Asus F3: crack in palmrest at keyboard corner

After reding this thread Im now scared to take this laptop out . Just one question Ive got an f3sg (newer version I think) and want to know if its using the same chassis as the f3sv.

 

I don't know. Without further info, it's equally likely that

a) they used the same chassis
or b) they fixed the problem in the newer version, since they knew about if for quite a while.

Given ASUS' history of ignoring enduser problems though, maybe a) is more likely. Who knows. Just be careful with it, don't pick it up from corners etc. and if it develops the crack have it serviced (but NOT in the UK )

 

Thanks for the heads up E.B.E Ill definately keep those advice in mind as for UK service, I should be safe hopefully Australia's service wont be as bad as the UK .

 

I havent pulled anyone down on here, only the company Asus.

--------
update

Im glad i found this tread, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=232364

these people will never use Asus again.

Looks like im not the only one that think Asus are the worse company in the world.
----
I was told that my smashed laptop will be repaired and i will be compensated, hahahahaha. biggest joke ive ever heard. Im still waiting for compensation email from Holland. A-novo uk now know they are the biggest cowboys in the wholewide world due to receiving letter. They even left screws off the heat sink so it now does not work.(did i put that in last post).

I was told a replacement laptop can only be issued after after 2nd repair. Well i would like to see them fix this one first, thats if i do send it back. Ive sent a letter to uk manager monday and waiting his reply. Legal action will be following soon.

Ive got the uk address for complaints as follows

asustek uk
focus 31
west wing 1st floor
cleveland rd
Hemel Hempstead

HP2 7BW.

UK country manager
Rex Lee

 

I can understand that you're upset (I would be outraged if they had treated my laptop like they did yours, or like they seem to regularly treat ASUS laptops in the UK when they are sent for repairs).

But of course, we need to keep the perspective and realize that the fact that ASUS support in the UK is very, very bad, doesn't make ASUS the worst notebook company worldwide.

Such points are thoroughly covered in the thread 'ASUS Quality: Below Expectations?'and we needn't go into them here. I just wanted to even the table a little bit (is that a correct expression? well you get what I mean) -- provide an even perspective on things, to avoid people making the wrong impression if they arrive at this thread via google search or however.

And yes, I'm afraid ASUS is losing many customers in the UK. It is only fair that they do, given they have chosen such a bad company to serve as their repair center there.

 

Yes, maybe i should re phrase my last post.

ASUS, and the repair centres that are contracted to ASUS are the worse companys to have to deal with in the UK.


Hope this clarifys

 

just to add to the count. I have an F3SV since Oct 2007. I'm not sure when the crack started, but I have it too.

I think I will try to ignore it for a while, given the potential of horror RMA, and either way losing the pc for couple of weeks.

For those that have not done RMA: did the crack become bigger after months of using the laptop with crack?

 

Where are you located? Unless you're in Italy or the UK it's very likely the RMA service will be good at your location. If you're in the US it's likely the service will be excellent & very fast...

 

I'm located in Belgium. The laptop was bought from NL internet shop (because it was the simplest way to get a qwerty keyboard). When you say "very fast", what kind of turn around time you have in mind... how long should I expect to be without laptop?
as far as I know, there is no service center here in BE, but NL isn't too far away.

 

When I say very fast I mean 2 days to one week. But that's in the US.

Here in the Netherlands, you can expect 1.5 up to 3 weeks, most likely 2 weeks (that's what I usually got from them). But they do a good job, they're good engineers (unlike in the UK where they most often simply destroy the laptop).

 

I sent my cracked F3sv with FedEx (paid by Asus) to the Canada Service Center, it returned to me in a week also through FedEx with brand new casing, they also replaced my keyboard since it was making tapping noise, although they fixed the original problem which was the top left corner, the top right corner keys are making the tapping sound now :S. But it isn't something major, so I will just stay with this. Overall, service was good.

 

Just a quick question on this matter, I live in NZ and the model they're selling here is "Z53Sc" and by looking at various posts it seems like its a rebranded "F3Sc" model.

