BFG Tech Sending Out RMA Denial Letters, 'Winding Down Business'

SKYMTL writes "Once one of NVIDIA's primary board partners, BFG Tech has now officially started denying RMA requests for their supposedly 'lifetime warranty' graphics cards. According to a letter from BFG, they are '...winding down business' and are 'unable to replace' any non-working product. A sad turn of events for the thousands who bought BFG's graphics cards and power supplies."

Comments

details details

[Tablizer]

Apparently the company itself did not have a life-time warranty.

Re:details details

[black3d]

Sad to see, but it happens. Had the same deal with a motherboard once. Couldn't get upset about it.

Re:details details

[FlyHelicopters]

+1 to the above... If a company goes out of business, lots of people have a worse day than me with a video card... How about all the employees out a job to start...

Re:details details

[glwtta]

Apparently the company itself did not have a life-time warranty.

Sure they did - it just ran out.

Re:details details

[vlm]

How about all the employees out a job to start...

Some organizations close, then reopen under a new name with the same people doing the same thing.

My guess is their target market wasn't even born when Doom came out with the BFG rifle, so its time for a new name.

Re:details details

[heathen_01]

The BFG is not a rifle.

Re:details details

[RobertLTux]

of course anybody that deals in such things (who also would be the ones that care as such about the article)
  are going to be familar with the terms

Return Merchandise Authorization = RMA
Return Merchandise Authorization Center = RMAC
United Postal System = UPS

so emailing the RMAC to get both a UPS label and an RMA number is perfectly understandable.

Re:details details

[nschubach]

UPS = United Parcel Service
USPS = United States Postal Service

Re:details details

[PopeRatzo]

. Generally, when you intend to spread FUD about an otherwise reputable and respected company, it's considered good form to have at least a shred of evidence rather than just a guess.

If they were "reputable" would they be burning people with "lifetime" warranties?

BFG can't have it both ways. You can't be "reputable" and "crooked" at the same time.

By the way, I've decided to tell VISA that I'm "winding down business" and will no longer be paying them for the stuff I bought.

Re:details details

[Minwee]

By the way, I've decided to tell VISA that I'm "winding down business" and will no longer be paying them for the stuff I bought.

If you can prove to them that you have reached the end of your lifetime, as BFG has, then that would be okay.

Re:details details

[PopeRatzo]

That's called filing for personal bankrupcy (chapter 7 & 13)

Is that what BFG is doing?

Will the owners of those "lifetime warranties" be able to get in line with other debtors and carve up BFG's remaining assets?

Re:details details

[nedlohs]

Yeah right, because a credit card company has never got money from an estate to settle debts. Never.

Re:details details

[eleuthero]

This is why you give everything of value away just prior to death and then make the government your heir in your will... something tells me that is somehow already illegal though.

Re:details details

[nomadic]

You've committed civil fraud, congratulations.

Re:details details

[lgw]

Apparantly the company is not going out of business, merely exiting the graphics card market? If true, refusing to honor lifetime warrantees is not reputable.

Re:details details

[Shakrai]

It's only illegal if you do it within a certain timeframe. My Grandmother transferred all of her assets to my Mother years before she died. Then she went on a spending spree with her credit cards. She passed away with $60,000 worth of credit card debt. The banks weren't able to collect a dime from her estate or go after the people that she transferred her assets to.

It's all about estate planning. Do it right and your creditors won't see a dime.

Re:details details

[Captain Splendid]

Wow, I wasn't expecting an uptight motherfucker like you to advocate fraud, but there you go, you learn something new every day.

Re:details details

[Golddess]

Now it could be that simply do not understand how retail works, but since you cannot buy direct from BFG, isn't Best Buy (just to pick a store at random) the one footing your bill in that case?

1) Buy card from Best Buy.
2) Return old card to party unspecified (not sure whether you meant it to go to BFG or, in this example, Best Buy).
3) Wait one month.
4) File credit card dispute (I'm guessing at step 2, you meant send to BFG. Otherwise there'd have been no need to file the dispute as Best Buy would have refunded your purchase at time of return).

Congratulations, you just committed civil fraud against Best Buy in your attempt at sticking it to BFG.

Or was step 4 just in case the store didn't refund you? At any rate, you've still involved a 3rd party in your dispute with BFG.

Obvious joke alert

[MrEricSir]

That's the problem with a BFG, it's got a lot of firepower but you might end up killing yourself.

