Corsair answers questions on recent product issues

by Scott Bicheno on 10 July 2009, 10:26

Tags: Corsair

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Any other issues?

[HEXUS] Do you think these two issues are symptomatic of a bigger problem in quality assurance in the performance component sector and if so what can be done about it?

[Jim]  Oh no, I don't want to imply that there's any kind of larger issue here.  As I've said a couple of times, I can't speak for what other companies do.  I can only help shed light on how Corsair views quality and how we want to take our products to market.  We have tight quality controls: whether it is testing 1066 modules at 1080 to provide a guardband for reliability or being very precise about our PSUs.  We do this because, in the long run, quality costs everyone less money.  We have fewer field failures, customers have fewer headaches, and we can, hopefully, create loyalty that brings customers back to Corsair for other products.

 

[HEXUS] What will you do about customers who have bought the PSU under the Gold proviso - can they return it to get it exchanged?

[Jim] We don't sell the product directly to the customer, so we can't take them back but they should be able to return the HX850 to the retailer for a credit or exchange.

 

[HEXUS] Obviously there are financial ramifications to these decisions - who made the 80plus decision and what were the reasons behind it.

[Jim] There wasn't a single person that made the decision.  As a company, we know the right thing to do is to sell the product exactly as we designed it: as the very best 850W and 750W 80Plus Silver certified modular PSUs you can buy.  We have the complete support of the entire executive team on this decision.

I've heard that some of our competitors are telling people we don't have confidence in the product, and that's why we changed it to 80Plus Silver.  That's laughable.  We have complete confidence in what we built and we want our customers to have that same confidence, so we are being totally honest with them about what they are buying from us.

I'm sure a lot of people wonder why we would do this to ourselves.  It would have been very easy just to let the sleeping dog lie and go out with 80Plus Gold certification; none of these questions would have come up and its pretty unlikely anyone ever would have looked again at the 80Plus certification level.  I'm sure we could have slid right by and not heard a thing about it.

But, in the end, we truly believe that doing the right thing is better for Corsair and for our customers than doing the easy thing.

 

[HEXUS] Thank you very much for your time today.

[Jim] Thank you, too.  Let's not wait for the next crisis to do this again.  Not that it hasn't been fun [laughs].

 



HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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can you not give them the “Gold award” for being honest …. Unlike some we can talk about at least there saying yep we hold our hands up there is a problem and were fixing it.

Pat on the back to corsair. Much respect.

You get my custom now ….
BTW, does Jim's replies need to be in italics? makes it very hard to read through paragraphis of that.
Decent interview, points come accross well.

The most important Q? is, will this stop me from buying Corsair in the future? No, it won't. Good on Corsair for taking action, not sure if other manus are doing so.

Edit: Just seen this on anand, appears to be more widespread and affects most memory built with Elpida Hyper ICs. http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=3596
mayhem
can you not give them the “Gold award” for being honest …. Unlike some we can talk about at least there saying yep we hold our hands up there is a problem and were fixing it.

Pat on the back to corsair. Much respect.

You get my custom now ….

Agreed. Its a breath of fresh air to see a company being forthright and honest when things go wrong. Wish MS could have done the same with the RROD, we had to wait over a year before they even admitted that there was an issue.
What a hero, its a refreshing change hearing a manufacturer being so honest & proactive! Who read the article about apple knowingly releasing the Iphones that cant stand hot/cold environments, environments that are expected in many of today's modern climates!

I have nothing but respect for Corsair, i swear by their PSU & RAM and recommend them to everyone/anyone. This was re-enforced when i experienced their customer service first hand; I asked them if they had any SATA power cables with extra plugs on to power my HDD that they could send me/i could buy off them. After a quick e-mail they sent me out a cable (free of charge, no questions asked) within a few days. What i didn't realise was it was a cable form their HX1000 PSU, not the HX520 i had. It effectively put 12v through my components, blowing two 500gb WD hard drives and a Samsung CD/DVD drive.

I wasn't sure what to do, especially as the cable had been free of charge & there wasn't much traceability in terms of who sent it/if they had been allowed to, so i thought i was going to be fobbed off (over £130+ worth of equipment for a £65 PSU). I contacted corsair and within a week they had bought me & shipped me brand new HDDs and a brand new CD/DVD drive, from PC exploding to everything up & running was less then a week! I also received personal apology letter from their head office/executives of both US & EU something or others departments.


Ever since them i swear by corsair, a mixture of bullet proof components and fantastic customer service means i effectively wont touch any of their rival's products & i do my best to convince people to do the same! This interview only re-enforced what i think of Corsair & i hope people will take note of their honesty! :)