So the question is, has anyone had experience with the Z53 series having cracks or anything?

 

i have the same crack, i didn't care much about it at the beginning. but i've read too much messages and the crack started to annoy me today i'm going to take my notebook to asus service with the pictures which other CRACKED Asus users sent in this forum. i think that they will tell me that i will be out-of-warranty and if they tell me this i'd contact with Asus HQ and i'd also find other CRACKED users in Turkey. There's a place something like court in Turkey which is mostly on users' side. they search and collect information about the problem and if they find you non-guilty you can even get your money back ) let's see what will happen

 

madvic: I think before you go to consumer protection or smth similar, just see if they won't fix the problem for you once you make it clear that it's a well-known, recurring, design-related issue.

Chronus: I don't know... but if it's based on the same chassis I would be wary...

 

E.B.E: took my computer to them and they told me that it was a carrying fault without looking to my notebook, but they'd replace my topcase once, i didn't say anything to them but they were very rude. when i went to get my notebook i wanted some information about crack he told me that the crack would happen in any f3 series notebooks. i've told him that the corver was near the graphics card and it gets very hot, so i believe that it is a dilatation problem and it's design-related problem. that he couldn't even look at my face and answer me. he told me that they don't make much problem with this cracking problem but if it accurs again they'd request money from me (80$ for the topcase and 40$ for replacing it). and i've requested the stickers and they said that they can't give any stickers. I'm going to report these problems to Asus HQ and complain about Asus Turkey Service. but i'm happy for now, my topcase has been replaced

 

Well he wasn't being very consistent wasn't he?
a) Problem happens in any F3 series, so it's a design problem and not something that you did.
b) They're going to charge you next time.

BTW that 80$ for top case is BS, the top case is between 15 and 30 USD on the eStore.

Feel free to complain about the service. If you got his name, give names.

 

he wasn't consistent at all ,
if it is a user fault then why can't it be seen on other series? if it isn't a user fault, why do they blame you? actually it doesn't make any sense to me. i haven't got his name but the employees are the same all the time. i thihk that this is a shame for asus and i feel very bad about my laptop.

 

hello mardvic.
It's on the top case, trailing off from the right bottom corner of the keyboard to usb .Never dropped it or rough it around
It's gotten worse recently, and certainly annoying and kind of painful to look at:cry:
The notebook is only about 5 months old.
i realize before 3months ago,but i had been very busy for 3months. and now i will send my laptop to replace.but you know Here in the Turkey , we expect 2 up to 4 weeks, most likely 4 weeks (i experienced with nokia). i am afraid because they may simply destroy the laptop.
I'm located in TURKEY/iskenderun. The laptop was bought from güneşnet.and they send me an adress;
Asus bilgisayar Ltd.Şti.
Kısıklı Alemdağ cad. Masaldan İş Mrk. no:46
Üsküdar/İSTANBUL
Tel: 0216 521 52 64
did you give your laptop to this adress?
what kind of turn around time you have in mind... how long should I expect to be without laptop?
as far as I know, there is no service center in iskenderund and they will send to İstanbul...thanks a lot....

 

I've decided to not replace the chassis. I hate the crack, but I think if I replace it, I will just get the same old crack. My rationale is, the crack I have has relieved the stress/strain of whatever caused the split in the plastic.

It's a shame ASUS has forced me to take accept a horrible fault in my laptop, but to send my laptop away for 2 or more weeks is out of the question.

 

Me and my brother have both bought the ASUS F3Sseries and we have basically being having trouble with them since we got them. Both cracked in the same place, my laptop started to over heat really badly (caused it to freeze on many occasions and slowed down performance massively) and my brothers laptop is now unable to log in. Finger print and password just doesn't work. It says that there is some kind of server problem and that log in cannot occur. I must admit for £1000 i am expecting quality and that is not what i have got. Severely dissapointed.

