EVGA replaces customer’s destroyed hard drives after power supply RMA blunder

EVGA has confirmed to Gamers Nexus that the company will replace a customer’s damaged hard drives due to an internal RMA processing error. The slip-up involved sending an EVGA 1000 GQ replacement unit that killed 22TB of the owner’s storage because the revised unit had a different pinout and was incompatible with the owner’s power cables from a previous version.

“We had set up an internal procedure for RMAs for these model numbers based on a serial range to make sure the customer would get the right version for their cables. Typically, the customer just sends the brick back to us and they leave the cables in there. The procedure was in place and also stated that, if for some reason EVGA did not have the correct models, customer service would send the customer a full G5 power supply with a note to let them know that they would need to upgrade their power supply so everything matches.

But where we fell short is that, while this policy had been enforced for the year since [the change] happened, due to some internal operation error, the wrong power supply brick was sent to the customer,” EVGA told Gamers Nexus.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), a standards organization responsible for safety requirements for electrical devices, issued a safety regulation running change, prompting power supply manufacturers to update the pin layout. This happens often as new regulations and specifications arrive and vendors must make the necessary product changes. As you know, EVGA doesn’t produce power supplies because it relies on different OEMs. EVGA was aware of the modification to the pin layout and had put in place a specific procedure for G5 power supply RMAs.

The incident could have been avoided, but you can’t expect every user to have the technical knowledge to test a power supply’s pins with a multimeter or, worse yet, have a reason to do so since the pin layout change wasn’t public information or something communicated to every customer.

We can only attribute the unfortunate incident to a human error in not correctly verifying the serial number or production year of the RMAed unit. If the RMA department had done so, it would have sent the user the new cables along with the revised unit. Sadly, EVGA is a shadow of its former self. The once venerable Nvidia partner decided to exit the graphics card business in 2022, and the motherboard team eventually left, too. When a company is short-staffed, oversights are bound to happen.

In any event, EVGA will reimburse the affected user for replacing the two dead hard drives. Luckily, the person had cloud data backups, so he didn’t lose everything. However, he and his wife lost their entire day’s work because the last backup was in the early morning of the mishap. 

The moral of the story is that you should always keep data backups. Hard drives can be replaced, and companies can even refund you for the cost of the drives. Your data, however, is priceless. A widely accepted approach is the 3-2-1 method, which essentially consists of keeping three copies in two different media and with one copy offsite. By the way, World Backup Day (March 31) is coming soon. Have you backed up your data lately?