The board was sold to me as new. I looked in the box before I purchased it for any obvious signs, but didn't see anything major. I probably should have noticed that the CPU cover was missing, but I guess I don't do enough builds to know if those are necessarily included 100% of the time. I only upgrade my motherboard once or twice a year at most.
Lecturing this guy about his wallet is a moot point & I don't think he needs people on internet forums to play Dad.
OP, if I were in your shoes, I would try to work with Asus on this (not saying you haven't), but call Asus & see if they'll find some middle ground with you. This is a very unfortunate situation & to be honest, doesn't sound like MC's going to do the right thing. I'm not a huge fan, even though they're only a 20 minute drive, I'd much rather go to Fry's. IMO, the only thing MC has going for them are their CPU deals. This is just another reason for me to shop elsewhere (Fry's & Newegg).
I've done RMA's in the past with Asus & never included the CPU socket cover, so that shouldn't be a big deal.
I've bent plenty of pins on these boards before. Just bend it back and you'll likely be fine. It has always worked for me at least.
So the board was sealed and shrink wrapped? For any new product, I would never think of ripping the packaging open to check the product is there at the cash register, who does that? So I'm not sure what else you could have done here.
I assume you got the correct mobo model just wrong serial number, so it sounds like someone attempted an install with it, it didn't work, so he swapped boards? If MC is anything like Fry's, they have you down in their system as the buyer of the mobo of the serial number written on the box. I assume whoever swapped your board bought the mobo you have now first, and their name is listed in their system as the buyer associated with the serial number on your board. Maybe you can nicely ask the manager to do an internal check on this to see if he can trace the serial to the buyer? If it was an employee which it sounds like it is since your board appeared new, the manager can asks the employee to bring the board to match serial numbers and if he can't, that'll prove your case.
For plan B, I'd ask someone who bought the board and installed it for their CPU cover. There's a ton of people on SlickDeals who got it on this deal, maybe one of them would be willing to help. I'm sure if you tell them your story, some person out there would take some pity on you and send you the cover so you can try a warranty claim.
This is extremely interesting. I had to fix a board with a bent pin and no cpu socket cover that was the EXACT SAME MODEL at frys on monday so we could process a customer return (the pin was fine afterward and the board booted up), but it was also missing the socket cover. this is just shoddy on ASUS' part and it sounds like they're having some quality control issues on these boards right now
Your telling me on a new intel platform you bent pins and there easy to bend back?
The funny thing is we hashed it with intel in regards to the pins on the board.
Intel said, would you rather replace the board or the cpu?
To intel's reply since they sell way more cpu's then boards, its a no brainer.
Also the density of pins on the cpu make it impossible for them to be on the cpu end. This is why the pins on the board are in an angle and not straight up.
A lot of research was done in the pins and pin socket, and its not something u want to take tweezers to in repairing unless u have very stable hands, and a good eye.
A bad pin can mean missing ram, and unstable cpu, or a non booting one.
When I saw that you had to run "to get my wallet, because I had forgotten it at home," I thought, this guy might be a putz. Then I saw "I called ... the Westmont, IL police department also," and that pretty much confirmed it.