Do newegg RMA techs typically bend CPU socket pins?

[Kilhwch]

The reason I ask is that I recently sent a bad Asus Sabertooth X79 mobo back to them and they stated there was "apparent end-user caused physical damage to the CPU socket contact pins" and that I would have to send the board back to Asus, as newegg wouldn't cover a replacement. Now at first I thought they looked at it with a magnifying glass and saw some bent pins which occurred at the factory and were indiscernible by the naked eye. Tonight I got my board back from them and I find that the pins are horribly mangled.

Spoiler

I had made sure to re-pack the board properly, replacing the cpu cover and placing all the cables and stuff under the cardboard tray, away from all the sensitive parts. I even bought a new shipping box and packing material so that it wasn't just the retail box flying around the back of some truck.

I built a system using the same mobo and cpu for a friend earlier in the year, so I am familiar with these parts. I've been building computers for over 15 years and for awhile did it professionally at a major corporation. In all that time I guess I've been lucky; the few parts I've had to RMA have not ever come back to me as user damage. Sadly, all my "before" pics I took of the build in progress had the CPU cover on. I took them for fun, because building computers is fun. I should have taken more detailed pics, but I didn't think I might have to use them to prove a case.

The only conclusion I can come to is that it was damaged by the tech at newegg. Has anyone else had this happen?
I sent a mail to Asus tonight, but their warranty doesn't cover damage; has anybody had any luck with them? Or am I just out $300+?

 

[Kilhwch]

Well Asus contacted me and said that they would have to charge me for an out of warranty repair. They didn't specify any cost. Does anyone know what that might be? This totally sucks, I feel like I'm being royally screwed.

 

[DougLYX]

i sent my sabertooth to asus...they misplaced it for 2 weeks..then returned it with bent pins...it voided the warranty automatically. online friend said i shoulda taken a picture of the motherboard before i even attempted to rma it..to prove to them i didn't send it in with bent pins. this after i heard of reports of other x79 sabertooth owners that got screwed by asus techs with bent socket pins. the bent pin asus sabertooth still collects dust on it's bag on my shelf right now, after 8 months i decided to get msi

from what i can gather about the bent cpu socket pin issue is techs are avoiding fixing a problem they can't fix by bending the pins on purpose to get rid of the problem, instead of having to replace motherboard for the user that sent in the motherboard with valid warranty.

theres a post forum on this forum site about newegg sending motherboards back from rma for bent cpu socket pins and negating warranty with their tech departments as well. most of newegg tech support is minor support at all, mostly they send it out to be fixed by motherboard maker's own repair techs...unless somebody got paid off at newegg to bend the pins to negate warranty under orders from the motherboard maker(this is imo, i have no proof of this)

 

[DougLYX]

i just looked at ur pic, looks like mine has the same area of bent pins, i heard of ppl using mechanical pencils(without the graphite/lead) to reposition the pins to proper locations. but from what i can tell with asus x79. it seems to be a common problem with rma'd asus motherboards, boards returning to users with bent cpu socket pins.

they had problems with the marvell controllers(this happened to almost every x79 on the market with marvell chips) on them and wouldn't even bother to find a solution and replace ppl's motherboards. the marvel chips controlled some of the sata ports but i heard rumors of tech support finding the chips where actually shorting out the whole motherboard or something weirder going on.

lately some makers are out right refusing to repair or replace defective parts by deliberately voiding the warranties to save on costs or avoid problems they don't know how or too cheap to fix.