Epox 9NDA3+: A New Socket 939

Tech Support and RMA: Epox 9NDA3+

Our support evaluation procedure tries to determine the responsiveness of manufacturers to Technical Support problems. Our procedure:

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 allow the manufacturer up to 72 hours to respond, and then we will report whether or not they responded within the time allotted, and if they were successful in fixing our problems. In case we don't receive a response before the review is published, any future responses will be added to the review, including 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 upon which to base your motherboard purchasing decisions. As motherboards become more similar everyday, 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.

Epox Support can be found by visiting their U.S. website at http://www.epox.com/USA/support.asp. Users need to register to access some sections of the Support options, but the registration process is very simple and straightforward. In addition to the options for contacting support and creating trouble tickets, the user can access a knowledge base by model and download the latest BIOS and drivers.

The RMA process is also described at the US website and the RMA application can be filed on-line. Unlike some other manufacturers, Epox has a very flexible RMA process that will handle RMAs directly from the US office if the customer prefers, without a lot of front-end hassle to return a product for repair or replacement. The procedure is very straightforward.

There are also dedicated Epox websites for Europe, Germany, China, and a global site in both English and Mandarin. In addition, partner sites are available in the UK, Russia and Turkey.

For US customers, Technical Support can be obtained in the Support submenu. As far as email tech support response time was concerned, Epox did fine in our first attempt to measure Tech Support turnaround time. We received a reply to our question in 15 hours. While the time was fast and the answer was friendly, we did not find the answer particularly helpful in resolving our theoretical problem. The answer was one potential answer to the issue, but it appeared more a canned database response than a careful look at what we had asked. Perhaps we were looking for too much in this first test, but overall, the reply time was quite good.

We will be more confident in Epox support when we have had more opportunities to test the quality of Epox support. In fairness, we were also asking questions about a motherboard that has just reached the US market. In fact, the board is not even listed as a product on the US website, though it does appear on the Global Epox site.