(apologies in advance to the TLDR crew - the questions are at the bottom!)
1 week ago, I bought a Palit GTX570 Sonic Edition from a local vendor here in Dubai.
Last night I was playing DA2 when the PC shut down, I heard a snap, crackle, pop and could smell electrical burning.
Some troubleshooting revealed it was the GPU. I swapped back my old GTX285 and my system is back up and running again.
Today, I took the card (with box, invoice and all components) back to the store to exercise my warranty and get a replacement.
I was very surprised and rather peeved to find that:
1) The vendor would not swap a clearly faulty card on the spot.
2) They advised that as there was "physical damage" that they would have to return it to the manufacturer and even then there was no guarantee that I would get a replacement
3) The implication was that I had somehow damaged the card through negligence or misuse.
The "physical damage" they referred to was actually a melted/burned out chip or resistor on the back of the board - clearly visible and clearly the result of the cards failure. I accept this was present, but this is obviously a symptom of the faulty card/component.
The card was in otherwise perfect condition and had not been modded, messed with or damaged.
I was running it at stock, in a stable, well ventilated system with quality, branded components throughout - including a high quality ThermalTake ToughPower 650W PSU...
...and so here we are. The store have my money and at best, I will be without my purchased good for 3 weeks and at worst, I will never see a replacement for this card.
So:
1) Does anyone have any experiences with this kind of warranty claim - am I likely to get replacement from Palit?
2) Are there known issues with this card? Should I be fighting for a refund rather than a replacement?
I guess to add - I am in Dubai, so the limited consumer rights laws here will likely be different from you guys in the US or the UK. I guess I have just been lucky and in the 15 years or so I have been building my own machines, I have never had a component fry on me like this!
Cheers guys.
1 week ago, I bought a Palit GTX570 Sonic Edition from a local vendor here in Dubai.
Last night I was playing DA2 when the PC shut down, I heard a snap, crackle, pop and could smell electrical burning.
Some troubleshooting revealed it was the GPU. I swapped back my old GTX285 and my system is back up and running again.
Today, I took the card (with box, invoice and all components) back to the store to exercise my warranty and get a replacement.
I was very surprised and rather peeved to find that:
1) The vendor would not swap a clearly faulty card on the spot.
2) They advised that as there was "physical damage" that they would have to return it to the manufacturer and even then there was no guarantee that I would get a replacement
3) The implication was that I had somehow damaged the card through negligence or misuse.
The "physical damage" they referred to was actually a melted/burned out chip or resistor on the back of the board - clearly visible and clearly the result of the cards failure. I accept this was present, but this is obviously a symptom of the faulty card/component.
The card was in otherwise perfect condition and had not been modded, messed with or damaged.
I was running it at stock, in a stable, well ventilated system with quality, branded components throughout - including a high quality ThermalTake ToughPower 650W PSU...
...and so here we are. The store have my money and at best, I will be without my purchased good for 3 weeks and at worst, I will never see a replacement for this card.
So:
1) Does anyone have any experiences with this kind of warranty claim - am I likely to get replacement from Palit?
2) Are there known issues with this card? Should I be fighting for a refund rather than a replacement?
I guess to add - I am in Dubai, so the limited consumer rights laws here will likely be different from you guys in the US or the UK. I guess I have just been lucky and in the 15 years or so I have been building my own machines, I have never had a component fry on me like this!
Cheers guys.