Newegg open box yes or no?

[kb3edk]

I've bought open box from the Egg 3 times -

Once for a motherboard, the board worked great and was nicely packed, but yes it was barebones and I had to order the I/O shield for $5 from ASUS (which is very easy to do at the ASUS eStore), as well as download all the drivers. I had a pile of cables left over from other installs though so it was no problem re-using all those.

I did open box again for a Sempron CPU, it was in the OEM plastic clamshell and worked fine, and just picked up an aftermarket HSF.

And finally, I got a GeForce 6800 card "open box" and surprisingly enough, all the extras such as S-Video cable, VGA/DVI adapter, and complementary 3D shooter (in this case FarCry) were all included, however the card itself was DOA :frown: However they still let me RMA the card and sent me a new one very quickly, and keep all the goodies. That card continues to work fine 2 years on.

So I'm 2 for 3 on "open box" and I don't see it as any more of a crapshoot than getting stuff off FleaBay or the FS/FT forum here. Since I moved to NJ I haven't been ordering from the Egg nearly as much (7% sales tax) but they still have some good deals -

 

[JimiP]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
I just got my order from New Egg and I can tell you they do not care too much by the way they package the open box items. I expected a little more packaging. I got a cpu & mb. The MB was wrapped in bouble wrap and the box was stuffed with a brown paper like material which probably was no good at keeping the items secure. The cpu appeared to be already used. I am not exaggerating when I tell you there was thermal paste still on the cpu. I haven't tried anything yet cause I opted to get a better mobo and am considering upgrading from DDR3 1333Mhz to DDR3 1600Mhz cause I want to take the Q9300 from 2.5Ghz to atleast 3Ghz without messing with the dividers, timings, or anything else except the fsb to 400, which im still in the dark about cause I don't know how to overclock with Intel. I still have 2 weeks till i get my mb and test things out. If ANY of the items are not working, they WILL take it back and refund my money.

100% normal. The packaging gets the job done 90% of the time. It's only when you ship the heavier items that the brown cardboard paper doesn't hold up well.

Also, of course the CPU still had TIM on it. It was a returned CPU. That's essentially what Open Box items are on Newegg. Think of the time that would be spent cleaning up used CPU's... what a waste. You got a good deal on a CPU, I don't think cleaning it is much of an issue.

 

[PascalT]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
this thread cracks me up. We have about 50 total mobos that have actually been purchased by users, with one bad one and two that failed after a couple years. then we have 8 or 9 people who have never bought an open box mobo saying "don't do it, be scared". hmmm, whom to believe, those who have experience in battle or those who have read a bunch of sun tzu's books...

Hey now, I heard Jimmy from down the street caught some sort of flesh-eating disease from an open box motherboard! It's true, I saw it with me own eyes!

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: PascalT
Hey now, I heard Jimmy from down the street caught some sort of flesh-eating disease from an open box motherboard! It's true, I saw it with me own eyes!

On a more serious note, while missing I/O shields are an annoyance but one that can be lived with, a CPU HSF I purchased as Open Box was missing part of the mounting hardware. I still have it, and it is still useless unless I rig something.

 

[Drsignguy]

Although I have never purchased an "open box" product, I have always been skeptical from doing so only because I would rather pay the few extra bucks to get all the items it is supposed to come with rather than have to go through the possible inconveniences that has a higher percentage of occurring.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've purchased several open-box mobos from NewEgg, and all of them worked fine, as far as I could tell. One ASrock dual-sata2, one ASrock dual-vista, and a Biostar NF4 939 board.

I would, however, be hesitant to buy open-box video cards. I'd hate to buy someone else's overclocking experiment gone wrong.

One thing that should give you pause though - there is no mfg warranty on open-box products, at least according to newegg. And they only give you 15 days (from the day you order!) to inspect the product for defects.