ASRock support in Australia?

[Darren]

Hi all,

Not sure if this is the place to ask the question, but I have run into a bit of a brick wall.

Purchased a Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/ac at the end of June from the NewEgg Australia web site due to lack of stock of x470 ITX cards at the time here.

About 20 days later, completed the build with the motherboard, all seemed fine, although windows was a little unstable, checked the bios version and sure enough there was an update available from v1.1 to v1.3. I performed the update via the bios flash utility. All proceeding as expected, pressed enter to reboot as requested and I have not been able to boot the computer since...

I won't bore you with the troubleshooting processes I have been through, but suffice to say that I am confident now that the bios chip will need replacing. This is where my troubles have really begun...

When you go back to your account on Newegg, to quickly discover that they have a 15 day rma policy. I have found it almost impossible to make contact with them as a result. ASRock's support web pages, are quite adamant that you need to deal with the retailer first for any returns or repairs. That said, I did get some preliminary troubleshooting suggestions from ASRock via email.

I am now at a point where I need to send the board somewhere to get the bios chip replaced or the motherboard replaced and I am drawing a blank on both fronts. The last meaningful contact I had was to email ASRock at 'ASRock_RMA@asrock.com.tw' which I have now done twice with no response....

I have also spoken to two major online retailers in Australia, just trying to find out what they do with failed or warranty cases for their customers. Long story short was that they all get sent back to ASRock and no repairs are done here in Australia ?!?

While I certainly don't have any expectations of Australian retailers picking up the tab for the repairs to the card, I have found it impossible to find any backup service or assistance for ASRock products in Australia.

Surely I can't be the only mug to have purchased ASRock products from Amazon or Newegg and run into the same hassles that I have? I thought Asrock was a reasonably significant company and player in the computer componentry market in Australia, so backup service wouldn't be too hard to find, but to date I have been sadly disappointed.

If anyone can suggest where I could send the motherboard for a bios chip replacement in Australia, it would be greatly appreciated!

 

[MaikuTech]

This is a big "IF" here but if you can contact asrock on the american side, explain your issue calmly.
Just tell them flat out there is no contact number or reliable technical support department over in your area to help.
Have your digital receipt ready to go from newegg.com in case they decide to help you.
Technicial support number:
Phone: +1-909-590-8308
https://www.asrock.com/general/about.us.asp?cat=Contact

Since austrilia is closest to Taiwan they do manufacturer most of the mobo's there.
e-mail: info@asrock.com.tw
Drop them a email be sure to show them this thread so they know you are serious.
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

While you do that and wait for a response contact one of these shop owners.
Just tell them your mobo is unbootable, ask if they will hard reset it, downgrade the bios to the most stable version.
If you can do that, back up your files and what not, download the recent windows 10 iso from microsoft.
They should have the most recent patches in it, sometimes its better to start out fresh.
One msdn technician mentioned that last fall, it saved me from losing more hair on my head.

https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209

 

[Darren]

Thanks for the response.

I have now tried both the US and the TW support email addresses, so fingers crossed, however given recent experiences I am not hopeful. Am also trying the NewEgg chat to us option again, but that has been far from successful the last 3 times I tried.

Given it is still a relatively new board and ITX to boot, chances of getting someone to attempt to remove the soldered chip and replace with a new one is pretty slim. It has been some what of a frustrating experience all round as the motherboard ticked all the boxes for what I wanted, online reviews seemed pretty positive, and the icing on the cake was that it wasn't loaded with RGB, like some other prominent cards seem to be.

While I will never buy Asrock online again, nor through NewEgg, it is disappointing that a global company like that will not support their products in Australia, as on paper and via review, they seem to make good stuff.

 

[MaikuTech]

I am really sorry this is happening maybe I am too stubborn not to give up.
But go ahead and put your foot up newegg Austrilia's ***. *violent remark ignored*.
Tell them you have tried every option to no avail to get any support.
Speak to their lead supervisors and ask them will they let you do return the mobo for a different brand ?
I am not sure how much you paid for that itx asrock but the msi for 170.00 dollars is worth it.
https://www.newegg.com/global/au/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813144190
I looked at that asrock mobo and it really has some solid quality components especially on a AMD platform.
https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITXac/index.asp

 

[Darren]

Well... I have some good news and some not so good news...

