RMA'd G1s not repairable, NOW suddenly repaired -- what gives?

Well exactly one month after haggling and waiting for news on my G1s that was RMA'd from Geneva, Switzerland, I received an email saying it was repaired and shipped to me.

Now I want to say, I'm slightly nervous about all this because just two days ago, the repair outfit told me the unit could not be repaired and would be replaced. They even went so far to say that they would send me an "offer" of a replacement machine.

Suddenly I am told today it was fixed. Am I to have confidence in this miraculous turn of events? Was their heavenly intervention?

I would love to have a satisfactory result here (I'm not just fishing for a new machine, I just want something that lives out its useful life), but I'm a bit disturbed that they decided they changed their mind and found a way to fix it all of a sudden. I'll be aghast if I found out they dropped another 8600gt in there. At least, if I see a 9500gs card on the motherboard, I'll know they made a change. If not, I don't know what to do.

Suggestions on how to proceed if its another 8600gt card? Or, should I be satisfied if it's a 9500gs? I don't even know if they are affected by the defective materials as well...

Thanks in advance...

 

Other recent reports of sudden and/or rapid G1 rma repairs around here suggest that Asus found a production run of G1 motherboards and made them available to their tech units.

The gpu is likely a 95xx series, as an educated guess, as there hasn't been a reported rma repair with the 8600 is quite some time.

 

If its a "repaired" 8600GT i would be very vary of the consequences. You are going to have another fried GPU on your hands... just a little bit later.
If its the 9500 though, you are in the clear. Its a different manufacturing process and a different chip overall so it is NOT affected by the overheating issues, like the 8xxx series were. You, however, will be stuck with the DDR2 VRAM, because thats what 9500 comes with. Its a tradeoff...

 

@ Vlad I and Clearskies...thanks for the thoughtful responses. I will keep my fingers crossed. But I must say I'm quite a bit miffed that Asus kept me waiting around a month claiming they were "waiting for materials", and then miraculously fixing the machine at the point in which I demanded a replacement. The odds the "materials" came in the exact moment I complained are slim; rather I suspect they have a pile of machines to fix, and a much smaller pile of motherboards. Of course, mine was not at the top of the list for repairs, so they were content to have me wait. Only when I complained too much did they take action (there are probably others in the heap before me who didn't bother to complain and will wait even longer.)

I don't consider myself the hyper-tense type that demands a 3-day turnaround for repairs, but I think a month was a beyond ridiculous (especially considering the sequence of events and especially if the solution is not adequate (e.g. a refurb'ed 8600gt)).

Grrrr Asus I'm afraid you've lost a (at least one) customer. I didn't see Dell or HP (or Apple for that matter) throwing their customers through the spin cycle for a month for a repair of a defective part. You wanna' compete with the big boys (I hear Asus wants to become the #3 PC manufacturer), then you better play ball like the big boys. Otherwise, stop pretending.

 

Well here is the deal... It is difficult to blame Asus for nVidia's failure to produce a working and reliable piece of equippment. Im sure nVidia paid for that with a couple mil from their own pocket already... Asus, on the other hand, is doing a pretty darn good job trying to keep up with the amount of problems that are being thrown at them. The G1S is a faulty notebook, no doubt there, and Asus has done all they can to provide their end-users with the best support for this issue.
You waited for a month to have your notebook repaired and now you are recieving it back. Well so did the other couple thousand people with G1S lappies... myself included. I waited for nearly a month and a half to recieve a replacement. Personally i think replacing a two year old laptop with a more powerfull recent model shows just how far a company will go to keep your business.
Yes, it is unfortunate that you had to wait, yes its unfortunate that the malfunction happened in the first place... But if you stray from Asus towards mainstream companies you will be simply baffled by how poorly they treat their customers. There are websites out there that rate manufacturers on how well they support their products... look up Dell's reputation... or HP for that matter. At this point i will neglect low quality of their products in general... because thats not what we are talking about.
On a different note though, once you recieve your notebook, find out what repairs have been done (or replacements). Hopefully its a 9500.
Good luck.

 

Good points, Vlad I. I think I'm just a bit steaming in the moment.

Luckily, you got a replacement after a month's wait. I'm just worried my month wait won't bear the same worthwhile fruit (in the form of an upgraded, workable computer). I don't want to become a conspiracy theorist, I just hope they didn't just throw in a quick fix to ride out the last few months of my 2-year warranty (e.g. another 8600gt)...and leave me with a pile of computer parts. I must wait and see though, to be fair.

Fingers crossed!

 

Well here is some hopefull info: as of late it seems that the majority of people have their G1s either entirely replaced or have their mobo swapped for the G1Sn version. It would be interesting to see if your mobo has been changed for the N version because the word on the street is that there are close to none available mobos...
I think there is only one case here on this forum where an individual had his 8600m GT repaired. I might be wrong though on this last point...

 

Hey, the same thing happen to me last week. I sent in my G2S (17in version of your laptop) on the 24th of Aug. I waited about 2 weeks then they sent me an email asking if i would accept a replacement because they didn't have the parts in yet. I said yes to the email(for the replacement} then 3 days later my laptop I sent in came back. Problem with mine though is that now it overheats. And they didn't upgrade my GPU to the 9800.

