4 ms·

Late last year going into early this year I had to deal with ASUS RMA with my ROG Flow X13 and the dock. The dock started failing. They wanted both the laptop a

by bedast 4y ago

Late last year going into early this year I had to deal with ASUS RMA with my ROG Flow X13 and the dock. The dock started failing. They wanted both the laptop and the dock sent in, so I sent both in. It took a while, but they got it taken care of. The only problem I ran into is apparently FedEx treated the return as a soccer ball. The sturdy packaging was very damaged, and I'm surprised the damage to the laptop and dock weren't worse than a cracked frame, bent hinge, and cracked dock frame. ASUS handled redoing the RMA without charging me anything. My assumption is they used the FedEx insurance. They always re-image the device. When I got it back the second time, they forgot to remove their repair image and I had to re-image it myself. No biggie, I'm fine with that. Perhaps what helped me is I've worked with technology for a couple of decades, including doing technical support and front line support for several years at the start of my career. I used my troubleshooting skills before even contacting ASUS and gave them all of my findings. The person I was talking to didn't bother with trying any further troubleshooting and just requested the RMA. So, while I get that talking to any system builder's tech support and RMA can be a pain, I had a positive experience with ASUS RMA. I have a friend with a recent Alienware laptop that had issues on day 1. Dell technician did a house call, basically destroyed his laptop, and left. Another friend has sworn off Dell because after several RMAs of his laptop, the warranty eventually expired and it still failed again. I don't know many people who have had to go through RMAs of other companies. But I get the impression that, outside of business support, all of them are garbage. However, ASUS did me right.

djmips 4y ago
Interesting how you can take a horror story and come out feeling good. Lowered expectations...
- bedast 4y ago
  Failures happen. I've had to deal with Asus RMA only once in over a decade (I still have a monitor from 2009 that works and is in use). The only "horror" that happened was caused by FedEx, not Asus. I'm definitely upset that I had to send it back to Asus for a second time, but I don't blame Asus for FedEx damaging my device in transit. I've had more "horror" from Corsair products. And not just one product line from them.
geraldwhen 4y ago
I bought about 16 refurbished asus gpus last year and 9 were DOA. Some had extreme damage but no packaging damage, making me think they were sent damaged. Requiring a laptop for a dock issue is insane. That is not good service.
- bedast 4y ago
  It has a proprietary connector so they likely wanted to verify the fault wasn't in that connector.
case 4y ago
@bedast if you don't mind my asking, how do you like the Flow X13? It looks like an interesting machine -- thin, light (so it's very portable), but with the option of an external GPU and display.
- bedast 4y ago
  It's okay. I probably won't do this setup again in the future, though. I think Asus had the right idea, but not the right execution. Future standards may make their proprietary solution unnecessary, also. Not say that's where I think Asus failed on execution. I would have preferred if the laptop didn't have discrete graphics at all to cut back on power requirements on the go. But I get it, they were aiming to try to keep gaming performance up when undocked. This just isn't my priority. I suspect when I'm itching for an upgrade in a couple of years or so that I'll go back to a SFF desktop with desktop class graphics and separate thin and light laptop. I might even forego the laptop altogether, depending on how things look at the time.
  - case 4y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate your reply. The Framework laptop (which has been in the news lately) looks like it fits into the thin/light category (< 3 lbs), with integrated graphics rather than discrete. The thunderbolt port supports an eGPU and external display, so it might work for these types of use-cases. Alternatively, there are these from Origin (which have Nvidia discrete GPUs): - https://www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/evo14-s/ https://www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/evo14-s/ - https://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/nt-14/ https://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/nt-14/ -- appears to be the same as the Evo14?
    - bedast 4y ago
      For me, for the future, I'll likely do something like a Framework without an eGPU and just use a SFF desktop for gaming. I don't do much advanced gaming anymore so I don't need a lot of power for something bigger than SFF. Just to note - those thunderbolt eGPUs are a bit more limited in performance than Asus's solution because thunderbolt only provides 4 lanes of PCIe, while Asus's port provides 8. So far as I know, USB4 and TB4 didn't expand on this, even with the new PCIe mode. All of that is to say Asus's connector allows for the 3080 Laptop GPU to be used likely near 100%, while TB likely would not be able to, so you'd be limited to lower end graphics. This is what drew me in to the Asus solution. Maybe it's worth pointing out the eGPU does NOT use the USB-C port on the Flow X13. The proprietary connector includes a USB-C connector along with the PCIe extra connector. The USB-C connector can be used separately. But in terms of the dock, the USB-C port on the connector is used for port expansion (the dock has 4 USB-A 3 ports, ethernet, and power, along with the display outputs). This is where I think things could end up deprecating Asus's solution. Future TB may provide higher end PCIe (ie: upgrading to a higher level, adding more lanes). There may be other standards based technologies coming as well. I could probably be fine with a 4060 in a TB enclosure in the future. But at the moment, my needs are met, so I'm not planning out my future technology stack just yet.