 

hi, i was a bit busy too so i'm replying the message a bit late. the address is the same addres that i TOOK my notebook to. they gave my notebook within 7 days but as i remember that this time was for giving your notebook by your hand. as i know there's only one service in Turkey which is this service. you can contact me from PrivateMessage if you'd like to and i can explain you more

by the way when i took my notebook, i told them to not to format my harddisk and they told me that they could give my notebook's harddisk if i'd like to have it. opening harddisk and ram covers doesn't effect warranty(as they told me, not my word )

 

9 weeks later, and guess what.....

Im going to get a new laptop.

from an F3SC to an F3SV for all the messing around.

I insisted that it was not worth sending my broken laptop that was trashed by A NOVO UK and UPS PARCEL back to ANOVO UK so that they could bodge it even more.

Holland took a further 3 weeks of going slow. The UK manager never replied to my letter when i told them the service was worse than terrible, even though i was threatening legal action.

Then out of the blue, the 2 people that i had been dealing with in the UK said that they were disgusted with Hollands attitude, that they had sent at least 6 emails to the Holland manager, which then finally prompted the Holland manager to sort things out, starting with an apologetic email.

My old notebook was picked up yesterday to go to Holland and im now awaiting my replacement.

Although im not going to get too excited...............as its an F3 SERIES (topcase will crack) notebook.

I will prob sell it to try and recover my losses.

 

My new replacement should be with me within the next few hours.

However ive been tracking it since Thursday and ASUS Holland have got my address wrong for a start.

They must do it on purpose. They have got my address correct apart from the town. My town is Grantham in Lincolnshire, do a google maps search and you will see where it should be going. However they are sending it to a small place, you cant even call it a place coz theres only a couple of houses and a waterworks there called SALTERSFORD waterworks which is just outside Grantham town centre.

How the hell they came up with that address beats me, as they have my correct address as they picked F3SC up from me 2 weeks ago.

Emails were still ignored due to this, so ive now got to call TNT (parcels not dynamite people) at 8am today to make sure it arrives at the correct destination. (you never know they might even blow the new notebook up compared to UPS smashing the screen etc).

So all will be revealed later today. will i be happy or will i not be happy.

Im taking bets as of now.

 

To describe the new replacement ive been sent is as follows,

F3SC-AP115C swapped for a F3SV-ap250c.

f3sc specs were T7250 2.0ghz, 160ghd, 2gig ddr2, nvidia 8400, bluetooth etc

FRench version of the F3SV-AP250c , T7500 2.2ghz, 250gig hd, 2 gig ram, nvidia 8600 gs, etc, not with vista ultimate though as i was expecting and no tv tuner.

Came in a new proper asus notebook box with seperated box with mouse, adaptor, battery etc inside.

It makes me wonder if its a refurb due to there being no stickers (no nvidia, intel or asus) on the top of palm rest although the screws on the back of the notebook look new and not mangled compared to when A-NOVO UK YTS Repair centre sent it back from their bodge job at changing the top cover.

Ive listed it for sale, as i dont trust the top case, its more noticable that it gets warmer than the F3sc that i had before, right in the place where the crack starts on the top case, so as its been suggested before, heat and a weak top case could well start it all over again, and im not going through 12 more weeks of waiting for Asus Holland or A-NOVO UK to destroy the laptop the next time it needs sending back.

At least i now have a original box to sell it in and it will also go with a spare adaptor, mouse, etc that comes in the box as its got 2 of everything except only one laptop. Advertised on the internet for £725 ono but will take bit less if anyones interested to recover my original purchase price for the F3SC. So grab a F3SV for the price of an F3SC.

 

Hey all,

Well i just noticed my F3JP has the EXACT crack like everyone else :\.......

Also have 3(maybe 4) bright pixels that seem to come and go ....NOT HAPPY!!

Im in Australia btw

 

how long did you have yours? do u use a notebook fan cooler?

I had my since Feb and i use a fan cooler

so far so good, nothing wrong.

i think the crack problem is from the overhead of the hard drive.

 

Bought my F3JP back in May last year(so about 11 months) no fan cooler.

Or just cheap ass plastic

 

around that area is really hot with out a cooler
i still think thats the reason why the crack happen

 

kvehh,
The hard drive is on the lefthand side of my F3SA-A1. But you are correct: the righthand side does get hot. Mine has not cracked (yet?), but it never really leaves my flat desk.

moby88,
You are also correct: this plastic is pretty cheap. If mine cracks, I might ask my brother to mill a titanium top for a replacement.

