ASUS is under fire following multiple postings by hardware testers regarding its handling of the recent reports about AMD 7000-series processors and motherboards self-destructing. Reports about AMD 7000X3D-series processors burning up in motherboards from various manufacturers, including ASUS, began surfacing about a month ago. Not long after hardware testers from around the globe began their own investigations into the matter which resulted in a common conclusion involving voltages reaching beyond recommended specs for the 3D-cache processors. In at least one instance it was also discovered by Der8auer that non-X3D 7000-series processors could also be affected.
ASUS is under fire
Now following all of these reports and investigations both AMD and manufacturers have been rolling out new BIOS and firmware to address the issue but one in particular is still getting negative attention. Both Gamers Nexus and JayzTwoCents have come out swinging at the manufacturer and the ladder has even “fired” it as a sponsor.
“The last several years have proven that ASUS is anti-consumer and lack serious quality control. Enough so, that we can no longer support the brand or allow them to be one of our trusted sponsors.”
Steve Burke (Gamers Nexus) has also been extensively investigating the matter with no-less-than three videos, so far, delving into it that now span hours of viewing content and go into great detail with them. The latest puts ASUS squarely in its sites in calling the company out for its anti-consumer approach but also questions its strategy for dealing with these events.
“ASUS’ actions relating to the Exploding Ryzen CPU debacle are disgraceful and abrasive to the trust that the brand has earned. ASUS has demonstrated clearly it wishes to not only avoid supporting users, but actively engineers ways to abandon them. ASUS’ updates haven’t even fixed the problems, yet they posture as if they have while simultaneously suggesting that users ‘just run defaults’ on their $700 motherboards, as if that makes any sense whatsoever. So, to accommodate ASUS’ request, we ran defaults and re-benchmarked the Ryzen 7000 series. It sucks. Big surprise. They also don’t support their own BIOSes for the ASUS ROG boards.”
Millions are watching
Now while some folks may not wish to view the posts from either it should be noted that each has millions, yes millions, of subscribed viewers, and at some point that will affect sales. As such, someone at ASUS, who manufactures many other PC components, may want to look into how its motherboard division is handling all of this. Meanwhile, as if this all isn’t enough bad press for the company, KitGuru has published a story of its own claiming it has over 30 emails from a UK ASUS PR representative stating that it believes buying positive reviews is legal.
“Now in our 14th year as an independent technology publication, KitGuru has never been more shocked than when the person responsible for PR samples and budget for the UK posted publicly on one of our channels that they believed it was legal to buy positive reviews. The same sentiment has been expressed in a previous call with several ASUS personnel – followed by confusion on their part as we tried to explain that positive messaging was something that they would do with their advertising and promotions, but that we valued editorial integrity above everything else. This was not the behaviour and mentality that we had come to believe existed in ASUS, since it started to make big waves in the motherboard sector back in the mid-1990s, so we filed it away.”
KitGuru said that ASUS requested proof of its claims and while having provided them over four months ago it still has not heard back. While legality may be questioned issues of ethicality for paid positive reviews don’t paint a good picture at a time when the company is under the spotlight for anti-consumer practices. As ASUS is under fire from multiple directions now, KitGuru has said that it too has a monthly subscribership in the millions so the audience for all these events only grows.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →And the hits keep coming. For some reason, I'm not that shocked that a PR rep would say buying positive reviews is legal.
I went MSI on my 12th gen mobo due to ASUS upping the price of the hero mobo by 200€ or thereabouts (and also all the others went up a decent amount too)
It's one of those thoughts you're just not supposed to say out loud.
Not sticking up for any manufacturer here (especially just because I have Asus products in my current build), but they've all been guilty at one time or another of some hefty issues/practices. The society we live in currently just likes to pile on the negativity it seems. Youtubers especially just pile it on for the likes and views (Jay especially). This will all blow over at some point like the other issues did with the other manufacturers.
For instance MSI bullying that laptop reviewer to take/change his review of their laptop, and the fiasco where they were price gouging their own video cards. Gigabyte had exploding power supplies, and Asrock blacklisted anyone who didn't like their products. All these problems were within the past 2-3 years and not too many people probably remember them now. Certainly Asus wouldn't be at the top of my list right now for a new AMD build, but in the end most of us aren't stuck to one manufacturer anyway.