Whose lifetime?

[line-bundle]

My lifetime?

The product (estimated) lifetime?

The company lifetime?

The receipt lifetime?

Always check which lifetime they mean. Words are wonderful: there are so many definitions to choose from.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[black3d]

Independent of the original intention, most "lifetime warranties" are somewhat shortened by the company no longer existing, the receipt no longer existing, or the user (and in most cases, the only person who cared about the warranty) dying.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Anonymous Coward]

...most "lifetime warranties" are somewhat shortened by ...

I like to say "whichever comes first"...

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of law, it is almost always "reasonable lifetime of the (class of) product".

Nevertheless, ALL warranties expire when the guarantor of those warranties ceases to exist. And they're invariably unsecured, which means you can't ever claim a debt against the company in administration unless there's something left after all secured debts are paid (almost never, or the company would still be in business!).

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Nursie]

Sorry what?

The reasonable lifetime of the class of product is something protected by law anyway (well, in europe). A "Lifetime Warranty" can and should be interpreted as something over and above that, a warranty or guarantee that last the lifetime of the purchaser, Much like with a zippo lighter.

Of course, yes, if the company goes tits-up then it's pretty useless.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Fjandr]

In the US, a "lifetime" technology warranty is almost invariably for the lifecycle of that particular manufacturing line. As soon as they are no longer manufacturing replacement parts and run out of comparable stock, the warranty fine print states they no longer have to honor the warranty.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

If it's in the UK, all products have a lifetime for a minimum of 6 years.

"Goods are of satisfactory quality if they reach the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account the price and any description."

Apple honoured a repair I had to my iMac that died when it was three and half years old when I stated the Sales of Goods Act. The machine required a new PSU and logic board. The repair would have been around £800.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/consumers/fact-sheets/page38311.html

Re:Whose lifetime?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Also with the UK, in the contract at sale is with the retailer, not the manufacturer. If the retailer can't get your product fixed, for example BFG have gone out of business, then you can claim for damages or a full refund.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[demonlapin]

I always wondered why you guys paid such high prices for electronics. Now I know. Wow.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Lemmy Caution]

This is why "no one gets fired for buying IBM." Alternative vendors and small companies are generally riskier to deal with - if they collapse, all the support collapses with them. This reality is why many businesses prefer big, institutional vendors even when they cost more and, in the short term, seem to provide less.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[arth1]

Independent of the original intention, most "lifetime warranties" are somewhat shortened by the company no longer existing

That depends on where you are. In some countries with consumer protection, marketing phrases like "lifetime warranty" have to be defined in legible writing on the same page that makes the claim, and are considered deceptive marketing subject to heavy fines if not backed up by pre-paid insurance and escrow part supplies.
I've had warranty repairs on a product where the company had gone out of business, and this was possible precisely because the laws were designed to safeguard individuals, not corporations.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[AltairDusk]

If you registered the card with them within the first month (I think it was a month anyway) you should have the lifetime warranty and getting them to replace it shouldn't be too hard. If you didn't register it you're going to have a hell of a time convincing them to RMA it as most of their cards are only a year warranty without registration.

I haven't had to RMA anything with them but I have dealt with EVGA support on a motherboard issue and found them far more pleasant to deal with than most tech support departments I have the displeasure of dealing with.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[ender-]

I purchased a nice pony-tail holder from at artist at a fair once. He wrote on the back of the card: "Lifetime Warranty. Mine, not yours. " :)

Re:Whose lifetime?

[ender-]

And yet some companies still do. I recently put in an RMA on a set of 2x1GB DDR2 memory with OCZ. I got an email back stating that they are no longer able to provide replacement parts for that set, and that they are sending me a set of 2x2GB instead [and better timings as well]. Probably not costing them much (if anything) more, but increases the likelihood that I will purchase another OCZ product in the future.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[suso]

Um, ones that aren't made with bad capacitors. In case you didn't know, this normally shouldn't be happening. That you think it is normal indicates how bad the problem has become. Read the history of the problem on the link provided.

Re:Whose lifetime?

[the eric conspiracy]

It's been my long-term experience that in general retailers come and go faster than manufacturers. Who would you rather have a warranty from? Trronics R Us or Intel?

Re:Whose lifetime?

[hmar]

Wait, what's wrong with pets in the microwave? Will it hurt the oven?

