtually after 3 months' of use, I was already out of warranty. I have IBM Thinkpad A21M, still in use and no problems after 6 years. I have Dell D400, still in use and no problems after 4 years, I have Compaq X1000 still in use (after 3 years) but the touchpad now did not work, I use a notebook mouse. I have Gateway MT3707, still in perfect conditions (except Windows Vista) after 9 months.

 

overseas customers have high expectations while clearly ALL overseas service centers suck. In the USA asus is the leader in turn around and service. that is a fact

 

Really And can you name other brands that are excluded from biased end user reviews such as your from buyers who had a bad experience? Fact is asus is like any other. They differ because of the quality and aesthetics they can produce that none other can touch. they do not differ because all their customers are happy. on the contrary like any other brand they have customers who hate them

 

Uh... let's not go into over-generalizations again. Netherlands service is excellent although turnaround is not, they need to wait for parts from Taiwan typically. Still it's never on the order of months (1-2 weeks typically under warranty).

 

Justitia
You purchased from proportable who pretty much closed their doors. You did not get support because you purchased a barebone with DEALER warranty ONLY. Blame proportable then blame your self for not buying from My self or ken both of whom were around when Justin was, Had you done that you would be receiving the support you require.

 

ebe that is my point. in the states their typical turn around is a few days. i have seen once where it took them two weeks. As a dealer we have numerous rma to them weekly. I am not defending asus, Infact i despise the way management handled their growth. I can sit here and $hit on them all day long and expose a series of events that show how management mishandled the company. I will defent their service and support in the states. Dealing with many service providers I know their service, turn around and attention to detail is above and beyond given that they include their top notch warranty for free. Is it perfect? far from it, but it shames all theri competitors home warranty

 

What I meant was that saying that ASUS service sucks everywhere outside US, was an over-generalization that is incorrect.

 

Let me rephrase that. Asus service outside the usa sucks compared to asus service in the usa, Is that more acurate?

 

You need to correct that phrase entirely, here in Canada it's a 2-5 day turnaround service just like the USA. I had issues with my W3V prior to this, and I had it fixed within the same day at their ASUS Canada Markham Service Center location, and they had a nice office customer lounge as well.

I also have reason to believe that the Asian areas(ie; Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong) would also have similar customer service levels as the US.

 

hi,

the problem is not, how they repair, yet how often they had to repair and how frustrated a customer can be in this situation. At least in Germany.

Look at Dells, Lenovos or Apple and maybe HP (Professionel Line) customers they´re satisfied with product and
service.
Most custumer satisfaction polls and forum threads (deluxx forum, here!) show this. That´s objektive.
The amount of complaints, regarding of built quality, heat dissipation and service from Asus is also well known in germany. ( http://www.forumdeluxx.de/forum/; http://www.asusforum.encke.net/ (german)).
And why is just the Asus main thread, ladvertising: Rock Solid???
Why not the lenovo, or Dell thread? User misleading?


kind regards

 

agoothelf
Asus rma is not high. Not any higher then dell or hp. On the contrary actually asus rma rate is industry low, so is their return rate and so is their volume in the retail chain. Asus inherently has a high level of picky customers who have higher expectations. Compared to dell or hp asus has a much higher % of of picky customers. Also alot of their customers come from this forum and other forums. So it is likely they will go back to the forums for help. Unlike dell or hp asus customers make their voice heard on forums. Customers who pay more for better and more unique product. That makes them very picky. Asus #1 problem is the lack of support. Lack of support in terms of drivers and knowledge base. their products are absolutely top notch. that does not mean they are exempt from inherent defects. I dont have to look at dell or hp I already do as our main business is repair.

 

Well, Dell 's customers are picky too , that's why choose a dell to customize it.

With HP you can also customize some models but you cannot have higher resolution LCD option or high power GPU.

HP does not even offer high power GPU for its high end 17inch so called multimedia laptops(Dell offers NV8800GTS for its XPS 17xx line models). It seems like that all HP business model have low resolution LCDs, and as with the case of weak GPU, we do not have any other choice here either.

So they are not in the same league.

I will take a Latitude D630 any day over any of HP business note books if it is available here.

but I agree ASUS' customers are more demanding and picky, so ASUS has tough time dealing with them.

I think ASUS warranty and insurance plan is excellent.

ASUS gives 2 year international warranty with 2 year accidental damage plan .................it is simply unbeatable, nobody else offers like this here in Thailand.

 

Dont get me wrong, HPs are good for average users who are not interested in particular things like gaming or encoding videos or some long battery life required work.

But for a gamer or video editor , it is not the best.

I think Dell is the best for demanding people but it is not available here.