What i still remember is msi chanting the terms of their warranty coversge post sale of video cards in the Nvidia 3000 series.
More curious as to what made them screw up though. Thinking about company culture and what not.
I agree with @Niner51 in that all have been guilty of something at one point. It happens and I can forgive it from time to time. I do think, however, someone needs to check in with their motherboard division because out of all the products they make it's the one that's consistently getting in the news, and not just with this gen. In reading threads on Reddit it turns out there's a history with voltage related issues going back a ways.
I too have had great experiences with them. I had 3 gens of Strix OC graphics cards, 1080 Ti>2080 Ti>3090, all of which performed superbly without issue. I also still have 2x 27" 3D monitors that rocked for their time, 120 Hz 1080p and 144 Hz 1440p. I also think they need to check in with their UK PR people because this is no time to have anyone adding fuel to the fire.
I quit using Asus for a while years ago as I thought they were expanding to quickly into other hardware other than their bread and butter (motherboards and video cards). I assumed that they were spreading themselves too thin and then the main hardware would suffer quality issues. Then I decided to give them a try here again recently and I'm happy with the motherboard and video card I currently have, but it makes me think with this latest AMD issue and that backwards capacitor issue on the Z690 Hero boards that maybe I was right years ago. Their customer service has definitely gone down hill which is possibly a product of their "biting off more than they can chew".
I count myself lucky that I've never had to go that route because I read more than a few stories about bad experiences.
I've been using ASUS since the late 90s (my first ASUS board was for Athlon Tbird), and their customer service was ALWAYS some real garbage, but this current situation is probably the absolute worst it's ever been. There used to be a saying with ASUS hardware, that if you get one of their products and it works, then good for you, it will most likely be an excellent product, but pray you will NEVER have a problem with that hardware or get a defective product, cuz then you will have to deal with their customer service, and you will be F*CKED.
I honestly have never had to RMA anything over the 25 years I've been building PC's and I am fortunate on that. Anything that I've returned has been within the return policy of the store I purchased it from. I have read and heard stories of RMA disasters from just about every manufacturer out there.
I can only remember one defective-based RMA that I had to do at work and it was actually last year at my job. In over a decade of having ordered literally hundreds of IT-related items ranging from components, workstations, labtops, tablets, phones, and more, just one. It was a new HP laptop that came with a defective screen. The lights burned out about a week after we got it. It was a complicated process between HP and Amazon but we ended up getting a refund and then ordered a replacement that's been fine since.
Beyond that I almost RMA'd my MSI Titan GT80 2QE. I ordered it from Exotic PC and had nothing but problems in that process after receiving it after they'd sent the wrong model the 1st time. It was complicated but after a point in working with them, I troubleshooted what was wrong with it on my own and was able to fix it all (failed Kingston SSDs and then a weird power issue requiring me to take it apart and disconnect the battery) but that was really frustrating. I'll mark it up to bad luck because I've ordered other items through the years and had good experiences. Lol! I just remembered the only other bad experience I had with them and it wasn't their fault, it was ASUS so we're back on topic. I had pre-ordered a laptop during the pandemic, about 6 months in advance, and by the time it got to the release date, ASUS canceled that model. They worked with me and even provided a discount/credit for the hassle and I ended up getting the MSI GP66 Leopard w/ the RTX 3070 and i7 11800H which has been pretty solid other than the loud fans.
I've had one bad video card, maybe 2 bad motherboards, and a handful of bad DIMMS (mostly the earlier days of DDR) but all of those were within the return window, so easy to do.
For RMAs - a handful of hard drives (WD - easy to accomplish), one set of Kingston RAM (easy to accomplish), two Macbooks (I almost want Apple stuff to break just so I can use their support, it's that nice) and one ASUS motherboard (WTF useless and painful).
I had a dead CPU 7820X, took a bit but the RMA was painless.
Also had a doa Asus mobo once, but that was exchanged at the store.
Only thing I've had to return was ram when I bought off brand ram once for a system I was building from Fry's. Returned it the next day and moved on never to use that brand again. I hate that when I am building a system if you don't watch the required voltages on Ram you'll not work with some of the off brand ram that is 'high performance'. Meaning to me... 'pos that only works with non standard power.'.