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Abstrackt]

Wait, what's wrong with pets in the microwave?

You don't get the same crispy texture you would on the grill.

(I'm going to hell for that one)

Re:Whose lifetime?

[Syberz]

[...] the laws were designed to safeguard individuals, not corporations

Where is this exactly? I think that I'd like to move there.

Sad to see them go

[Local ID10T]

BFG made good gear.

Re:Sad to see them go

[Fross]

Did you replace it under the lifetime warranty?

Re:Is it really true?

[Sylak]

Let me speak from experience and say that they are not even responding to open support tickets, so i doubt anybody gets as far as an RMA anyway

Lifetime Warranties...

[Anonymous Coward]

A "lifetime warranty" is for the lifetime of the product, not your lifetime.

You'd think people would have figured that out by now. If the warranty doesn't have a specific period spelled out in terms of days, years, months, etc. then it's essentially worthless. All the company has to do is "end of life" a product, and voila! no more warranty. And when a company shuts down, the warranties are gone forever regardless.

Re:Lifetime Warranties...

[jimicus]

Depends on the country you're in.

In the UK you have the Sale of Goods Act, which demands that goods must last a "reasonable time" from purchase ("reasonable" obviously depending on the type of product. You wouldn't expect an oil filter to last several years, for example) and the statue of limitations is six years. If the product fails within this "reasonable time", it's down to the retailer to repair or replace - though if you go direct to the manufacturer as a warranty return, then when they've replaced it you no longer have the item you bought from the retailer so they no longer have any obligation to you.

AIUI, EU law dictates that we have something like this but doesn't prescribe a 6 year statute of limitations.

So if your shiny new sofa falls to pieces after 18 months and the store says "1 year warranty! Can't touch us!" you can - at least in theory - sue them.

Thing is, most retailers can and will say "Out of warranty! Can't touch us!" and most people will say to themselves "Bugger. Suppose there's not much I can do, but I'm not buying the replacement from them." Failure to honour these rights is rife within the retail industry, and Trading Standards usually only step in with the most blatant violations (such as big signs in a physical store saying "No returns, go to the manufacturer").

Re:Lifetime Warranties...

[uglyduckling]

Actually, my experience in the UK has been that a strongly worded letter by registered post to the head office quoting the relevant law will get you a repair or at least a partial refund. Except for fly-by-night crooks, most companies know that it will cost them way more to fight in court than to just pay up.

Usually in the local stores, even the managers are totally ignorant of the law ("you have to have a receipt - it's the law!" - really, show me the Act of Parliament then...) but at head office they're totally aware that they are lying to customers every day by claiming that their responsibility ends after one year, that it's standard practice throughout the industry, and that avoiding noisy customers going to court is important otherwise everyone would know.

Interesting thread from HardForum

[line-bundle]

Here is an interesting thread from HardForum:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=ad39475190e27b7270fad7c8f5202588&t=1539921

It has an image of the letter, gives a plausible reason why BFG is going down (Best Buy wouldn't carry some of their products).

Re:Interesting thread from HardForum

[Jeslijar]

I found this article through your interesting thread: http://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/05/18/bfgtech_exits_graphics

As Notleh on HardForum posted:

"After eight years of providing innovative, high-quality graphics cards to the market, we regret to say that this category is no longer profitable for us, although we will continue to evaluate it going forward", said John Slevin, chairman of BFG Technologies. "We will continue to provide our award-winning power supplies and gaming systems, and are working on a few new products as well. I’d like to stress that we will continue to provide RMA support for our current graphics card warranty holders, as well as for all of our other products such as power supplies, PCs and notebooks."

BFG will continue to offer RMA, telephone and email support for qualified BFG Tech graphics card warranty holders, but will no longer be bringing new graphics card products to market.

First and foremost, I have to say that HardOCP is sad to see BFGTech go. It was a company that opened up new ways of doing business with customers in the graphics card arena. The solid warranties and support you all enjoy now with high-end graphics cards companies can be traced back to BFGTech and its three founders, Scott Herkelman, Ric Lewis, and Shane Vance.

Of course our biggest concern is that our readers that have purchased BFG video cards are taken care of. Speaking this morning with then BFGTech CEO, Scott Herkelman, he assured me that BFG has taken measures to make sure full RMA and support will continue. Eight full time employees and the full group of tech support will remain in place as well as warehouse labor. That means continued 24/7 phone, email, and full RMA support for registered cards. As of today, BFG has a full reserve of cards and monies set aside to sure proper support occurs.

