Is ASUS tech support in US really bad?

Or is it me?
I've called them on separate occasions for two products (Pundit and PC-DL
Deluxe) and they say that they'll call back and they have never done it.
Their online HelpDesk is bad too. They reply with canned messages that have
nothing to do with the described problems.

 

yes

 

Let me elaborate; I know this has been recently addressed in another thread
having to do with the board I own, a P4P800 Deluxe.

Speaking only for myself, I will not buy another Asus mobo, probably only
Asus products that are either clearly working or clearly defective, such as
an optical drive or (what I also have now) one of their video cards.

Asus used to stand out as the premier mfr. of mobos; in my opinion, this is
no longer true. My P4P800D is by no means a disaster, but it ain't
wonderful, either. I continue to have issues with USB devices (that I'd
thought were solved but they are not). In my opinion there is a problem
with the way they have interfaced their USB ports on this board with the
system bus or the bios. How else can you explain that they seem to agree
there is a problem (see their comments on the 1015 bios update). They seem
to release Bioses that are not fully tested. I've found that if I do flash
a bios the only way to really get it to work (as well as it WILL work, not
perfectly) is to always remove the CMOS battery then short the jumpers then
put the battery back in. I might be willing to do that with this board that
I have so much stomach lining invested in, but I won't do it again. Even
so, every 3 or 4 times I reboot with the 1015 bios I get a screen that shows
that my clearly specified boot order has been changed and the system is
trying to boot from a nonbootable drive even though I've told it 8 times now
there is only one hard drive that is bootable and I've put this drive, only
this drive, in the boot menu. So then I have to boot up into setup and do
it all again. Pi** on them!

I've called Asus America tech support on 3 different issues. The first time
I got a knowledgeable and helpful person who resolved my issue, which was an
assembly error on my part. In my defense, the diagram in the manual was
hugely confusing, and the tech support guy told me he gets calls all day
long about this particular issue. The 2 other times were disastrous, with
the first of these resulting in an hour on the phone mostly on hold time and
then having the tech support person, who had my phone number, intentionally
hang up on me because he did not want to try to help me to resolve my bios
problem. He had my phone number, in fact he asked me for it, and 5 minutes
into the call he hung up on me. I left my line open for half an hour and he
made no attempt to call back. When I called Asus back, there was no record
of that call even though they did have my "case number."

Then I had to call again, waste another 30 minutes on the phone, and when
the guy I spoke with (basically the guy who takes your intial complaint then
forwards you into the next line for a real tech person) told me I should
just pay Asus $25 to get them to send me a new bios chip. All these calls
were "on my dime," as Asus does not have toll free tech support.

I don't hate this company but I don't love them either. My old P4B266 board
gave me a lot less trouble and at the time I used it I had a lot more
respect for this company. They have just become another commodity player in
the marketplace.

I think the era of building your own system has become overly time consuming
and expensive; it lacks the obvious benefits that one got in the past.
Better to buy some very basic preassembled system for bottom dollar and
flush it out with the cards and components you really want. To hell with
Asus. Maybe there is a better mobo company out there, maybe Abit, not sure.
But Asus has gotten about as much money out of me as they will ever get,
except for the peripherals I mentioned above.

Ok, so there is the argument about the quality of the board and how long it
will last. Trust me, the board will become obsolete due to software or
hardware issues a long time before it breaks down, assuming it worked in the
first place.

Just my opinion.

ken

 

Well said..
You know I will continue to buy ASUS Products but I do feel the same way as
you. ONCE You feel the Wrath of companys like MSI or even the companys that
only sell products PCCHIPS then you might revisit the idea of leaving asus
.. But one of your statements was probably the best advice to anyone..
Dump all of the extras, get a basic board, and kit it out for what you
want!..
I remember the days of IO Cards to add a hard drive.. Pain in the ass to
configure but they worked, and once configured (via a hard jumper) then they
were pretty damn good.
My a7n8x Delux is the same way.. It has problems that ASUS dont talk about..
MSI Say that their 6330 range of boards (ver 1,2,3 and probably upwards
more) were crap (Try to find someone who bought one, and still says it
works) but MSI said that there was never a fault with them..
Antec cases have screw'd up USB Connector PCB's and they have known about it
for a LONG time yet the new cases still get the old Boards (not to mention
that their booklets have the wrong color codes described plus there are more
wires than they will admit, I count 8 antec, sorry sir there are only 6)..

It's what we get these days I think.. I'll never go to MSI because they
refuse to Honor a warranty (They even said the unit was under warranty but
they dont do warranty repairs in the UK) and Next time I get a case I dont
know if I'll stick with Antec (nice heafty cases, but absolutely 0 support)

 

Don't know if we're talking about the same issue but I too have an Antec
case that came with USB ports that weren't USB 2.0 compliant. It's a small
circuit board with USB and Firewire ports on it that sits just above the
front case fans behind a plastic swivel flap. Never tried it with USB 1.0
but it certainly didn't work properly with my 2.0 CF reader. Used my
mulitester and confirmed that it was hooked up correctly. Liked the case so
much that I removed the connectors from their board, designed and built a
same size 2.0 compliant board (no passive components, shorter tracks and
massive ground planes on both sides) that worked flawlessly. Unfortunately,
after installing and hooking up my heavily shielded Firewire cable to it, I
realized that it wasn't supported properly at all where and how Antec went
about mounting things. Something would soon break. Abandoned it and got an
Enermax fan controller with USB 2.0 and Firewire ports. It too works
flawlessly.

I suspect there are quite a few poorly designed USB boards claiming to be
USB 2.0 compliant and are not. Came across a brand, Kouwell, with a
"Firewire & USB 2.0 Ports in 3.5 inch Bay" product that uses the same design
as the Antec board (long tracks and passive components). It too does not
work properly.

 

All I did was call Antec's 1-800#, ask for tech support and had the new
part in 2 days, no hassles, cost me $0.00. ;p

Ed

 

Me too. I simply emailed Antec and in a week, I had a new USB 2.0
circuitboard for my 1080 Plus case and it cost me nothing. I will buy
another Antec case because of this sort of support.

 

if we were to get a few posts about Asus support being this helpful, I'd
reconsider my opinion.

But we won't, and as a result, I won't buy another Asus mobo.

Asus is branching out into all sorts of things, or at least now some of
their other stuff is being imported into the US. I am talking about, for
example, their notebook(s) and SFF boxes including the interesting Digimax.

Would I touch this stuff with a 10 foot pole? Not now, based on my recent
experience with this company. It will probably be of good to very good
quality, and if there are no problems the buyer will be happy. If there are
problems, however, the support is not there.

I'd leave Asus to the multi system assemblers. Presumably, people who build
a large number of Asus-mobo based systems per year have ways to cut through
the haze with this company, but I, at least, could not be bothered trying
anymore. My own experiences plus frequent posts about 3 month waits for
returned warranty parts, is enough to convince me that my time as an Asus
customer is drawing to a close.

ken