by bedast 4y ago

djmips 4y ago

Interesting how you can take a horror story and come out feeling good. Lowered expectations...

bedast 4y ago
Failures happen. I've had to deal with Asus RMA only once in over a decade (I still have a monitor from 2009 that works and is in use). The only "horror" that happened was caused by FedEx, not Asus. I'm definitely upset that I had to send it back to Asus for a second time, but I don't blame Asus for FedEx damaging my device in transit. I've had more "horror" from Corsair products. And not just one product line from them.

geraldwhen 4y ago

I bought about 16 refurbished asus gpus last year and 9 were DOA. Some had extreme damage but no packaging damage, making me think they were sent damaged. Requiring a laptop for a dock issue is insane. That is not good service.

bedast 4y ago
It has a proprietary connector so they likely wanted to verify the fault wasn't in that connector.

case 4y ago

@bedast if you don't mind my asking, how do you like the Flow X13? It looks like an interesting machine -- thin, light (so it's very portable), but with the option of an external GPU and display.

bedast 4y ago
It's okay. I probably won't do this setup again in the future, though. I think Asus had the right idea, but not the right execution. Future standards may make their proprietary solution unnecessary, also. Not say that's where I think Asus failed on execution. I would have preferred if the laptop didn't have discrete graphics at all to cut back on power requirements on the go. But I get it, they were aiming to try to keep gaming performance up when undocked. This just isn't my priority. I suspect when I'm itching for an upgrade in a couple of years or so that I'll go back to a SFF desktop with desktop class graphics and separate thin and light laptop. I might even forego the laptop altogether, depending on how things look at the time.
- case 4y ago
  Thanks, I appreciate your reply. The Framework laptop (which has been in the news lately) looks like it fits into the thin/light category (< 3 lbs), with integrated graphics rather than discrete. The thunderbolt port supports an eGPU and external display, so it might work for these types of use-cases. Alternatively, there are these from Origin (which have Nvidia discrete GPUs): - https://www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/evo14-s/ https://www.originpc.com/gaming/laptops/evo14-s/ - https://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/nt-14/ https://www.originpc.com/workstation/laptops/nt-14/ -- appears to be the same as the Evo14?
  - bedast 4y ago
    For me, for the future, I'll likely do something like a Framework without an eGPU and just use a SFF desktop for gaming. I don't do much advanced gaming anymore so I don't need a lot of power for something bigger than SFF. Just to note - those thunderbolt eGPUs are a bit more limited in performance than Asus's solution because thunderbolt only provides 4 lanes of PCIe, while Asus's port provides 8. So far as I know, USB4 and TB4 didn't expand on this, even with the new PCIe mode. All of that is to say Asus's connector allows for the 3080 Laptop GPU to be used likely near 100%, while TB likely would not be able to, so you'd be limited to lower end graphics. This is what drew me in to the Asus solution. Maybe it's worth pointing out the eGPU does NOT use the USB-C port on the Flow X13. The proprietary connector includes a USB-C connector along with the PCIe extra connector. The USB-C connector can be used separately. But in terms of the dock, the USB-C port on the connector is used for port expansion (the dock has 4 USB-A 3 ports, ethernet, and power, along with the display outputs). This is where I think things could end up deprecating Asus's solution. Future TB may provide higher end PCIe (ie: upgrading to a higher level, adding more lanes). There may be other standards based technologies coming as well. I could probably be fine with a 4060 in a TB enclosure in the future. But at the moment, my needs are met, so I'm not planning out my future technology stack just yet.