Re:Interesting thread from HardForum

[Fross]

That was 3 months ago - looks like BFG as a whole may be winding down now, hence the warranties would no longer hold.

Legality?

[Renraku]

Is it actually legal to sell someone a product with a warranty and then refuse to fix it because business is winding down? Don't closing companies have to keep a certain amount of money for problems like this? Can I put a lien on their property if they fail to meet their contractual obligations and I'm shorted money because of it?

Re:Legality?

[Nursie]

That depends.

If the company has just decided not to do graphics cards any more and close down that part of the business, then hell no! They should be expected to honour it and if they can't repair/replace in house then contract it out or provide another manufacturer's replacement cards.

If they are actually winding up the company, have administrators in and are genuinely (almost) bankrupt and closing up shop, that's a different matter.

Re:Legality?

[black3d]

If they're under administration (voluntary or not) then no, all you can do is add your name to the list of creditors. Although, you're free to sue them, but then they only need declare bankruptcy (if they haven't already) and again, you're talking to administrators. Neither will get you anywhere, as even if you succesfully registered as a creditor, your proportion of the liquidation would only be a few cents, if anything. It would like cost more to apply than you'd receive.

I applaud them for actually announcing this ahead of time, knowing they'll cop a few weeks of hatemail and angry phone calls, rather than doing what most companies do - which is pretend everything's fine, and simply put off RMAs, until the day they close up shop. Hell, they're even mailing the cards/PSUs back. While it's nothing more than a gesture (its fairly difficut to manually repair a power supply safely, and virtually impossible to repair a physically defective video card), its a nice gesture which companies who care less about their customers simply wouldn't do.

Re:Legality?

[Kjella]

Which is why pretty much all "should we go bankrupt, we'll turn off the DRM" promises are worthless. What are you going to do if they don't comply? If your software just calls out for an activation server that is long gone and liquidated? Do you think you'll get that software patched even if you sued, even if you got on the list of creditors? I'd bet not. I'd love to see what would happen if Steam got competed out of the market by another steam-like service and had to "wind down their business". Maybe I'm just a huge cynic but it's so easy to make promises you never have to deal with. So everyone gets mighty pissed, but who cares? They're out of business. Gone. Closed up shop. If you swear to never spend another dime on them, they still don't care. And while despite being utter asshattery, I doubt it pierces the corporate veil so the profits they've taken out of it is theirs.

I know of another case just like this, dealing with resellers and investments. In short, resellers are often short-lived beasts that sell - and sometimes oversell - investments from companies that offer investment opportunities. It takes some time for the investments to mature and while there is a second hand market there's a solid penalty for getting out underways so mostly you're in it for the whole project, it's not liquid like stocks. What happens is that before the investments start delivering results, the resellers declare bankruptcy and start up under a new name and tax id. Then the people who made the actual investment project get to take all the shit for everything that's been said, not legally but as pretty unhappy "customers". Trying to sue a dead copmany where no one picks up the phone because there is no phone just doesn't get you anywhere.

Re:Legality?

[jimicus]

Which is why pretty much all "should we go bankrupt, we'll turn off the DRM" promises are worthless. What are you going to do if they don't comply?

Something else which a lot of people (who perhaps don't understand business) need to realise:

If the company goes into administration, the original directors - the ones who stood up and promised "should we go bankrupt, we'll turn off the DRM" are out of a job. Regardless of whether or not they want to instruct their engineers to disable the DRM, they no longer have authority to. New directors are appointed by the administrators and it's their job to get the best possible outcome for the shareholders - be it selling the business as a going concern or winding it up and selling the assets. "Turning off the DRM" is likely to be so low on the priorities list that it'll never happen.

Re:Legality?

[Patch86]

Yes, technically. But you probably don't want to know how far down the priority list customers are when it comes to bankruptcy creditors.

Roughly (IIRC, IANAL etc.), it goes 1) cost of administering the bankruptcy, 2) taxes, 3) secured debt (property and what have you), 4) employee wages and such, 5) everything else.

Customer debts come under everything else,along with, well, everything else.

Re:Legality?

