Newegg Refurb GA-8KNXP Dead?

[hpfanatic]

I picked up a refurb GA-8KNXP from Newegg and it appears dead. My setup is a P4 2.4 533Mhz, 2 sticks 512mb Crucial PC2700 and a ATI Radeon 8500. The board seems to power up with all lights and fans running, but no post, no video, no beeps, nothing. Could this be the board being picky on memory? I tried two sticks in all the various combinations, then switched to one stick, tried in all slots with no luck. Tried a different cpu, a P4 1.8, and another Radeon but nothing. Reassembled my old setup with the same parts and they all work fine. I am past the 15 day warrenty too! Any ideas? Or am I just out of luck?

 

[JustStarting]

this is the reason I won't buy refurbs from newegg!! Lot of people are getting hosed with them. Newegg used to be reputable w/ refurbs- all boxed components were there even though the refurb section says they are not complete packages. Nowadays they are sending people trash- kinda like trolling us!! How could they not test returns/refurbs and resell them? some people have been getting returns as new items!! Newegg is headed down a bad trail, and wil lose my business if this continues.

 

[KF]

> I am past the 15 day warrenty too! Any ideas? Or am I just out of luck?

You didn't say you reset the CMOS. Since this board has been used by someone else before you, it may have OCed settings that make it impossible to boot. Do the full-blown CMOS reset. Remove the power plug, remove the battery, put the CMOS reset jumper on, and leave it for 30 minutes.

No wonder 15 days is up. You did some pretty thorough checking.

Don't Gigabyte mobos have a back up BIOS? Did you try that?

Don't panic about newegg yet. It is still not their official policy to cheat customers. They may have a decent solution for you, possibly with a charge. If you can't get a solution from the seller, many mobo makers have a system to deal with you directly.

 

[JustStarting]

Originally posted by: KF
> Don't panic about newegg yet. It is still not their official policy to cheat customers. They may have a decent solution for you, possibly with a charge.

At this point, it is their "unofficial poilcy". Have you read this?

 

[hpfanatic]

I did do the full CMOS reset and it still won't post at all. As far as the Dual Bios, if it won't post at all, how would I switch to the other Bios?

 

[KF]

Since I'm not a subscriber, I can only get it this way:
forums.anandtech.com link

Yes, I've read it. What is happening is that people are getting obviously used items. But people are still having problems with non-working mobos resolved. It is still extra hassle and expense, so that doesn't make sending out used items as new all right.

I have not personally got better service from newegg than elsewhere, although the Fedex shipping is sometimes amazingly fast. I'd say they were OK, but I have gotten as good or better treatment elsewhere.

In one order I received a wrong item: a heatsink instead of a CDROM. They did not charge me a restocking fee to return it, but they did not reimburse me for shipping it back as I asked. They say on their site, they do not reimburse return shipping. Going through the RMA process added two weeks to getting the CDROM.

I returned a refurb that was slightly flakey at first and then quit working, an MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR. I don't fault newegg at all for that. But I was out the return shipping. Since it is newegg's policy to just cancel the order with credit if they don't have a replacement in stock, they didn't let me have another refurb. It took 18 days from the time I asked for the RMA to time they officially said the order was cancelled with credit. This mobo came with every one of the large number of accessories, so it could have been a great deal. But 25 days after I ordered I was $9 lighter and without a mobo.

A few weeks later, refurbs of the DFI NFII LANparty appeared at newegg. At $120, it was kind of high unless some of the accessories were there. I took a chance and lost. Just as they specify, it had zero accessories. No FrontX box, no round cables, no SATA cable and power adapter, no firewire bracket obviously. No mobo manual, no RAID manual, no software CD, no unique backplate. It was in an obsolete VIA P4 mobo box, so I thought it was the wrong mobo too for a while. Fortunately the mobo performs like an absolute jewel. Thanks to DFI for that. It was not much of a deal though. Neweggs statement that these are sold below their cost has to be an hyperbolic exageration. I could have gotten a new, full newegg guarantee, ASUS Nforce2 deluxe mobo with every accessory for about the same price.

Anyway, newegg has not left me hanging, or very many people, if any, and I wouldn't rule out buying from them. There are reasons to think something has changed at newegg, though.

 

[KF]

>As far as the Dual Bios, if it won't post at all, how would I switch to the other Bios?

Sorry. The way people have taked about dual BIOS, I thought it was a protection against BIOS faults, such as a bad flash. If you have to be able to get into the BIOS to use dual BIOS, it couldn't possible be any protection, could it?

You don't have an nForce2 motherboard, but people that do have to worry about the BIOS flash ROM suddenly losing its mind and refusing to post. So people have been saying to get a Gigabyte mobo with dual BIOS where you don't have to worry about that. I thought they had some jumper or switch to change BIOSes.

 

[hpfanatic]

I talked with Newegg's Customer Service this morning and explained to them my predicament and why I am past the 15 day warrenty due to testing. They will do nothing for me. I basically bought a piece of garbage from them for $120.00, and they don't care. If it is past the 15 days, you are s.o.l. They would not even consider replacing this one with another refurb, which they have in stock. They didn't even care that they were losing a good past customer.

I asked them if they had read the posts here about their recent selling used as new discussion and they said they hadn't, but would to see what people were saying about them.

It appears to me, maybe they are testing these boards, selling the good ones as new, and the bad ones as refurbs.

I know I will not buy anything from them ever again, refurb or new.

 

[JustStarting]

I've placed my last order with Newegg.

 

[KF]

>I asked them if they had read the posts here about their recent selling used as new
>discussion and they said they hadn't, but would to see what people were saying about them.

On the Anandtech forums there are lot of people that they said that to before you. That means it is just BS to keep the customer calm.

I really see no reason newegg could not have done better by you than they have.

Refurbs are supposed to working. Refurbished really means repaired to bring it back to working condition comparable to new. They may have cosmetic defects or maybe a cable missing, something like that. I don't know what to call it, but what newegg is selling is not a refurb.

 

[hpfanatic]

I spoke woth Gigabyte Tech Support and after a couple tests they confirmed the board is dead. They are going to RMA it even though it was purchased as a refurb!