ASUS claims that my Z10 PE D8 WS server board is damaged by oxidation

[alexnode]

Hi all ,
Asus repair centre says that our board is damaged by us, from oxidation near the m2 slot ... and they want me to pay for the replacement board. I am a bit puzzled and obviously not able to interpret circuit damage. I just find really weird to have oxidation damage in the m2 slot ( which we don't use ) in the middle of a rack cabinet , which is in ambient temp of permanent 20 c and inside the rack goes from 27 to 40+. I was wandering if any of you experts out there could shed light into this. We have two cabinets for a small rendering farm and we usually have supermicro boards but in that cabinet we have 4 x asus Z10 PE D8 WS. The machines worked well and unopened for about a year and half. Suddenly one morning this board stopped booting . We took it out placed a processor and a memory stick from our test bed and it didn't post then i sent it for RMA .

Here is the image of the damaged m2 they sent,and here is our rack (the system was the 3rd from the bottom.) And trust me it get's hot in there ... almost 24/7

 

[romirez]

Worked on Asus about 10 years and can confirm- this is not warranty case.

P.S. Im sure that this oxidation was not source of damage to motherboard, but that was enough to cancel warranty.

 

[alexnode]

From my point of view we buy 4 new boards ~£2000 in a (thermostat controlled environment always above 20c) in the middle of a warm rack , and suddenly one stops working, then ASUS says there is oxidation. I really wonder about the validity of the warranty if Asus boards oxidise in above standard conditions in London.