nForce2 6-way Motherboard Roundup - December 2002
by Evan Lieb on December 4, 2002 6:53 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Leadtek K7NCR18D: Tech Support and RMA
For your reference, we will repost our tech support evaluation procedure here:
The way our Tech Support evaluation works is first we anonymously email the manufacturer's tech support address(es), obviously not using our AnandTech mail server to avoid any sort of preferential treatment. Our emails (we can and will send more than one just to make sure we're not getting the staff on an "off" day) all contain fixable problems that we've had with our motherboard. We then give the manufacturer up to 72 hours to respond over business days and will report not only whether they even responded within the time allotted but also if they were successful in fixing our problems. If we do eventually receive a response after the review is published, we will go back and amend the review with the total time it took for the manufacturer to respond to our requests.The idea here is to encourage manufacturers to improve their technical support as well as provide new criteria to base your motherboard purchasing decisions upon; with motherboards looking more and more alike every day, we have to help separate the boys from the men in as many ways as possible. As usual, we're interested in your feedback on this and other parts of our reviews so please do email us with your comments.
Leadtek’s technical support process doesn’t seem to be too bad at all. There are two phone numbers you can reach Leadtek tech support at in the U.S., and they are 1-888-Leadtek or 510-490-8076. Leadtek’s phone tech support hours are 9:00am to 6:00pm, which is just a bit better than the standard for motherboard makers these days. Of course, there’s also the tech support email address you can reach Leadtek at, which is as follows: support@leadtek.com.
Leadtek's tech support form is concise but not lacking in usefulness. Their tech support form asks you to fill out a number of things, including:
1. Personal information, which includes your full name, location (full address), your current employer (company name), email address and phone number.
2. The Leadtek product you are having difficulties operating.
3. The vendor you purchased the product from and the date.
4. Your exact system specifications, including motherboard, CPU, memory, chipset, BIOS, Operating System, DirectX version in use, video card BIOS and model, IRQ usage, and any peripherals.
5. And lastly, the specific problem that is bothering you.
End users shouldn’t have any trouble filling out all this information, though some of the system specifications they ask for are a bit odd (like video card BIOS rev. and IRQ usage). Still, this organized and concise technical support form should satisfy the majority of users.
Leadtek's tech support was unable to respond within the 72 hour timeframe we've set up. This is a bit dissapointing, as the smaller motherboard makers usually have good, solid tech support response time. We'll see what happens the next time we take a look at Leadtek's tech support response time.
Leadtek’s RMA procedure works much in the same way their tech support form works. In fact, you must work through and send your RMA request through the tech support form if you are in North America. Leadtek tells us that they’ll assign you an RMA number and send you a brand new model once the details are ironed out between you and your tech support representative. Leadtek even offers to pretest your replacement board (under certain circumstances) before it's shipped out so as to ensure functionality. Doesn’t seem like too bad of a deal overall.
However, what Leadtek needs to improve on is the availability of RMA information on their web site. They don’t have an RMA policy or even some type of RMA FAQ explaining how their return and defective parts policies work. If I weren’t working for AnandTech, I would have a hell of a time figuring out what Leadtek’s RMA policy entails, as it’s not conveniently available on their web site.
Another positive aspect of Leadtek's motherboard customer service is their contact information. If you visit this link you'll find information on where to contact Leadtek in the U.S.A., Taipei, Shanghai and Europe. Leadtek lists a phone number, fax number, exact location and address in addition to a URL to visit for more information pertaining to each of the four regions of the world listed.
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c627627 - Monday, July 21, 2003 - link
MSI contradicts your reviewhttp://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1759&am...
You say:
"12/04/02 UPDATE: MSI sends word that the K7N2-L indeed does not have a PCI bus lock at 33MHz."
To this day, that was used as ultimate proof that the original MSI nForce2 mobo does not have a PCI lock.
Today MSI Senior Moderators said:
"they are wrong,and who ever told them it did not from msi"
(!)
Source:
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/e_service/forum/thre...
Won't you please settle this for us.