 

Starting in 2005 we began offering all asus notebooks with an accidental warranty and dead pixel protection. A year later asus cought on and started offering it for free. Now dont get me wrong this was a great idea (even though it killed off our service warranty business on all their prebuilt models). It made perfect sense for them becuase we found that 1 in 2 cusomers wanted to pay use for some type of dp or adp policy. We used to charge for it but now they offer it for free. This gives you an insight into the type of customers asus deals with. With dell maybe one in ten would even care about dp or adp (they have a huge number of average home users). With asus it was one in two for us. Asus has to deal with the pickiest customers out of all the brands. The highest rma they have is from battery wear, noise, fan activity, light leekage, dead pixels, and an array of other issues that do not make the top rma list for dell and hp. look at asus section on this forum vs lenovo or hp or dell. asus is easy #2 or #3 most popular forum here. However they are the least popular in terms of volume. hp, acer, dell, lenovo, apple, sony, toshiba, have much higher volume then asus in terms of retail sales. The connection is asus is huge on the forums. A vast number of people are referred to them on the forums. Not sure why they dont capitalize on this. But this would explain why the asus forum is so active and why no inherent issue doesnt go uncovered. If every other dell customer who has a hint of "enthusiasm" about the product was here then dell would develop the worst rep by far around these parts. Same goes for toshiba, averatek and sony.

 

hi Geared2play.com,

you have a good insight, as a retailer, what is going on with your
customers.
But when you say ""he highest rma they (Asus) have is from battery wear, noise, fan activity, light leekage, dead pixels, and an array of other issues that do not make the top rma list for dell and hp"

It´seems clear, that potential users (reaching their wisdome from Forums like this) wants to be sure their modell is free from problems like dead Pixels.

I´m a survey specialist and opinion researcher. My view is a more complex, cause i am able to tie different hard(Sell) and mind (Opion) factors to one index.

Geared2play.com: "Not sure why they dont capitalize on this"??

That´s why Asus user are mostly young and the amount of interest and problems with Hard-Software or Services on Asus models is high.

Let´s be fair, Asus is able to differentiate their Users into some, who are totally satisfied, especially, when their book is new and some others, who have recognised Problems regarding Drivers, Hardware, Service.
Second not all Models habe the same Problems.
Look at the cooling system on Asus Models show you better if you have an Gaming Book like G2, or like F3 X50 and M50 the cooling system looks cheap and will get warm during excessive hours long playing.
But you can´t open a laptop before buying.

 

Well , I fully agree with you on the different kind of customers that they deal with and the ASUS accidental damage plan is great.

But my point is Dell and HP are not the same kind of companies.

Dell tries to sell its computers to people who actually want to customize and optimize all for what they like to do, while HP tres to attract people who are mostlikely buying off theirs from best buys or circuitcity.

So Dell offers WSXGA+ for its 14.1 offerings while HP only offers WXGA.

That said , I like HP better than Dell now because Dell does not do business in Thailand .

 

Oh I forgot to mention in Asia , HP and Acer also provide free insurance plan for 1 year , but ASUS gives us 2year version of it so it is better and still the best AFAIK.

 

I will tell you a few things that end users who do not have a degree in engineered should steer clear of talking about
Cooling Systems. Unless a person is in the business of repairing notebooks, testing notebooks, or designing notebook for a living they should not and can not distinguish between cood cooling and bad cooling. Your notebook should get warm and will get warm. the thinner it is and the more exotic materials used (aluminum, magnesium, carbon) the hotter it will get outside. A 100% plastic notebook will be thincker and remain cooler outside as well

Again i just want to mention. Asus has LOW rma. With just a fe technicians in a normal shift they can run an entire service center. THat will change as they are starting to grow and expand. As the quality and target changes they will need to hire more techs. THeir rma for motherboard defects are an industry LOW not high. THat can not be said for the rest. THe rest doesnt even make their own motherboards.

As for the changing demographics for them. It is partially due to the canging forum. I have been here when the number of active users on the asus forum was under 20 any given time. now it reaches 150 at times. back then most of the audience were older pros. Now it is younger college students. Asus did a bad job of keeping their business customers. THey did a horrible job of reaching new business customers. THey still have no presence in schools or governement. They new new management and new marketing. people with new ideas. their product and quality is top notch. Everything else brings their name brand down. The lack of marketing is apauling.

 

I think ASUS is doing fine,seriously no company provides better insurance plan than the ASUS one.

also, they can also choose type of users they want to get as their end-user...........no need to get a business , a government or a school to be a serious computer company.

they have many fanatic fans of their computers and mother boards , so it is not a problem not to get a business as their main customer.

all companies have different target market and so they do not need to go fight field of Dell or Lenovo , dont you think?

and who makes the best mother boards?