z690 Apex with Samsung DDR5 Memory Issues?

[thewebsiteisdown]

Here is the latest response:

"Unit will be replaced with refurbished replacement. This unit is not eligible for NIB Replacement since it has never been serviced by ASUS before and was not purchased within 1-2 months. The replacement is expected to arrive at our facility on 2022/04/16. "

Mine was purchased within 1-2 months though and they still say refurbished for me too so..

[Murlo26]

Mine was purchased within 1-2 months though and they still say refurbished for me too so..

I started my troubleshooting within that time frame, it just took weeks to troubleshoot. I didn't want to send them a board back if I didn't know it was a board problem. They didn't do a good job at all of acknowledging this issue either so to me that is a BS excuse...sounds like it doesn't matter either as you had the same issue.

[Murlo26]

I am so confused now...they just shipped me a board lol. No idea if it's refurbed or not at this point. They weren't supposed to get the board for another 10 days so no idea what happened. Maybe I complained enough and they found me a good board or something, I dunno.

[thewebsiteisdown]

I am so confused now...they just shipped me a board lol. No idea if it's refurbed or not at this point. They weren't supposed to get the board for another 10 days so no idea what happened. Maybe I complained enough and they found me a good board or something, I dunno.

I doubt it at least you had a time estimate I don't even have that yet.

[thewebsiteisdown]

I'm supposed to get a tracking number within a day or two as well now. Wish me luck!

[Murlo26]

I'm supposed to get a tracking number within a day or two as well now. Wish me luck!

Good luck!

I thought for sure they cancelled mine as they called and said they would give me a courtesy one time new board now...I didn't like how they made it seem like I was lucky to get a new board to replace a new one but as long as it works whatever at this point lol. The tracking they originally gave me shows it will be here Sunday.

Strangely though they opened another RMA so no idea what to expect on all this.

Just feels very disorganized. I am happy they are trying to help but this feels like a big mess. I just hope I get a working board soon.

[ATrueNewbie]

I actually made an account here only to be able to have a conversation. 2 weeks ago I bought an Apex z690 too, Although it was my first step into the upgrade, considering the circumstances, I had to buy it now or I might not be able to when the 12900KS comes out since it might be out of stock. I live in a country where I might end up paying up to 2x times the board if i decided to order it online, so my best bet was 1 place here which brings alot of things from Asus, and that place only had 3 Apex boards, so yep I snagged one.Â*

I ended up going with Apex because of how highly BZ "Actually Hadware Ovefclocking" spoke of the board, and I ended up returning it literally because of his next video about it and about how bad his board was with RAM overclocking etc. The motherboard was untouched, it was just sitting inside its box in my closet. I tried to contact Asus asking them if there's any official response on this issue or whether I should be worried or not, I gave them the serial number of the board that I got and waited just about 4 days for a response, which wasn't even a response it was only CS telling me that they will transfer my ticket to another department or something. That was 5 days ago.

Luckily enough i've been a customer for the place that I bought the board from for over a decade if not more, and I explained what my issue was, and since the motherboard was un-opened they told me i get to have a full cash refund or a %105 of what I paid as store credit. I took the cash since I didn't want to buy anything else. I also asked them if there's a possibility that they would contact Asus themselves and maybe ask for a newer batch, since all of the 3 motherboards are Batch 11/2021. The guy flat on told me that those boards are usually not even that requested since they have dual ram sticks only, we are just testing the waters with them and that they won't be getting anything else like that. So now i'm just stuck not being able to order a motherboard nor am I able to get one from here! What A shame, I wish Asus could handle this better. If it was burning and human life was at stakes while all eyes were on the company they'd do the right thing "I.E Hero", but when its only a few then this is how its going to be I guess. And that might also stem from the fact that they decided to turn away from publicly announcing they have more problems with other boards "I've read that Extreme users are also having trouble with RAM".Â*

I know that I technically didn't even try the board yet, but the fact that I was willing to pay a premium just to avoid hardware overclocking instability issues yet only to find out that they are still there is just absurd. Good luck to the people that are going through this, as for me, I will probably just wait for z790, unless Asus steps up to their plate and recall that batch, and start fixing their QC procedures. I really don't want this to be the end of the road for me and Asus in general, i've had 3 Hero's so far, only the Z390 had problems with training the 4000cl15 RAM, but in general a system restart or 2 solved that lol. Fingers CrossedÂ*
Â*Â*

[Murlo26]

I also bought the apex as buildzoid talked highly of it originally haha. Hopefully the new one which I think is arriving tomorrow is better.

