Anyone with experience doing an RMA with MSI?

[KingFatty]

Hello,

Could anyone share their experience with doing an RMA with MSI?

I wonder if it's better for me to just avoid their RMA procedure because of 2 issues:

1. there is a small crack in the plastic shroud on the reference cooler.
2. the crack was caused by the previous owner, and had nothing to do with the performance of the card (it worked fine with the crack, no air escaped etc.).

Additionally, how does MSI reject RMAs if they don't like the cosmetic issue - would they send back the card without doing anything to it, or would they fix the card and then expect me pay for the repairs and hold the card hostage?

My card stopped working in the middle of using it in windows, no overclocking applied. I googled a bit and saw that back in 2009, MSI was very aggressive in rejecting RMAs, even for cosmetic blemishes that weren't apparently related to the root problem (such as my situation). I don't have a receipt because I'm not the original owner of the card.

I read their warranty information, but it seems they use discretion whether to reject the card/send it back, or repair it and charge you for parts/labor.

My concern is I could get another used card for around $100, but I wonder if MSI will try to charge like some crazy amount for labor/parts far in excess of $100?

 

[Stuka87]

If the previous owner caused the crack, it is not MSI's fault it is damaged. Trying to do an RMA would in my opinion would be fraud.

Now if your card actually no longer functions, and it is still inside its original warranty period, then it can be RMA'ed. In which case, they will look up the serial number to determine if it is still in warranty or not.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I have RMA motherboards with them before, but never a video card. My experience has always been very good.

 

[dakU7]

I sent two video cards to MSI. They only asked for the serial number, nothing else. They don't care if you're the original owner or not (RMA is very quick too, received the card back less than 10 days later, on both occasions).
Just call them and explain you have a crack on the plastic shroud, I doubt they'll refuse the RMA.

 

[sojuhasu]

I RMA-ed an Nvidia 6600GT graphic card years ago.
The card was damaged because the fan was clogged by dust so it overheat. So that's probably would be my own fault. That said there was no warning from the driver whatsoever.

I RMA'ed the thing and got myself a new card after a week or so. No questions asked.

 

[KingFatty]

If the previous owner caused the crack, it is not MSI's fault it is damaged. Trying to do an RMA would in my opinion would be fraud.

Even if the crack is just cosmetic, having nothing to do with the card failure?

That's what I'm asking, will MSI see the cosmetic crack, and not even bother to see what is wrong with the card, send it back to me without trying to fix the root problem?

That's what I saw in the posts I found with Google, where people would RMA something and MSI would just refuse to bother, placing a little sticker with an arrow pointing to a cosmetic issue, even if it had nothing to do with the problem.

But I'm curious why you think it's fraud to RMA something that has an issue causing failure and also an unrelated cosmetic issue? I would think that if my car had a dent in the door, then two months later my engine blew up in flames, surely the car company couldn't refuse a warranty claim on the car by pointing to my dented door?

 

[Stuka87]

Ahh, I thought you were asking if you could RMA it because of the crack that the previous owner caused. If the card has a real issue, thats a whole different story. I spent many years repairing RMA's (RF CATV/Fiber equipment) and if we thought there was damage that lead tot he failure, we would not cover it. But if there was damage that did not effect the functionality or performance of the item, we would still cover it. This is more or less common practice when it comes to RMA's.

If it has a crack and its just in the fan shroud, but doesnt effect air flow, you should be fine.