Hi all,
As part of my home network upgrade project, I bought two Intel PRO/1000 adapters off eBay a few months ago. These were the old PCI models so they were relatively cheap compared to the latest and greatest versions. They were discontinued but the units I received were brand new in sealed retail packaging.
Recently, one of the adapters developed an intermittent connection on the RJ45 jack. i.e. when the cable wiggled, it would sometimes lose link. The problem was isolated to the adapter and not the cable.
I called Intel for an RMA for warranty service. After jumping through many hoops (including a disconnected FAX number on their RMA page, and outsourced representatives in Costa Rica who lose 75% of the incoming faxes), I was able to get a case number and an RMA number. I shipped the adapter back to their depot in Kentucky and waited.
Today I received an email from their support department:
In other words they are claiming that somebody has bothered to counterfeit their board and reverse engineer the giant Intel 82540 chip just to clone cheap, old, obsolete NICs for desktop PCs. I don't buy it and I think they're lying to me. These boards worked perfectly with the genuine Intel drivers and they report a genuine Intel PCI ID of 8086:100e.
I talked to several Intel representatives, including calling the office of the president, and they were generally unsympathetic. It sounded to me like this is something they do to people on a regular basis when they don't want to honor legitimate warranty claims.
Has anybody else encountered this? What should I do? I don't even remember who I bought this from.
As part of my home network upgrade project, I bought two Intel PRO/1000 adapters off eBay a few months ago. These were the old PCI models so they were relatively cheap compared to the latest and greatest versions. They were discontinued but the units I received were brand new in sealed retail packaging.
Recently, one of the adapters developed an intermittent connection on the RJ45 jack. i.e. when the cable wiggled, it would sometimes lose link. The problem was isolated to the adapter and not the cable.
I called Intel for an RMA for warranty service. After jumping through many hoops (including a disconnected FAX number on their RMA page, and outsourced representatives in Costa Rica who lose 75% of the incoming faxes), I was able to get a case number and an RMA number. I shipped the adapter back to their depot in Kentucky and waited.
Today I received an email from their support department:
We refer to your recent return of one network adapter with the following MAC
address:
0007E9B21847F373D
We regret to advise you that this product have been inspected and found not to have been manufactured authorized or sold by Intel Corporation. Due to this fact, we cannot provide product support, nor can we offer a refund or replacement for your defective product. We will be holding this unit pending an investigation and will either turn it over to law enforcement or destroy the product. Please use this letter to return to your place of purchase for replacement or refund.
In the future, we suggest that you make your purchases from sources dealing directly with authorized Intel distributors. You may obtain a list of authorized Intel distributors from the following web link or from the call center you requested the RMA from.
http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/46168.htm
In other words they are claiming that somebody has bothered to counterfeit their board and reverse engineer the giant Intel 82540 chip just to clone cheap, old, obsolete NICs for desktop PCs. I don't buy it and I think they're lying to me. These boards worked perfectly with the genuine Intel drivers and they report a genuine Intel PCI ID of 8086:100e.
I talked to several Intel representatives, including calling the office of the president, and they were generally unsympathetic. It sounded to me like this is something they do to people on a regular basis when they don't want to honor legitimate warranty claims.
Has anybody else encountered this? What should I do? I don't even remember who I bought this from.