[Murlo26]

Well not sure what to make of all of this. I had to leave town for work and will be back home in a few days to test the motherboard but I received my RMA board. They had originally told me that they were going to give me a NIB (new in box) motherboard as a one time courtesy. I mean, I was already kind of like wtf as it shouldn't be a "big deal" to get a new board to replace another new board that never worked but whatever. I just didn't like them saying this is a courtesy and basically made it feel I should be lucky to have them give me a replacement that isn't recycled.

It was a very strange RMA process. Before they shipped the board they opened a new RMA and never really explained why, but it seems they took the new board out of the box and RMA'd the one originally in the box with this "new board". But the original shipping info still looked good and showed it was on the way. Again, wasn't going to complain too much as I have been waiting for over a month to get my motherboard back. Well it showed up yesterday.

Here is my original board, which apparently is the original production run from what I can tell:


Here is the "new apex", keep in mind the pasted on serial number does not match the actual box. So from what I can tell they took a refurb board and put it in a new 2022 manufactured box. Which is useless to me as I didn't want a new board to get the extras in the box and the box itself, I wanted a non-molested board that works. Now I can' prove it's a used board, but not sure why you would take a new board and swap into another box.



Here you can see the "new" box was obviously not new, it was taped shut by them. Now maybe this is because they wanted to test the board before it shipped which I actually agree with but overall it's very strange.



And finally, I noticed something fairly off with the motherboard itself. Taking a picture of this was tough, especially given I was trying to travel yesterday and pack for my trip. It's hard to show the PCB is actually fairly "bent".



Now again, I haven't tested this board yet so hopefully it works. I just really did not like the whole RMA process at all. It seemed like a complete mess and they have felt very disorganized and frankly not very straight forward with me the whole time.

Here is how they labeled the problem as well, so obviously there is a known issue.



More to come on this...but not a great look imo for a $700+ board which now is really $800 as I had to pay shipping to send my original one in.

[thewebsiteisdown]

Well not sure what to make of all of this. I had to leave town for work and will be back home in a few days to test the motherboard but I received my RMA board. They had originally told me that they were going to give me a NIB (new in box) motherboard as a one time courtesy. I mean, I was already kind of like wtf as it shouldn't be a "big deal" to get a new board to replace another new board that never worked but whatever. I just didn't like them saying this is a courtesy and basically made it feel I should be lucky to have them give me a replacement that isn't recycled.

It was a very strange RMA process. Before they shipped the board they opened a new RMA and never really explained why, but it seems they took the new board out of the box and RMA'd the one originally in the box with this "new board". But the original shipping info still looked good and showed it was on the way. Again, wasn't going to complain too much as I have been waiting for over a month to get my motherboard back. Well it showed up yesterday.

Here is my original board, which apparently is the original production run from what I can tell:


Here is the "new apex", keep in mind the pasted on serial number does not match the actual box. So from what I can tell they took a refurb board and put it in a new 2022 manufactured box. Which is useless to me as I didn't want a new board to get the extras in the box and the box itself, I wanted a non-molested board that works. Now I can' prove it's a used board, but not sure why you would take a new board and swap into another box.



Here you can see the "new" box was obviously not new, it was taped shut by them. Now maybe this is because they wanted to test the board before it shipped which I actually agree with but overall it's very strange.



And finally, I noticed something fairly off with the motherboard itself. Taking a picture of this was tough, especially given I was trying to travel yesterday and pack for my trip. It's hard to show the PCB is actually fairly "bent".



Now again, I haven't tested this board yet so hopefully it works. I just really did not like the whole RMA process at all. It seemed like a complete mess and they have felt very disorganized and frankly not very straight forward with me the whole time.

Here is how they labeled the problem as well, so obviously there is a known issue.



More to come on this...but not a great look imo for a $700+ board which now is really $800 as I had to pay shipping to send my original one in.

The fact that it is warped is that what you're saying is weird? Never mind. I do see where you say bent. I just miss that part. Yeah, she's fairly warped. Report back. How works though.