Word to the wise when building PC, buy with Amex Platinum if you can

Since I’ve been building PC, I’ve completely forgot that you can get infant mortality problems where things die early. We just had a $550 motherboard literally die after one week of use. ASUS is awesome because they have online chat to get through this, but here are some things to know:

  1. When you are buying expensive parts, try to use a credit card that extends the warranty. Good disks have a five year warranty so that doesn’t really help, but for things like CPUs, memory and motherboards, you probably want to use something like American Express.
  2. Buy your parts from Newegg or Amazon. That is reputable dealers who are authorized. You can check if you are curious. If the part fails in the first 30 days, you can just return it to them no questions asked for a replacement.
  3. Keep the original packaging for a month or so as you burn in. It makes it way easier to do a return as you don’t want shipping damage.
  4. Burn in your computer. That is the most important thing. You should run Prime95 and 3DMark alot with your computer to burn it in. That’s because most failures happen early.
  5. The RMA process is usually pretty simple with modern companies. That’s another reason to stick with big brands like ASUS or Seagate. But you typically do a chat, run through the diagnostics (be diligent about this). And then they will send you a shipping label and off it goes.
  6. Of course with Corona Virus everything is going to take longer, but it will get fixed.

If all that doesn’t work, then the easiest way to reach a company like ASUS is with online chat. That is turning out to be way more effective than calling. They can usually issue the RMA right away.

I’m Rich & Co.

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