RMA taken 3 months and 2 weeks

[liamr7777]

Right, so I've been very patient with this whole process but this is just insane now.

So my laptop is 2 years old, modern system and all the latest components at the time and started experiencing epilepsy inducing screen flickering at the start of 2023.

I will note that I had a 3 year warranty for service but but only a 1 year one for parts (Having looked back now I should have paid the insanely overpriced price tag and got the 3 year on parts one).

The screen itself flickers constantly but if you attach the computer to an external monitor it works perfectly so was doing that for some time up until around June when I realised the 3 year warranty would be out at the end of the year. Based on that I thought i'd send it back to PCSpecialist for a repair before the warranty runs out.

I sent my computer off to be repaired on the 6th of June of this year, I was quoted £900 for it's repair and told the motherboard has broken. I rejected this absurd repair cost as it would just be cheaper to but a new computer for that price but I was given another option to have the manufacturer quote for the repair costs.

My computer is 2 years old and with £900 being absurdly high chose the second option to see if a repair would be more reasonable and I was told over the phone that it can take up to 9 weeks to get the quote back but it will be nowhere near this, the 9 weeks is just given as a worse case scenario and more like 1 or 2 weeks... it has taken WELL over that time time get the quote on the price.

After a painful 3 month wait the price finally came back at around £800 for the repair cost which is just insane, especially for something that should not have broken in the first place for a computer that is only 2 years old.

I replied and asked for the computer to be returned because this is just ridiculous now, it's ben dragging on way to long and just give me me computer back unrepaired and I will continue to use it with an external monitor...

That was over 2 weeks ago and i've not had my computer returned to me!

It's come to the point where I have had to lodge an official complaint which was just met with an apology and multiple excuses as to why it's not PCSpecialists fault and for me to wait longer. I am so sick of waiting, I just need my computer back. I appreciate that this is no ones fault specifically but the issues I have are the following.

1. PCSpecialist should not have been promoting components that break in less than a 5 year period (If this had broken around the 5 year mark I would have been accepting of this). I know technology can break at any time but this is just stupid.

2. The RMA time is INSANELY SLOW and has caused a lot of inconvenience and frustration.

3. The repair costs are absurdly expensive and unsustainable and it would be better off to just pay £200/£300 more to get a completely new computer.

4. The communication from PCSpecialist has been very poor and undetailed.

5. I checked where TongFang (the manufacturer) are located and it's in Hong Kong?! If I had know that in the first place I wouldn't have bothered and just had it sent back unrepaired!

6. The complaint response we poor, full of excuses and has not offered any resolution to any of the issues I have experienced!

Sorry if this sounds like I am just whining in the forums and I doubt this post will gather any sympathy for my compliant or post but i'm just so fed up of all this now. It's dragged on for over 3 and a half months (coming up for 4). I don't have my computer and I need it back and I had no idea it would take such an insanely long time to rectify. Such a simple thing made unnecessarily complicated and expensive by PCSpecialst who are refusing to take any accountability at all.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Rant over now.

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

Firstly, none of us work for PCS and they don't monitor the forums

Secondly, there's a lot of misunderstanding with computer components. A failure can happen at any time, with any component. This is even more the case with a GPU which is essentially a micro computer on its own. That's why warranty is so important. It's impossible to badge any component as 100% ok out of the factory, the slightest mis applied solder or slightly broken trace on a PCB could lead to a fault 1 week / 1 year / or never. These faults are often vastly exaggerated with high operational temps also.

Secondly, also commonly misunderstood, laptop gpus are significantly more expensive than desktop gpus. Furthermore, they're soldered onto the board, not modular, so if you need a replacement gpu, it's the whole sub assembly that gets replaced, hence the high cost.

A lot of manufacturers including dell and apple now solder both RAM and even SSDs to the motherboard, you may think £800 is expensive, but in reality it's an extremely fair price


I can't comment on the delay other than to sympathise, just wanted to highlight some inaccuracies in your assumptions.

If a problem surfaces, it's always wise to deal wirh it at that moment, it will just get worse with time

 

[liamr7777]

Firstly, none of us work for PCS and they don't monitor the forums

Secondly, there's a lot of misunderstanding with computer components. A failure can happen at any time, with any component. This is even more the case with a GPU which is essentially a micro computer on its own. That's why warranty is so important. It's impossible to badge any component as 100% ok out of the factory, the slightest mis applied solder or slightly broken trace on a PCB could lead to a fault 1 week / 1 year / or never. These faults are often vastly exaggerated with high operational temps also.

Secondly, also commonly misunderstood, laptop gpus are significantly more expensive than desktop gpus. Furthermore, they're soldered onto the board, not modular, so if you need a replacement gpu, it's the whole sub assembly that gets replaced, hence the high cost.

I can't comment on the delay other than to sympathise, just wanted to highlight some inaccuracies in your assumptions.

If a problem surfaces, it's always wise to deal wirh it at that moment, it will just get worse with time

I appreciate all the points you've made but 3 and half months to deal with it is an absolute joke.

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

I appreciate all the points you've made but 3 and half months to deal with it is an absolute joke.

And I'm not saying its not, but I don't know why it's taken that long, you'd need to speak with PCS on that.

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

Just worth adding, in your thread from March this year, you said you hadn't serviced it since you bought it near the end of 2020, unfortunately, and especially on that model, that would have made it heavily thermal throttle for a very extended period which would almost certainly have contributed to parts failure.

Black Screens 5 mins in to any game, every time.

