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Asus. The dominant motherboard producer, trusted by gamers for being premium, and reliable. But, they were wronging customers for years. This is how Asus was screwing consumers, and how one YouTuber caught them red-handed, not once, but twice. And even confronted them face to face. Asus was at the top of the game. Out of 37 million projected motherboard sales, 15 million were from Asus, with Gigabyte far behind at 9 million.
Asus even held over 38% of the global market share, and was a $10 billion company. And perhaps even stronger, was their reputation. They were the enthusiast's choice. They were innovative, reliable, and had great performance. Their gaming brand: Republic of Gamers, is also huge. And Asus isn't just motherboards either. They compete across the full stack: GPUs, laptops, monitors, gaming handhelds, pretty much every product line in PC gaming. But, soon, cracks in Asus's pristine brand began to show. In early 2023, users were noticing AMD Ryzen CPUs, specifically the 7000X3D line,
were physically bulging and charred. Users were, understandably, very alarmed. When investigated, the community found a common factor: Asus. Specifically, the ASUS 7800x3d Motherboard. Customers began to compile more cases of this. What was going on? Well, that question brings us to Asus's worst nightmare. In the comments of one of the posts, a user asked if they could buy both the board, and the CPU, to investigate. This was GamersNexus, a hardware review and tech journalism channel. And soon they revealed their findings. Here's what happened.
In the ASUS BIOS, or "basic input/output system", there's an overclock setting called EXPO, which allows RAM to run at its high advertised speeds, instead of the default, slower speed. Gamers often overclock their components to get the most performance out of them. When you overclock with a setting like EXPO, the motherboard also needs to increase a separate voltage, called SoC, which runs through the CPU. But. ASUS was setting this way, way too high. The BIOS on the ASUS motherboard showed 1.35 volts, already high for an AMD CPU.
But physically measuring the motherboard, Steve from GamersNexus showed the real number was between 1.39 or even 1.4 volts. Doesn't sound like much, but it was enough to physically burn the CPU. Yet, Asus, somehow in attempting to fix it, was about to make the problem much worse. Asus sent out BIOS version 1410. And users noticed something very strange. "ASUS does not give any warranties, as to the suitability, compatibility, or usability of the UEFI, its firmware or any of its content". That's right, while rolling out a fix, they quietly added that downloading it would void your motherboard warranty. Insane. But, it somehow gets worse. Asus noted that "any intentional
manipulation can damage the processor, socket and motherboard". (Show quote at 23:42). They're right, but here they're referring to EXPO. There's intentional manipulation, and then there's running EXPO, a heavily marketed, widely used feature. ASUS also quietly removed the older BIOS versions from their download page. So, customers could stay on the original BIOS and risk burning their CPU, or install the fix and lose their warranty. Great. Either way, ASUS wins. At least, that's probably what they thought. Steve also pointed out that, if you did follow Asus's guidance to not use EXPO, you'd see major performance drops.
Y'know, on the big fancy gaming motherboard you spent hundreds of dollars on. This follow-up video passed 1.1 million views in just one month, and soon, it began to spread. "For those who dare" went from a live love laugh marketing tag to an actual threat. Awesome" "I don't understand how Asus went from "slightly more expensive but feature rich and reliable" a decade ago to "overpriced gimmicks and missing out on important features". Massive shame. Asus used to be one of the brands I could trust." It was all falling apart, including Asus's prestigious reputation. The thing is, even with the burning socket,
things could have been very different. So, what happened? Asus released a statement: "We want to address the concerns that have been raised by our users about whether recent BIOS updates will impact the warranty of ASUS AM5 motherboards." They outlined that, contrary to their BIOS update, the warranty would cover the motherboard, including EXPO use. Though, it doesn't seem like there was compensation for those who already had burned CPUs. And unfortunately, this was just the beginning. This somehow, wasn't even the worst thing Asus would do. And, guess who was about to catch them red-handed? But this time it would be different, and would
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from day one. Start for free at getstream.io Thank you to GetStream for sponsoring this video. Something ASUS is unfortunately known for, is bad customer service. They will look for any way to void your warranty, and… even damage your device themselves? "I sent my laptop for repair. The problem was fixed, but I received it back with new damages. There is now a dent on the back of the screen that wasn't there before, and there are slight bulges on the left and right sides of the trackpad" "Not only are customers' devices treated poorly,
but they also try to make customers pay for something that should actually be covered by the warranty. To be honest, the entire process feels like dealing with a fraudulent company that is trying to scam you." This was shockingly common, but, there wasn't much people could do. They were negligent and slow, but, ASUS had all the power here. The problem though, is that every now and then, you stumble onto someone who flips the power dynamic. Just one year after the burning CPU scandal, GamersNexus sent in a defective ROG Ally handheld. But unbeknownst to ASUS, this would be an experiment.
