This undercover warranty investigation is a one-year follow-up from our series that investigated ASUS for motherboards incinerating AMD CPUs, at the end of which ASUS promised a number of improvements to its then-anti-consumer warranty processes. Spoiler alert: They’re still anti-consumer. We sent our ASUS ROG Ally Z1 Extreme in for warranty repair for issues with the left joystick (“drift”). The device also had a broken microSD card. ASUS then pointed to the world’s tiniest scratch and tried to charge us $200 for it under threat of sending back a disassembled device if we didn’t pay within 5 days. It felt like extortion. If you’re wondering whether ASUS is worth buying, the answer for anyone who values support should be “no.”
We have now tested ASUS’ motherboard and ROG Ally warranty and RMA processes. Both have been anti-consumer experiences.
Specifically motherboards or in general?
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Asrock motherboards. And they’re also about the only ones without some recent controversy (for AMD CPUs).In general, I can personally vouch for Noctua.
They sent me a free mounting kit for my then 7 year old CPU cooler when I switched it over to a new PC. I’ve had it for 12 years now.
Edit: Never mind, looks like also Asrock aren’t too great.
I don’t think anyone hates noctua. That’s like a free bingo square, or something
I worked with a guy that said “don’t tell me you used noctua fans on your 3d printer” I was like 😮. He really thought they were shit. He’s wrong.
For 3D printers, they’re subpar.
Noctua fans are typically 12v and tuned for lower speed for lower noise; in 3DP you’re generally looking for 24v fans* with the highest CFM:static pressure ratio you can get which will generally mean a louder, higher RPM fan.
They’ll work, but you can generally get industrial fans from Delta, Sunon, etc that are a better fit for the application, often for less money.
* - 5v and 12v fans are getting more common simply because they tend to be more available. Preference for high CFM:static pressure holds true regardless.
They’re not shit, but a lot of people don’t realize that a big reason they’re quieter is because they don’t spin as fast, therefore they’re moving less air. Noctua is typically trading cooling performance for less noise, which can also be achieved by throwing a resistor inline on a non-Noctua fan.
That being said, their motors are higher quality and, at least in my experience, tend to last longer than cheap fans.
I got burned by ASRock years ago, they are literally just Asus but with less quality control
Was it before AM4 by any chance?
It was between 2010-2016, myself and a few of my mates tried them on a few times over the years and they crapped out every time after a couple months. Swore off them for good after that.
The X370 Taichi was considered one of the best boards of the generation, so I’m pretty sure they improved.
Mine’s still going strong in a friend’s computer 7 years later, with a Ryzen 5600.
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I can tell you bad things about a crappy Asrock AM3 board I got a decade ago
Yeah, from what I’ve seen they weren’t great before and have switched things up in recent years.
But I haven’t had any personal experience with their boards.
From what I heard Asrock became a joke quality wise and got the shits about being the lowest quality mainstream manufacturer and did something about it.
Honestly, I’ve had nothing but good luck with Asrock. The few times I’ve needed at MB replacement (one was for a 2 year old board that had a known issue, Intels fault, not theirs) they just sent me a replacement board after I sent mine in.
Its probably been 5 years since I’ve had to use thier RMA process, but I’m still putting Asrock boards in everything I build. I build for pretty much all my friend and family circle (probably 3-8 builds a year) and I don’t know of any that have had an issue so far (they would for sure come back to me for help if they did).
Taichi is such a great enthuaist line and Steel Legend is a great mid range. I’ll always recommend them.
I don’t have much experience with Corsair, but when one of my fans on my AIO went janky, they sent me a label and then shipped me a newer model that looks brand new.
…it’s going in another machine, as my compy now has a D15
'Fraid ASRock isn’t good news either https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy5I2CnM_38
Well damn.
I don’t vouch for anybody at all but I enjoy my Gigabyte motherboard.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, there was an auto-update firmware vulnerability, a potential backdoor, a couple of years ago that affected most of the new models, but my Aero G x570 was not on the list.