Long story short my Sabertooth X99 has been working OK until a month ago. It decided to crash all of a sudden. And right after that the system would stuck in boot looping infinitely. Sometimes if the board is happy it will let me get back into Windows.
I thought it was the PSU. So I get a new 1500watt Seasonic. Nope, still same symptom of boot looping. Tried breadboarding it using different configuration of RAM. Clear CMOS, MemOK and everything. Still no go. So I sent the board to ASUS for RMA. This is where the fun begin.
USPS showed the board was already delivered. However it took ASUS 2 days to reflect that on the RMA page. OK, kinda slow I guess. Then when I inquire about estimation of repair completion. I was told it will be done when it is done. Asked every day for about a week and yeah, it still shows "parts shortage" with no estimates on any possible completion date.
The TUF X99 is for my main workstation. I cannot afford too long of a down time. So I asked the RMA agent would it be possible they can ship me a replacement board now they are in possesion of my defective board. I don't want to wait for god knows how long until they get the parts they need for repair. Besides, I have read a lot of horror stories regarding ASUS shipping back defective replacements to consumers, which would took multiple RMA attempts until the consumer get a functional board. I was told no. So I just have to wait, maybe a week maybe a month until ASUS suddenly want to work on this? On top of all that they would not update on what caused the failure of the board. I NEED to know that because my CPU warranty is about to go out. I NEED to know whether the CPU may have been killed by the board. Again no response.
This probably seems a lot of angry rant. As a customer who paid for a 5 yrs warranty motherboard, such RMA experience is terrible. And I am not just ranting on the forum or leaving a bad review on e-tailer sites. The entire situation will be escalated to Better Business Bureau if it is not resolved. All that I am asking is freaking working replacement motherboard.