They documented everything. As soon as Asus received the ROG Ally, the red flags appeared. Asus claimed the device had "signs of damage which is not covered under warranty". So, what was the damage? But, it gets even weirder. Asus didn't even acknowledge the real problem, the joystick issue, which was under warranty. And Asus said that, if payment wasn't received, it would be sent back… unrepaired and even disassembled. You would send Asus a faulty product, they would ignore it, void your warranty, charge you for something else, then threaten to send you back a truly unusable product.
But what made all this worse, was the time pressure. Asus, eventually, after a lot of persuasion and confusing, contradictory emails, finally fixed the product. But here's the bigger problem. Steve didn't just get unlucky - these are routine for ASUS. Someone shared that a repair quote for an RTX 4090, which had just a tiny dent by the way, was $3,728 CAD. For context, you could buy the same card new for $2,799.
In just one week, GamersNexus's video passed 1.5 million views. To date, it's over 2.3 million. Asus's fraud was blown right open, and everyone's eyes were on them. So, how did Asus respond? If you enjoy stories like this, with deep dives into companies like ASUS, please subscribe! It's free, and, we don't hit you with a secret repair fee down the road. Thanks. On May 16, 2024, five days after the video, Asus issued a statement… a weird one.
"Currently, we perform a full analysis of devices sent for RMA, and send customers a comprehensive list of available repairs, free and paid, in our messaging to customers. We understand this may have caused confusion when a customer has only ordered a specific repair. We will no longer automatically offer repair quotations for cosmetic imperfections" "We deeply apologize to our customers and the community for any confusion and frustration they might have experienced from this." Apparently, it was the customers who were "confused". And Asus was simply, and graciously, giving consumers their
options - when overcharging for non-existent damage, voiding your warranty, and threatening to send back your device unassembled. People weren't happy, understandably so. The backlash began to escalate. Soon, on May 23rd they released another statement. A more comprehensive overhaul to repairs. Promises of better communication, documentation, changes to repair prices - all of which were notorious before. But, customers still weren't convinced. "This is just a PR stunt to make it look like they care, and that they're doing something. They won't change, this is who they are" "From now on Asus goes on my warranty scammer list".
Was anything going to change… really? Two days later, GamersNexus released a "Warranty Response Kit". If real change was going to happen, customers had to make themselves heard. But not to ASUS. To the Federal Trade Commission. The page detailed steps to file a complaint, along with everything a customer would need to know. (show Warranty Fraud: How to File a Report section). And that's not all. "We have begun the process of connecting with Congressional and Senatorial representatives, are contacting the Federal Trade Commission, and have begun interviews with experts and
advocates for consumers on these matters." This was a big problem for ASUS, because they had already been on the FTC's watch list. They were one of six companies to receive a warning letter about illegal warranty terms. In the meantime however, GamersNexus was going to confront Asus, face to face, in Taiwan. In their statements, their promises of "changes" were just broad statements. What were they actually going to fix? Across two different discussions over three hours, Steve pressed ASUS on answers and commitments to improving RMA, to make them accountable. And while there were some breakthroughs, the results were mixed. At the very least, Steve twisted
their arm into agreeing to a list of changes. Then, a month later, in July 2024, the FTC sent a new round of warning letters to companies about making warranties void, including ASRock, Zotac, and Gigabyte, though not ASUS - although they had already received a warning from the FTC in 2018. And that brings us to ASUS today. Has anything changed? There are signs of improvement. Asus opened a new email where customers with past disputed warranty claims could submit them for re-review. And, Asus, to their credit, went back and settled
over 120 cases, and reached out to over 300 customers who were incorrectly overcharged. A new repair center also opened in North America, instead of passing repairs to third parties at a lower cost. There's also more clarity, and any "customer induced damage" cases have much more scrutiny. They've simplified the RMA search system and removed shipping fees for mixed repairs. A lot of good stuff, to Asus's credit. But it's not perfect. It seems like a few things are slipping through. In December 2025, a customer sent a ROG RTX 5090 to RMA after random black screens. Asus declined the warranty, due to a crack so small it was only visible under a microscope.
They quoted $4,661 CAD to replace the card, even though brand new it usually retails around $4,059 CAD. Even after months of back and forth, the best they could do was a 50% discount - even though it should be under warranty, at no cost. Customers are still nervous about buying ASUS, and I don't blame them. The damage has been done. Asus betrayed customers' trust. They tried to cut costs and void warranties wherever possible, and their reputation has taken a huge hit. They're still making money, of course, but dedicated fans and enthusiasts have moved on, and many will never return.
It's going to take a long time to rebuild that trust, if ever. The crazy thing is, this isn't even the first time Steve from GamersNexus has gone head to head with a tech giant. If you wanna hear about the Newegg controversy, click this video.