[cgenman]

I've always seen "not pirating the hell out of something" as a common courtesy to DRM suppliers. If Steam goes under, and Valve is no longer in a position to disable the DRM, you can always walk over and download an unencumbered version from online. Seeing as how most everything will be years old at that point, it will be easy. You'll lose saved games, but if you're picking up Doom again after twenty years, you probably want to play from the beginning anyway.

I bought a CD online from a smaller musician. After a few weeks with no shipping, I started sending mail in an attempt to track down what happened. The person handling CD's had disappeared, then re-appeared, then went away again, etc. I suspect someone had a death in the family, or some sort of drug binge, or something. Either way, after about 6 months of this, I just walked over to the local online supplier and downloaded a FLAC version of the album. Sure, I don't get the case or anything, but I now have the perfect digital copy of the album I wanted anyway, and the creator got paid.

Still a lot better than PNY's warranty

[Anonymous Coward]

In the context of a company going under, the term "lifetime" is pretty meaningless. What are you going to do, sue them? BFG had solid CS in their prime, and this really wasn't a deliberate attempt to hoodwink anyone. It would be nice of them to procure new cards for RMAs from other suppliers, but they don't really have any incentive to do so.

However, some companies, like PNY, offer a "lifetime" warranty meaning "while the card is still being manufactured by us." Needless to say, after being informed of that little loophole, I stopped buying anything from those guys!

Re:Still a lot better than PNY's warranty

[JackAxe]

With a registration, my PNY cards have all had 3 year warranties.

Re:Still a lot better than PNY's warranty

[Mashiki]

As someone else mentioned, if you have one of these cards and indeed they are winding down. You should file to be put on their creditors list. Back when Fujitsu got out of the HDD business, I got a money from part of the class action lawsuit I joined, for drive failures. But I was also on their HDD creditor list for several other drives they refused to cover. In the end I got the money I was owed for them(around 18 drives).

Anyway, I've had no shortage of problems from card manufactures the last couple of years and trying to get them to honor their warranty. From MSI to PNY, there doesn't seem to be any shortage of companies trying to screw people off either, however the other obvious way you can get at least some of your money is to go to you local court, and file a suit under small claims. In most case you'll see your money, because they'd rather just get rid of you than go to court(which costs them even more). That was the only way I could get MSI to "cover" my warranty, and by cover I mean fully refund the price of the card when it was new.

My fastload cartridge isn't working...

[negativewashout]

....can I get it replaced under warranty? The 800 number doesn't work for Epyx - but it could be this rotary dial phone....

LOAD"TOUCHTONE GENERA",8,1
READY.
SYS49152

It sucks that BFG is going under, but in a mostly-free-market world, it's reality sometimes, huh.

Consoles spelled the doom

[SethJohnson]

Sadly, I don't much care about those consumers affected by denied RMA requests. The larger picture here is that this is another example of how console gaming has brought stagnation to the gaming industry. Companies who profitted from deploying bleeding edge hardware that was demanded by a constant churn of increasing software demands are no longer able to stay afloat. Consoles lock graphics to a much longer generation than does pc gaming. It's hard for companies like BFG to stay afloat when stuff stays the same for five or more years.

Re:Consoles spelled the doom

[assemblerex]

Sadly I don't care what callous people say while they pontificate.

Re:Consoles spelled the doom

[geogob]

Although I agree with you on the state of the gaming industry and the link with console gaming, I don't think this is what caused the downfall of BFG. It might have accelerated it, but I feel it was more a series of bad business decisions and choice of distributors that nailed the coffin for BFG.

Re:Consoles spelled the doom

[Xest]

It's easy to blame console gaming, yet console gaming continues to produce better looking graphics with existing hardware well beyond the life of equivalent PC gaming hardware. This is largely because the entire hardware pipeline in consoles is focussed towards gaming, whilst the PC isn't- it's more generic hardware bus just isn't as suited to gaming, hence why lower spec consoles can still produce better graphics and better framerates than equivalent and higher specced PCs (within reason of course).

The fault isn't console gaming, the fault is of the companies pushing ever more powerful graphics cards, whilst developers on the PC just outright fail to make use of the last generation- and for good reason. The issue is that the PC is such a fragmented platform and suffers from such high piracy rates that developers on the PC are better off spending their time making sure their game works for as wide an audience as possible, which means far less focus and optimisation on high end graphics.

The fact is, the high end PC graphics card market was always going to be unsustainable, because it's simply a niche market in an era where developer focus is more and more turned away from that market due to decreased profit from that segment.