Hi Guys, I am getting hit with a black screen every time I boot up any game, without fail. You can still hear the game playing the the back ground and it seems to affect the whole computer i.e. if i tab out it doesn't affect the issue so it's not the game itself that is black screening buy...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

It's really important anyone reading this recognises, any performance laptop requires regular maintenance which involves taking the back off, removing the heatsinks and repasting the CPU and GPU and clearing any dust buildup from the fans and heatsinks. If this is something you're uncomfortable doing, the answer is to send it to PCS to do it annually. The answer is not just to avoid it and hope everything will be fine because it certainly won't be.

This is slightly different with the new Recoil and I think the Ionico models which use liquid metal paste rather than normal paste. Liquid metal is corrosive and conductive and if not applied correctly is pretty much guaranteed to kill the motherboard / cpu. With these, you need to send them back to PCS for servicing to maintain warranty, but it's quite likely the liquid metal may last longer than the 1 year span with normal paste, you just have to monitor temps to be aware of when it's starting to heat up.

 

[liamr7777]

Just worth adding, in your thread from March this year, you said you hadn't serviced it since you bought it near the end of 2020, unfortunately, and especially on that model, that would have made it heavily thermal throttle for a very extended period which would almost certainly have contributed to parts failure.

Black Screens 5 mins in to any game, every time.

Hi Guys, I am getting hit with a black screen every time I boot up any game, without fail. You can still hear the game playing the the back ground and it seems to affect the whole computer i.e. if i tab out it doesn't affect the issue so it's not the game itself that is black screening buy...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

It's really important anyone reading this recognises, any performance laptop requires regular maintenance which involves taking the back off, removing the heatsinks and repasting the CPU and GPU and clearing any dust buildup from the fans and heatsinks. If this is something you're uncomfortable doing, the answer is to send it to PCS to do it annually. The answer is not just to avoid it and hope everything will be fine because it certainly won't be.

This is slightly different with the new Recoil and I think the Ionico models which use liquid metal paste rather than normal paste. Liquid metal is corrosive and conductive and if not applied correctly is pretty much guaranteed to kill the motherboard / cpu. With these, you need to send them back to PCS for servicing to maintain warranty, but it's quite likely the liquid metal may last longer than the 1 year span with normal paste, you just have to monitor temps to be aware of when it's starting to heat up.

I was told not to service my model as this will invalidate the warranty but wasn't aware that you can have it sent off yearly for PCS for a service.

Hopefully they will service my laptop while it's been with them seeing as it's been with then 3 and a half months I hope I can can expect that at the very least.

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

I was told not to service my model as this will invalidate the warranty but wasn't aware that you can have it sent off yearly for a service.

Who told you that? That's not accurate, as per the warranty terms that state they have an open chassis policy.
And you'd opened it to upgrade the RAM?

Hopefully they will service my laptop while it's been with them seeing as it's been with then 3 and a half months I hope I can can expect that at the very least.

They won't have if you rejected the cost, they won't have touched it.

 

[liamr7777]

Who told you that? That's not accurate, as per the warranty terms that state they have an open chassis policy.



They won't have if you rejected the cost, they won't have touched it.

I told them not to replace the motherboard as the cost was £900.

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

I told them not to replace the motherboard as the cost was £900.

Yeah, so they won't do anything on it, they won't service it or anything if you're not opting to fix it.

 

[liamr7777]

Yeah, so they won't do anything on it, they won't service it or anything if you're not opting to fix it.

The reason I have rejected the repair cost is because for an extra £300 I could get a brand new computer with newer components.

Paying £900 repair is just a diminishing return and i'm frankly just very disappointed that this has happened and annoyed with PCS.

I appreciate the points you made regarding the maintenance, it makes sense now you have mentioned it but I am surprised this was not mentioned and encouraged when I purchased the computer as it wasn't made clear. I'm sure it states somewhere in their terms and conditions that it's recommended but it's not made obvious and I had to come to the forum to for that info.

I've emailed and asked if this can be done before sending it back to me when they finally get the motherboard back from Hong Kong or wherever they sent it.

 

[BlessedSquirrel]

I appreciate the points you made regarding the maintenance, it makes sense now you have mentioned it but I am surprised this was not mentioned and encouraged when I purchased the computer as it wasn't made clear. I'm sure it states somewhere in their terms and conditions that it's recommended but it's not made obvious and I had to come to the forum to for that info.

It's just like buying a car. You just know that it needs regular servicing and that you can do it yourself, it's common knowledge, no one tells you that. But it is clearly outlined in the warranty terms and I believe in the welcome booklet that comes in the box

Was this your first gaming laptop per chance?

For anything, individual replacement parts are always expensive, as they're sold in far lower volume, that's just the way the world is.

Always pay for a good warranty on a laptop no matter who it's from

 

[liamr7777]

It's just like buying a car. You just know that it needs regular servicing and that you can do it yourself, it's common knowledge, no one tells you that. But it is clearly outlined in the warranty terms and I believe in the welcome booklet that comes in the box

Was this your first gaming laptop per chance?

This was my second.

The first one (bought from PCS in 2015) lasted 5 years and then conked during lockdown and when that broke, I was pretty accepting of that. Got a good 5 years out of it. I still have it sitting in a box somewhere.

I probably did skim the welcome booklet when I bought it but it would have helped if they sent that in an email or put somewhere more obvious perhaps.

But fair enough though, common knowledge for you perhaps but not for me.... but thanks for educating me on that.

The more you know