Jeremy

 

The new one i got gets warm but not hot on right hand side as the gforce8600 256mb graphics chip is underneath. Although all stickers have been removed. (they were silver undersided so maybe spread the heat before).
The fan comes on when warm, and is very quiet compared to the last laptop the f3sc.

I noticed on the last laptop that the silicon paste used was very miniscle and didnt stick properly to the processor or the graphics processor, although actually that was after A-NOVO UK had butchered it and they didnt apply any new paste to either processor.


The bottom case part of the laptop where the feet sit especially underneath where the usb is (the notchy plastic foot with no rubber on) on the right side is more sturdier, as before there was slight flexing, but now all the feet sit on the desk properly with no visible flexins seen.

 

Hello...
@First: Sorry for my bad englisch. I'm from Germany (Berlin)


I have got my Notebook on 14.02.2008.

Its a Substitute for my defektive Asus A6t... the whole story you can read here
http://www.forumdeluxx.de/forum/showthread.php?t=430069

There are many more People with defective A6t. (GPU Overheat, Black LCD eg.)

Now my F3KA is also defective, the same Crack in the right Corner of the Keyboard.

But i dont know what i should do...

A new RMA? My first RMA startet 11.November 2007 and was finished @ 14.02.2008. Its to long, i need my NB for study.

My question is. Do Asus Repair the Cracked Corner?
Should i start the RMA?


Flatsch

 

They should fix this from warranty, because it is (or should be) a well-known defect. Call in advance, though, to be sure.

As to the time frame, I don't know... it depends on the country, it seems in Germany it's bad.

 

Well i just phoned Asus Support and told them about and the crack, to my suprise i didnt have to explain about this thread ect, since the guy knew about the crack and everything. Also mentioned the 3 "bright" pixels i have.

So now i have RMA number and DHL is going to call me tomorrow(hopefully) .

lets hope Asus Australia has a quick turn around time .

 

I'll post my experience in case any one wants to know.

I called Asus on Monday, I immediately got someone, and she spoke English. I told her the problem and she set up an RMA for my, and a few minutes later I got a Fedex form to return the laptop to Asus. I mailed the laptop out Tuesday (overnight shipping at Asus' expense) and Wednesday they sent me an e-mail saying they had fixed and mailed it back, and I got my laptop back this morning (Thursday). My only complaint is that all the Intel Core 2 Duo, Windows Vista, etc stickers are gone now. I am in the US.

 

Well here is my update:

Called Asus on the 16/06/08, and got an RMA
DHL picked up the laptop on the 18/06/08

Get my "fixed" laptop on the 25/06/08, both the top case and LCD have been replaced .....but the touchpad isn’t installed right (right click button doesn’t work and the left side of the touchpad wasn’t sitting flush with the case

Called Asus AGAIN on the 25/06/08 and got ANOTHER RMA
DHL picked up the laptop AGAIN on the same day

Get my FIXED laptop on 27/06/08, this time the touchpad works and is installed right (funny that they replaced the top case AGAIN )

So all in all my experience with Asus service has been OK....would have been excellent IF they hadn’t stuffed up the touchpad part

 

As to the above 2 posts, i just wished Asus's repairs were as good for the UK customers.

For some reason my replacement french F3SV-AP250c has no stickers on the top case, yet the only thing missing in the box is the little corner piece of card that sits on the lcd display corner.

Its most probably a repaired topcase, as we know that it can take 8 to 12 weeks for the crack to appear.

I have also bought some replacement stickers from a computer store off ebay ace computers, they were really cheap, £2.50p for 5 Intel centrino core2duo stickers. Nvidia and vista stickers are cheap too.

Im not putting my stickers on yet till ive had this notebook for around 4 months. Also ive had no buyers for it yet (what a surprise).

