This video kind of misses the mark on delivering the points of the title, but these are the simplest boiled down points of the community gripes:
- ASUS is having quality control issues, or deliberately skimping to pad profits
- They are rebranding lesser quality components with the higher quality ROG brand, and pricing it as such
- They are unilaterally voiding warranties when users try to RMA or return said hardware
Gigabyte (remember them?) did this same slow slide of enshittification about 10 years ago. The issue pretty much boils down to a company producing too many different types of things, instead of staying good at the things they do well, and the community has noticed and is calling for boycotts. This will no doubt put them on the defensive for years to come, and affect their overall standing in the larger community until they correct course.
I hate ASUS. Used to be way in on them -- well not way but relatively. I had the ASUS ROG Phone. The screen unfortunately broke and needed to be sent into service. More unfortunate, it was just about 1 month out of warranty.
So I get it set up to send it. ASUS charges me $300 for the phone screen replacement. It took over 8 months for them to get it back to me. When the phone finally did arrive, the RGB lighting didn't work, the NFC didn't work, and the screen itself had an orange hue in the upper right corner. To boot, it would only connect to AES Wi-Fi networks, so I can't even use it without a SIM card because who the fuck uses AES. They didn't even fucking fix it properly. I never got responses, sending e-mails for months after it was finally returned to me.
Now, in this time I was really patient. I was using a temporary phone. Around month 5, I just needed a new phone and was looking into the newly released ROG Phone 2. I figured the ROG 1 would still get plenty of usage as a spare device. Well I had the ROG 2 until AT&T decided that the phone didn't have the supported bands anymore, so my >1 year old phone is now as effective as an iPod 3g. Just 6 months later, screen itself just died, no fall, no nothing. I can use SCRCPY to use it, the screen just doesn't work. I really, really tried to give them a shot and the benefit of the doubt.
Now, in between these ~2 years I'd accumulated a few accessories for the phones, keycaps and backpacks. Just little things -- ngl, the bag and the keycaps are still really good quality. I also decided to upgrade my PC, and was looking at a nice new motherboard to rebuild my existing PC with.
So I get the ASUS B550 or something like that. Stupidly bought it from Newegg, first time. The motherboard arrives and upon building the computer I just cannot get it to POST. I reach out to the 2 likely culprits, the PSU and the MoBo. EVGA sends me an entirely new PSU, free of charge, and tells me not to bother shipping it back. ASUS on the other hand would not accept that the motherboard could have been the point of failure! And when I FINALLY was able to fully prove that every single component in the board works EXCEPT the MoBo, they told me to take it up with where I purchased it from, Newegg. So I would get to pay some ~20% restocking fee on a broken motherboard, instead of the manufacturr just replacing a defective board. Oh, the best part? The motherboards USB-3.0 header was broken, came right off when trying to plug it in. No wonder it wouldn't POST.
Fuck you, ASUS. Fuck your shitty warranty, your awful customer support, your horrible treatment of customers who put their trust into you. I will never support ASUS again and I will always vehemently suggest anyone else. It's really, really simple to be a good OEM, all it takes is replacing things that break. ASUS treats every single customer like a scammer who is trying to get free stuff out of them, which IMO just goes to show that's exactly the mindset ASUS has as well.
I still have the motherboard btw. If anyone knows how to repair a USB-3.0 header I'll either be glad to be guided through a repair or I'll just send it to you for cost of shipping. It's just going to sit in my garage otherwise.
This is a terrible video. 20 minutes just to say "bad customer support". But then, who does nowadays?
On a sidenote, the pearl, the jewel I got from their CS is "WeLL I gUeSs tHiS LaPtOP oNlY sUpPoRtS ThReE ScReEnS iN tOtAl". Bitch! This laptop has 3 separate video outputs! And 2 screens built-in! The fuck is 3 total? Besides, it totally worked until some botched update on their side...
I've been largely unaware of a lot of these things going on with Asus but the other day I was reading up on Armoury Crate, which Asus integrates as a hardware-level rootkit on many of their motherboards. That is absolutely goddamn absurd. Bloatware baked right into the hardware itself? I cannot express how scummy and disrespectful to your customers that is.
I'm very glad I picked no Asus parts for my latest build.
It's not all of the sudden Gamer Nexus dropped them as a sponsor and tore them a new one months ago.
They don't care about their customers. They just want your money.
The video linked is not the original.
