I love Asus products, I really do. I have been using their motherboards for over 15 years and have currently in use 5 motherboards, 4 GPUs, 4 keyboards, 4 mice, 3 monitors and a laptop. They are a top notch company ... when their products work. Sadly, being electronics, they don't always do so and when help is needed one must contact technical support, and that is where the nightmare begins. I really dislike calling technical support. I build computers and have supported Dell, Microsoft, HP and Compaq computers in my career. I pride myself on being able to take the standard (and non-standard) troubleshooting techniques, to try and resolve my issue so I don't HAVE to call support. So if I'm calling support it is because something is majorly wrong.

When it comes to motherboards, I understand there can be a whole slew of things that can go wrong and they want to make troubleshoot everything before authorizing an RMA. The problem is, they ask you to do things that simply aren't reasonable, like, "Take the motherboard out of the case and put it on a box to ensure it isn't being shorted out." While on the surface this may seem to be a reasonable request, but if you have been using the motherboard flawlessly for 5 months and there hasn't been any indication of a short prior to this instance and you haven't changed any hardware or even gone into the machine during that time, this is not a reasonable request. It is even more unreasonable when you have watercooled the entire thing and complying with such a request would take an entire day of tearing it down, testing and another day to put it all together again. Personally I only want to do that ONCE, like when a replacement board is coming.

Their tech support is like many others in the industry. You describe a problem and they type that problem into a computer. The computer's INTRANET spits out a list of possibilities and fixes in which they must go through each to check things off one at a time. If you have already done any of these things, the majority of the techs, "want you to try again" as if something magically has fixed itself during the hour you last tried it and were waiting on hold to talk to them. Now not all techs are equal and to be fair there are some that can think outside the box, realize I know what i"m talking about, trust that I have done the majority of troubleshooting techniques and we can move to more advanced things like flashing the BIOS with a few different versions to see if the problems persist.

One nice gentleman was with me 30 minutes and basically said both BIOS chips were pooched, possibly one of the memory slots is bad and I needed a new board. GREAT! I have two choices at this point. Send the motherboard back and they will attempt a repair and send it back or if they can't repair, send a refurbished one. Alternatively, I can put a hold on my credit card for the value of the board, they will send me a refurbished one and when I get it, I send the old one back. Considering I can still use the computer in some capacity I choose the latter. OOPS.. we have no refurbs in stock! But I still can send it in for repair, the tech offers. I ask, "But what if you can't fix it?" He responds, "Then we will send a refurb out to you as soon as one becomes available." This is not a solution and I'm glad I did not go with the first option of sending it back. Considering there are multiple issues and a memory slot isn't something you can just solder on, they would have to most likely send a refurb back to me. Well it has been 2 days short of a month and they still have NONE IN STOCK! If I had sent it back I'd be now a month without my computer at all, still waiting. It is really comical.

I understand why they don't want to send out a new motherboard when they can avoid it. It costs them a lot more to do it, but there comes a point when you spend over $500 on a premium motherboard that you expect premium service. MSI and ASROCK would have had a new one to me by now. I had a 600 dollar memory kit from Corsair go bad, boom new one within 3 days. But not Asus. It is at this point they stop responding to emails and when you call them and they look at your case number, the call suddenly gets disconnected. No one takes responsibility. I tweeted my problems and was told to contact a person directly. No response. I ask to speak with a supervisor, I'm refused. No one is willing to take any responsibility.

Bottom line, in all the times I have contacted Asus Technical support and it has been about a dozen times, not ONCE were they ever able to resolve the issue on the first call. Not once, did I ever come away feeling that I had a good experience. Not once have I ever felt I was valuable to them. Not once have I NOT had to go through hoops and jumps to get a replacement part. For such a world class company with world class products, the support is probably one of the WORST I have ever encountered. At Dell, Microsoft, Compaq and AMEX, if you asked for a supervisor, one got on the phone. I know because I was a supervisor and an Operations Manager and _I_ took those calls and I did so gladly because the customers spend a lot of money with us and they are what makes a company a company.

One last thing, their helpful ROG forums. They tout that their experts are there to help you, but that is false too. They are there if there is an easy question or praise, anything else they are non-existent, just like supervisors and managers. I will say ONE time I was told a supervisor would call me back, they didn't and I was promised another call back. By the third time I had given up when a call came to me. I was elated! Unfortunately I found out later it wasn't a supervisor, it was a second level technician. He did help me but it was 3 weeks of broken promises, ignored emails and about 20 hours of my life I'll never get back. So what you think ... is it time to go to MSI?