One other thing, has anyone who has had a replacement notebook from Holland which is portrayed to be a brand spanking new notebook, does your new notebook come with all the stickers, ie Intel c2d, bluetooth, Nvidia, Vista and Asus stickers x2, as its very odd that mine hasnt.

 

Interesting buying stickers to put back on your own. Most people hate those stickers (myself included).

 

Out of curiosity, yesterday i did a full data recovery on my replacement F3SV-AP250C French model, and out of the 3 partitions, C; D; AND RECOVERY DRIVE, full OS data was recovered from D drive.

It seems that my replacement notebook is not brand new as i thought due to stickers missing, as i have recovered items belonging to a french user named Barbara. A french setup account was created in February of this year.

The software i used is called GET_DATA_BACK3.3

ASUS HAVE AGAIN LIED to me about my replacement saying that i would get a new one, hence the 12+ week wait that i endured to get this replacement.

I was told that Holland have new laptops or laptops that have been sent back due to an item missing and they resend them out complete.

I feel like ringing ASUS up telling them what i think about their service, as ive now technically got a second hand laptop, which in november i paid good money for, an Asus F3 series.

Did anybody else get their long awaited replacement, and was it brand new, or were the stickers missing on yours too??????????.

 

And this is prob the reason F3 series, Nvidia 8m series notebooks crack.

Due to hot heat.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268245

 

STAY AWAY from Asus HOLLAND.

 

hi all

I am currently looking to buy a new laptop and was seriously considering buying either an ASUS F3SG model, or the ASUS X55SV which have the nvidia GeForce 9300 and 9500 respectively. however after reading through THIS WHOLE THREAD and finding out the F series is seriously flawed (plastic cracking), then finding out the actual problem could be with nvidia cards overheating and all this coupled with ASUS' poor service... needless to say I am now very turned off about ASUS and nvidia and it would be good if I can get some more clarification on these issues

thank you




p.s. I live in Australia

 

Not every F series notebook suffer from this problem. It seems like they are isolated to the F3 models.

 

Yep, but he's talking about the F3. Which does suffer from it unfortunately...

I'm not sure what that ASUS X55SV is equivalent to. If it's a 15.4 incher it may be based on the same chassis as the F3...

 

My F3Jp finally developed this crack about a month and a half ago.

But that's not bad considering the short amount of time the rest of the cracks seem to develop in, I've had my laptop about 18 months now.

Even with the crack (which, honestly, doesn't bother me, it just means I can't pick up the notebook by only gripping one corner with one hand) I still think I got a good deal on my F3 for the hardware inside.

 

I used crazy glue on my crack a few weeks ago and it completely stopped the crack from getting any larger.

so if anyone else is like me (you dont want to bother with tech support for a minor crack but you also dont want it getting bigger) this is a good fix for the problem.

(not sure if anyone else suggested it, the thread is too long to read just to see )

 

I just emailed ASUS tech.

If you're in Canada (specifically Ontario) the service is great!

I didn't ship it through Fedex, although it was free shipping, instead I drove down to the repair centre in markham. A bit far, but at least I know my laptop made it there in one piece.

It took them 1 day to finish repairs and I picked it up the next day.

Very pleased with the service .

 

I am also an F3JP owner, but so far I am lucky this crack has not appeared in my notebook, but it can appear in future.
I have many problems with F3jp as I mentioned in this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=276384

I have added a link to this thread on the ASUS forum and to www.asustreiber.de which is a german website built by ASUS employs in Germany.

I hope this will help to spread this topic to more users.

 

I've sent a mail to asus and guess what did they told me?

here's the mail

Any Comments?

 

Well, either the communication between support people that know this is an issue, and this person, was bad and she didn't know... or else maybe they are trying to minimize the damage to their company by not accepting this as a recurring issue officially.

 

hey i got a crack on my laptop too. I live in australia so i called them up and they said warranty covers it. I asked them if they have a improved face plate so the same crack doesn't happen again. He said that he aint sure. He said I could ask the engineers there if i decide to drop off the laptop.

i will drop it off in a few weeks when i have uni break.

I was wondering, for people who got their face plate replaced, did they say if it was improved faceplate and didn't crack again?