It's not really anything to do with console gaming. The fact is, it's hard for companies like BFG to stay afloat when their target market is declining on the realisation that they don't need the latest and greatest graphics card coupled with the fact the world financial situation is still shakey and if consumers don't need to spend money right now, then they wont. When you build a company for a niche market that exists based purely on testosterone fuelled competitiveness of who can get the highest FPS then it's no suprise that when money is tight things start to decline somewhat.

As an illutration of my point, my current PC has now just hit 2 years old and I can still play the latest games like Starcraft II in maximum detail at 1920x1200. This would be unheard of a decade or so ago, where even 1 year old PCs would struggle to run the latest games at high detail, or in a decent resolution. The fact is, the PC market is changing and there's not much of a place for overclocked SLI graphics cards in that nowadays- the rise of playable, rather than graphics fuelled indie games over the last few years is also another reason why people no longer need to pay for ultra-expensive high end graphics cards now. The focus has moved back somewhat towards playability and fun for the masses rather than just stunning graphics for the elite on the PC.

Re:Consoles spelled the doom

[FileNotFound]

The reason your 2 year old PC can still play "modern" games is that there has not been a major leap forward in graphics since Vista introduced DX 10.

There has not been a single 'revolutionary' chipset since the 8800. The current nvidia line is unimpressive and offers minor gains over the past TWO generations.

The video card market revolved around being able to sell a bunch of bleeding edge $800 cards followed by a ton of $200-400 ones. You cannot sell $800 video cards in this market.

If/when the economy recovers and people are once again willing to cough up money on video cards and entertainment, there will be major advancement in the video card market. Until then, it simply does not make any sense to develop and release the new cards when they will not be bought. It's far more profitable to concentrate on cost cutting with the current generation and releasing the same chips but for less.

Re:BFG cards blow up Mobos

[pspahn]

This sounds like a strange scenario possibly due to some type of weird configuration. I remember back in the ole mobo jumper days when I blew a couple components because I had overlooked a jumper cpu voltage setting. Nobody's fault but mine.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Broken For Good

[Skapare]

The new meaning of BFG.

Good Riddance

[SirDrinksAlot]

I know JohnnyGuru went over there and he's a stand up guy. That doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the place isn't full of clowns.
I have a BFG 680i LT SLI board and it's possibly the shoddiest designed board on the planet. There's not enough shielding built into it so if I play a very resource intensive game the PCIE bus desyncs and causes a hardware failure BSOD. Even any game that uses the graphics card even a little can cause it to BSOD if there's a source of electronic noise near by. On the 3rd RMA I basically got all new hardware to put onto the new board, I even got a new PSU (using the JohnnyGuru forums for help, which was great) and a nice new UPS and it didn't help. So here I am today, with a box built for gaming that cant.

Too bad it's not EVGA going under.

[RulerOf]

Sad to see, but it happens. Had the same deal with a motherboard once. Couldn't get upset about it.

At least they offer a lifetime warranty. The only warranty I ever truly care about is one that lasts long enough to where going through an RMA just isn't worth the time or expense anymore. Lifetime or not, that point (about 3-4 years for graphics cards and maybe 2-3 for motherboards) is warranty enough.

However, I wish that EVGA would go out of business instead. You see, for some reason EVGA's products actually become less reliable if you don't ensure they have your name and product serial number matched together in a database. I learned the extra-hard way that for some reason my 3 identical 6800GT cards from them, which all failed within their "claimed" warranty period, must have been expected to fail as I did not register them on the EVGA website when I bought them. I reasoned that the only explanation was that the cards are somehow become less robust of a product after they're sold and must need to be digitally re-manufactured through the product registration process. Either that or the company enjoys fucking the customer. I never did get a straight answer as to which was actually the case.

Re:Too bad it's not EVGA going under.

[tibit]

This seems to be just bad luck. You likely had cards from a bad batch. Large-scale manufacturing processes are quite apt at producing lots of scrap.

A guy I know used to co-own a printing shop. He used to say that sometimes they'd have a very expensive wastepaper production line. Same goes for printed circuit board assembly: all it takes to sink millions of dollars per hour into scrap at the end of the line is to run a poor reflow oven profile.