 

Damn, where are you guys at that got offered replacements? Mines been in RMA for 2 weeks now and my eta for getting the G1s repaired is unknown. I had to talk with the tech person to give me a replacement laptop form since it was taking far too long to replace the laptop and Asus declined, telling me I have to wait until a spare part becomes available and they don't know when. sigh I wish NZ had a Asus headquarters instead of an authorised repair shop

 

2 weeks isn't enough of a wait time. I had to wait 2 months, and I know most people waited at least 1 month.

 

I had to wait 1.5 months for my G1s to come back. They sent me the same laptop with a "new" (probably a used one that still worked) G1s motherboard (same problematic 8600). Now I'm just counting down the days until it dies again. If it makes it through October so I can pick up a windows 7 machine, I'll be fine.
Still pretty upset that I got shafted with a problematic motherboard, especially since my warranty was done by the time I got my laptop back.

 

This is my second time in RMA for the same laptop, with the first one taking equally as long as yours took.

 

How is 2 weeks not long enough? They quoted 2 -4 days turn- around. I sent my laptop in on 21 Aug 09. I am still waiting on my replacement as i right this. Shoot...... I had to build me a desktop just to get back online. So don't tell me it is not long enough. Plus I have been an asus customer for over 10 yrs before people started buying their laptops. In fact this is my third laptop.

 

They quoted me one week, and it turned into 2 months. I wish the best of luck to you, but if you RMA a G1/2s, be prepared for a long wait.

 

I'm the original poster...I just got my machine back. I am at work and have not been able to connect to the internet to download anything. But I quickly referenced the Device Manager in Vista Control Panel. Under display adapters it lists "Nvidia 8600gt". Does that necessarily mean that they repaired my computer with another 8600gt card?

If so, I am outraged that I waited all that time for another defective part!!!!!!!!

Please advise somebody. I find this all unacceptable!

Thanks,

 

I got a G50VT-X5 replacement for my G1S-A1, it took them a month to send me back the unit and I was trying to rush it as I was going on vacation. They had sent it to my house 3 days into my vacation when I was out of the country.

They had blamed their warehouse that had no power for a few days on the delay. The email said it'll be shipped out within the next 5 business days, this was 10 days before I went on vacation, it took 2 weeks to get the order and to ship it across the border. I had stressed it and had my case escalated multiple times to get this done since I was going on vacation.

I was told at first they would be sending me a G50VT-X1 but I got the X5 instead which is fine (just hate being lied too about), I just don't like the lid or the gold/orange highlights. Unit is great, just hating the lower resolution on the G50VT-X5 as I lost a 1680x1050 screen on my G1S-A1.

I guess it's somewhat of an even trade, though I did have to pay $185 bucks for the replacement as my unit was out of warranty by 2 months which sorta sucks. I should get my money back from nVidia.

The worse thing about this is, that I had escalated my case like 4x to upper management and twice I was suppose to get a call back, but I never did. I was also suppose to get a email saying they at sent me the unit with a tracking number which I never got.

What's even more of a joke is the repair facility sends me an email stating that they had shipped out my laptop today which was 2 weeks/almost 3 weeks after I had already received my unit and already back home from vacation for almost 2 weeks. But I never did received that 2nd laptop

heh.

 

It's confirmed. They "repaired" my G1s with another defective 8600gt A2 revisions chip on motherboard. I am super-disappointed that this is the solution they provided after hanging onto my machine for a month -- installing another defective chip. I confirmed it is there with GPU-Z, and also noticed soaring high temperatures as well.

What to do? Should I consider this acceptable even?

 

Unfortunately, you have no proof that all 8600m GTs are affected by the solder issue. Nvidia nor Asus has said that all 8000 series cards are affected.

If the laptop is overheating, then that's one thing, but if you're only issue is that the 8600 may experience the same problems as your old 8600, there's not much you can do. Technically Asus has fulfilled their responsibility of repairing your non-functioning unit.

 

Well, we shall see. I sent a nice "happy" email asking why they would go ahead and stick in another part that is potentially/highly-likely failure prone. I would not have complained if they had found me a 9500gs, but this motherboard (with the 8600gt, A2 revision) ... well, I don't see that as an action taken by a company that really cares about its customers.

I'll be sure to spread the word, if Asus can't come up with something better...

 

Hey guys im the same boat you were in, G1S overheated, thinking its the gpu/mobo. Were your machines under warranty or not? Mines out of warranty and I'm sending it in tomorrow, got my RMA number already.

Any idea how much I can expect to pay, and my chances of getting an upgrade? I'm assuming around $400, which is why im really hooping for that g50vt upgrade.

 

I know this post is a bit old, but dude you sound disappointed! I'm CROSSING MY FINGERS that I get that upgrade. It's like 3x faster than the g1s!!!

and with those G1S GPU problems....bleh

 

let's hope I don't get a return. I need that replacement. My contact that emailed me about the offer has been great. Fast replies on my questions and he said the replacement is still good. Fingers crossed

 

I agree, I wont accept a return. Think about it, they'd be replacing an 8600 with another 8600...that's not solving anything.