Randolph In April this year, my better half bought me a laptop I’d been wanting for a while, and was going to save up for. It was a very pleasant surprise.
I’d specced it out already (without knowing the cunning plan to buy it for me), so it had a 256GB solid state drive and a 750GB spinning drive, 16GB RAM, USB 3, a 17″ screen … I was really happy with it, and it was fast!
Since I got the machine, the USB 3 port never worked with USB 3 devices. I could get away with this because, well, it’s a nice-to-have.
A few months later, I noticed that the touchpad wasn’t working. Since I use a mouse exclusively, this wasn’t a problem, but it added up to two things wrong.
Then the SSD died, about three weeks ago. Now I know they have a tendency to die, so I made regular backups, extensive use of cloud storage, etc., etc.
I figured now was a good time to send it in, and have them fix all three problems in one go.
The RMA process with ASUS started off well-enough: I sent an email with my error report, got an RMA number, and filled in a checklist of all the problems it had, which mirrored my original error report online.
After sending the package (at close to $200 in shipping, including insurance), I realised I’d left out the checklist, so I emailed them back and asked if I should send it separately. They said “Don’t worry. Unit is waiting for QC. RMA form won’t influence the repair.”
I got the laptop back today. The SSD has not been replaced. The USB 3 is still not working. The work order says that the touchpad was replaced.
So, I’ve requested a brand new laptop from them. If another RMA arises, I refuse to pay shipping this time.