Asus vows to improve clarity surrounding warranty claims and astronomical hardware repair costs

Several customers have complained about unreasonable payments that Asus required to cover “customer damage” on items sent back for warranty work. The rising complaints have prompted many publications and tech channels to investigate the issue. Because of this, Asus released a statement saying it is enhancing its RMA communication processes in the US and Canada.

According to the company, it will revise its repair pricing structure for out-of-warranty items, analyze returned devices and give the customer a clear list of all free and paid repairs, avoid cosmetic repairs unless they affect functionality or are specifically asked by the customer, and update its automatic emailing system for clarity.

These were some of the issues that have recently come to light. For instance, Asus quoted a $2,750 fee to replace a chipped GPU power connector on an RTX 4090 that the user bought for $2,050 (CAD 2,799). The chipped power connector did not affect the GPU’s operation, and the customer only brought it in for warranty repair following Asus’s advice.

Gamers Nexus reported that one user sent in a Zephyrus G15 gaming laptop for display issues, only for the Asus repair center to reply that it received the computer with a cracked chassis — damage that wasn’t there when the user sent it out. There were also other horror RMA stories where several users sent an RTX 4090 back for warranty repair, only to receive a replacement unit with significant damage.

Gamers Nexus did an in-depth investigation, sending in a one-year-old ROG Ally Z1 Extreme with a defective SD card reader, a drifting left joystick, and poor battery health. According to the channel, Asus did not recognize the issues they raised — instead, it focused on minor cosmetic damage and quoted $200 for repairs.

It was only after several back-and-forth emails that Asus addressed the real issues. However, the channel’s concern was, ‘Would other less assertive users fight for their rights? Or will they pony up the unnecessary $200 the company demanded just to get over with the repair?’

This wasn’t the first time Asus landed in hot water for hardware issues. Almost exactly one year ago, Asus released a BIOS update that tackled a major bug that caused some Ryzen 7000 processors to fizzle and burn. However, it initially said that this BIOS update is in beta and will void your warranty if you install it. So, you either risk burning your AMD AM5 processor or losing your money if your processor or motherboard dies on you later through no fault of your own.

Asus eventually backtracked on this policy and released a statement confirming that it will honor the warranty of motherboards with the latest BIOS fix, as well as AMD EXPO, Intel XMP, and Asus DOCP memory presets. While Asus seems to have resolved the AMD BIOS debacle, there seem to be other problems within the company.

We would like to believe that Asus will fix the warranty issues its customers face with their Asus products. However, it seems that the company needs to look deeper, not just at its communication strategy but at its warranty and RMA policies. It will take time for any company, especially one as large as Asus, to implement changes. But in the meantime, you should keep your fingers crossed and pray that your Asus device won’t run into problems that require an RMA.