This is the original - https://youtu.be/oHH9_CDHz94
This is troubling. I've been using ASUS motherboards for a very long time. I haven't noticed any problems in the last 3 systems I built, but I also usually go for the workstation type motherboards instead of gaming motherboards, so I can use ECC RAM and dispense with the LED bling I don't need or want. I wonder if they are still putting enough effort into the business/workstation stuff that it's not having too many quality issues yet. I hope they can turn this around, because the list of quality PC parts manufacturers is growing smaller all the time.
Years ago I happily used some Razer mice and keyboards, even a headset, so in the not too far past I told people around me that Razer was fairly good, quality wise, but alas, I think each and every one I recommended Razer products to had them break and or die well within warranty, and they always had to start a stupid discussion to get the warranty/RMA accepted, a few times even replacements denied outright by Razer.
For me this stands in sharp contrast with Logitech whom has never denied me a warranty, even for products a few weeks beyond the date, and they generally just send out a new item. That is, for me it is rare for a Logitech product to actually require replacement to begin with, I have a few mice, keyboards and headsets far older than 5 years and they work fine plus are still supported in the drivers.
Speaking of drivers, Razer at one point also made the decision to have their drivers require an account login to function properly (multi-button mice would only have 2 functional buttons if not logged in etc). But after some flak from its users it slightly changed that to the login being optional, but profiles would still be hampered without a continuous online presence.
Coming back to Asus, for a few years now I hear of people having quality issues and grumpy asus service desks, but for me their videocards ways ran fine (even without coil whine, unlike some MSI cards). I am quite hesitant to buy an Asus monitor or motherboard though.
their enshittification is sad.
they were always my go to for quality motherboards. oh well.
Shit video OP
I've had two ASUS gaming laptops, and both of them began having issues within a year, and the second didnt last more than a couple years total.
The first laptop was one of their enormous ROG 17 inch gaming laptops that looked like it had jet engine exhaust. The hard drive died and the power port broke within the first year, and I had to send it in under warranty. The power brick also died, and I ended up having to replace it myself around the 3 year mark.
Thinking it was a fluke, I ended up buying a smaller, more portable ASUS gaming laptop next which had more of a standard form factor. Maybe six or eight months later, that one suffered some issue that required being sent in for service as well. It began experiencing the same issue about four months later, I'd sent it in for repair a second time for the same issue, and they apparently fixed it.
I got to use that laptop for maybe 1.5 years total before it was completely unusable, in spite of two RMAs.
My current gaming laptop is an HP Omen 17 from 2017, and has been completely stable and reliable up to this day. I love to hate on HP because of their dumb printers, but I'm pretty impressed. I'll probably end up buying another one, because I will literally never own another ASUS product ever in my life, and there are only so many manufacturers out there who I'd consider for a laptop purchase.
I ordered a board from Asus last year. FedEx delivered it to the wrong place. Delivery picture was at some apartment somewhere. They gave me so much shit. I had to go to my bank to help me get my money back. Took over a month.
When the imposter is ASUS!
Can't play video currently. Someone has a synopsis?
Edit: Nice, someone did already.
They've been shit for quite a few years. Overheating laptops made me vocally against them after the fifth repair/replacement.
My Asus motherboard started bluescreening Windows. After a lot of effort I traced it down to a specific device ID that windows was loading firmware for. No matter what I tried I couldn't get this auto installation to stop. It was a totally random component that added nothing I could tell.
Asus refused to release new firmware be cause the motherboard was "unsupported" even though the box etc has stickers saying it supports windows 10.
After a ton more effort I figured out how to make some low end api calls that eventually stopped this auto installation. It was mostly reliable. I got to crack a lot of jokes to my friends about my motherboard not supporting windows but it was a really hard period for me particularly because Linux gaming wasn't as strong as it is today. I was really big into league of legends at the time and this experience forced me to quit, losing touch with many friends in the process.
I have a Asus motherbaord and no updates since 2021 time to get hacked by logoFAIL...
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All Asus mobos and graphic cards I owned died.
And as in my IT days we had whole rooms of machines with Asus graphics die too.
I avoid Asus components like the plague
Sad news.
Asus used to be my favorite laptop brand, known for the longest time for good product quality and bad support. I'm now down to Lenovo for go to brands.
I’ve had good luck recently with Gigabyte. I know it’s circumstantial but my hope is that they are recovering.