After some considerable persistence with the NewEgg chat system, 2 hrs in fact, starting at number 61 in line, I finally managed to get onto someone to discuss my issue without the chat software failing on me. The lady was good to deal with and agreed to waive the 15 day period for this occasion, given freight issues. So the RMA was issued and the card was dispatched this morning... Yey!!

The not so great news is that I have also finally received some correspondence via email from ASRock in Taiwan about repairs or RMAing the board.....

From: "ASRock RMA(運籌支援部)" <ASRock_RMA@asrock.com.tw>
Date: 8 Aug. 2018 6:24 pm
Subject: RE: Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX/ac failed bios update

Dear sir,

ASRock does not provide global warranty service.
The warranty of our product is provided through the retailer.
Please contact the store where you bought to check the warranty and get the warranty service.
Thanks a lot for your kindly attention!

Have a nice day!

Best Regards,
ASRock Customer Service Center

Says it all really...

Key message is that ASRock won't support products purchased overseas, and if you still buy their products, something goes wrong, and you are out of the returns period for the re-seller, they don't want to know about it, even if they sell the exact same product in Australia.

Buyer beware!!!

 

[MaikuTech]

I am glad mostly everything turned out alright, but good grief if asrock is like this over in taiwan.
I'll just go ahead and put them in the same group as asus and not consider buying anything from them.
I am curious but the mobo you bought it wasn't a returned white box discount from another buyer was it ?
Newegg in general will do a 15 day rma grace period for items like that, anything else is normally 30 days.

 

[Darren]

No, it was definitely a new purchase, no significant discount bar the Australia tax, and in you do read the NewEgg site, it is definitely 15 days.

 

[Kororo]

Just to note, the experiences you will get with all the major motherboard manufacturers will be the same in Australia. I've dealt with Asus, Gigabyte and Asrock in this regard and none of them have local support and as they are based in Taiwan with manufacture generally in China (eg Foxcon), that's where the board will be sent for service.

So generally your warranty applies where the business you bought it from lives. Manufacturers have channels and local distributors who have no margin for supporting something purchased in another country and no legal obligation to do so. Newegg that would be the USA (even if it pretends to have a local site), which often can have shorter warranties and less legal protection around this than AU where 12 months and lemon protection is the norm.

Just to share on my experiences... with pro level X79/99 boards on all three, after replacing a long and stable Asus board some 6 years back, the new one, a full workstation pro board failed after 3 days with a known wifi issue. Asus' response after 5, yep 5 days was to say from Taiwan that I had half a day to return it 7-days DOA for a refund or wait several months for a replacement refurb. Local Australian staff refused to help despite it being 2 days old and neither end could or would tell me the wait time for a used replacement which they thought could be 3 months. Cool, hey but better was their refusal to accept or deal with a formal complaint here or Taiwan. I took the retailer to the ACCC as he was also obstinate and refused me a refund until Asus looked at it. The ACCC told him to immediately refund me but he refused and I got absolutely nowhere till Asus agreed.

Replacement Gigabyte was the only stock left in AU and it failed after 18 months so I had to buy an X99 Asrock to keep working and earning. That took a month but the board still works as a standby render platform. Asrock workstation board kept failing or crashing on sleep so they gave me a refurb a year on. They're generally slightly more helpful than Asus who I will never buy from again. Asrock board just blew a capacitor and took out a CPU thankfully just 11 days before the warranty died so currently a 3 week wait for another refurb with no news yet. Annoying is they change the socket slightly each time so you can't keep using the CPU and have to fork a grand for the next chipset.

So my understanding is where you buy is where you need to return to. Support is useless in Australia for all of them and ultimately the replacement will come from Taiwan except big markets like the USA will have a better local outpost and stock. Fair argument for buying something like a Dell etc with better local support but I prefer parts. I'm super cautious about buying from overseas as simply the weakening $AUD with the cost of shipping, not to mention the pain of RMA for a big item like a monitor means unless you cannot get it here you probably save little buying in the USA. Stick with a reliable local dealer like mwave.