We just replaced the last of the AOpen S145A Mini-ITX chassis that we deployed not too long ago. The call from our client was a little disconcerting since they heard a big popping noise from the computer’s area and a smell of something burning.
Fortunately they pulled the plug right away. We ended up pulling everything out of that chassis and dropping it into an Antec Minuet 350 and the board and hard drive came up unscathed.
Our only supplier that had carried this product no longer does so we have no recourse for any RMA.
AOpen has not been helpful at all even when we requested them to ship us replacement power supplies at our cost.
This situation is unfortunate, and a reminder of our past bad experiences with AOpen motherboards back when, and leads us to avoid any AOpen branded products if we can help it.
The RMA situation may be a bit different for folks in the US or other geographical regions.
However, the cost of replacing all of those units with an In-Win or Antec product has been quite significant. Even if we had recourse to some sort of RMA procedure the costs associated with this situation would have been quite high for both our clients and us.
Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book
*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.
Congrats for not selling more AOpen products. In our shop we sold a lot of systems with their mobos, and we learned the hard way that their RMA department is atrocious.
ReplyDeleteSeems that things are the same here in Spain...