There is no reasonable way to make a graphics card "less robust" without putting real money into it. You seem to have no idea how mass electronics production looks. Those cards were likely coming at an average rate of one every few seconds off a big production line somewhere. Any sort of per-item tweaking has to be kept to a minimum to make it economical. The cards go through the assembly/reflow/clean, some are picked up for automated optical inspection of solder joints, then they are tested by an automated test cell that emulates the relevant busses, boots the card up and acquires the output video signal to check if it's OK, loads the flash with firmware, etc. Then a bunch of ladies attaches the brackets and packs them into boxes, and off they go.

The production line is far removed from the distribution channel. If a card like yours is failing, there's no way to digitally re-manufacture it.

No, the company didn't want to fuck you, nor did they do anything nefarious. The manufacturer -- likely a contract manufacturer -- messed up and you ended up with unreliable cards from the same batch. Or, maybe there was a thermal design issue -- either the board layout's interaction with reflow process, or runtime thermal management. That's all there is to it.

Now for well deserved ad-hominem: please refrain from making up conspiracy hypotheses (they ain't theories, damnit) when you have little clue about the involved technology. Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Fuckups at electronics production lines are commonplace, and there are some very, very well paid consultants who can sometimes get 7 figure salaries doing "nothing much" but knowing an Asian language or two and traveling from place to place, explaining how to fix production lines whose output is part or all scrap. I wish I had the link to one example: there's one consulting company whose founder methinks writes a blog, the latter often featuring a rather hot, real engineer babe who knows Mandarin, and kicks ass at troubleshooting SMT production issues. My browser history doesn't go that far, otherwise I'd dig it up.

The babe's main claim to fame IMHO, apart from being hot and knowing Mandarin, is that she has a real understanding of the involved technology -- understanding in the Feynman sense. She doesn't treat SMT production lines like gods who need prayer and offering, nor does she anthropomorphize them ("the line is having a bad day today") -- contrary to some of the locals who run the show, who sometimes suffer from lack of training and don't really understand what's going on. When you understand, you can try making hypotheses as to what's wrong, tweaking things, and seeing if stuff improves. That's the definition of understanding, in this case. Otherwise, you pay for hot babes to come and help you out ;)

financial sad for vendors (NL)

[Emmeau]

This won't change much in the Netherlands. The customers get their warrany from the store they bought the product from. So if I bought a week ago one of their cards, and it breaks in 6 months (when BFG prolly has vanished) I go back to the store, and the store has to provide the warranty. The fact the company they send it to doesn't exist anymore is not the problem of the end-consumer. It's business risk. Shop thus has the option to try and repair the card themselves, or they will have to replace it with a similar product. Of course, stores won't be eager to do this/tell you. Bottomline, in Netherlands, consumer won't get effected too much by this.

Shouldn't they have to honor the contract?

[GatorMan]

I know that when Gateway sold its Professional Services Unit to MPC (formerly MicronPC) in 2007 and then MPC filed for chapter 11 a year later, MPC was obligated to honor the existing warranties whether they were originally contracted with the former Gateway unit or the later MPC unit. To this day, we're still having warranty work done by a third-party company on behalf of Gateway/MPC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPC_Computers

This crap goes on elsewhere too

[argStyopa]

This isn't just confined to the computer industry or firms that are having financial troubles.

10 years ago or so we bought $5000 worth of leather furniture (http://legacy-leather.com/v2/bigskytrad.html) from http://www.schneidermans.com/. At the time we purchased a LIFETIME warranty, that included lifetime supply of cleaning solution and care products for the top-grain aniline leather.

About year 2, we had one cushion destroyed by a neighbor's small child and a permanent marker, which was replaced promptly and without any issues.

About 2-3 years later we got a package from Schneidermans saying "oh, sorry, here's your package of care products; we've decided to discontinue the 'lifetime' warranty; we would refund your money for the warranty but you got a replacement part so we consider the warranty used and the contract fulfilled. Sorry."

It was probably my fault for not causing a big stink about it, but RL was pretty complicated at the time and I didn't.

But I've always felt screwed that they sold us a lifetime warranty and then arbitrarily decided they just didn't want to support it later.

Mr Obama??

[XanC]

Why doesn't the government back these people's warranties, like it did with GM?

Re:And how do you know?

[colinnwn]

That the warranty wasn't advertised and sold as covering accidental damage? Many of the overpriced "protection plans" do cover accidental damage. And I see what they did, very sneaky, but I really wouldn't consider one cushion of a couch to fulfill a protection plan agreement, unless that agreement specifically said only one use.