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Break That Warranty Sticker: ASUS Says It’s OK!

by ant on December 9, 2007

Thanks, ASUS, for doing the right thing.

ASUS released a press release yesterday clarifying their position on the yellow “Warranty void if removed” sticker on the bottom of the Eee PC devices that covers the RAM slot:

ASUS wishes to assure its customers that merely breaking or removing this kind of seal will not void the ASUS Limited Warranty.

This is great news for those looking to upgrade RAM or to see if their Eee PC comes with a Mini-PCIe connector. Now, you do not have to worry about voiding your warranty because of that sticker.

However, on the Mini-PCIe issue, it is interesting how ASUS words one line in the release:

ASUS Computer International (“ASUS”) recently received feedback from one of its valued customers with questions concerning the purpose of a seal stating, “Warranty Void If Removed” over the access door to the single SODIMM slot on some models of the ASUS Eee PC

Interestingly enough, the slot(s) below the access door is only described as a “single SODIMM slot.” There is no mention of a Mini-PCIe slot.

[edit] This is from the ASUS North America website. The press release also appears on the Canada website.

{ 4 trackbacks }

johnbiehler.com » Warranty Voided
December 9, 2007 at 7:17 pm
My Asus Eee PC › Asus Honors Warranty Even With Broken Stickers
December 9, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Tech News » Blog Archive » ASUS Mollifies Eeee Tweakers
December 10, 2007 at 10:22 pm
… nachbelichtet » ASUS EEE Subnotebook - Es gibt sie noch, die kleinen Dinge
January 4, 2008 at 5:56 pm

{ 51 comments }

wil December 9, 2007 at 3:24 pm

Farewell to the Mini-PCI-E Slot .. You were a noble option ..

W.

whit December 9, 2007 at 3:58 pm

When they say “products that are intended to be sold in any country where these stickers are not permitted” that may reference a US law that, I’m told, does not permit such limitations of warranty. But their statement seems to be a blanket one, even covering countries where the sticker can carry real legal weight.

BAM December 9, 2007 at 4:22 pm

I opened my black 7A. It has the slot. I guess there’s no 8GB in my immediate future unless it, too, has the slot. Otherwise, I’d be stuck at 8GB. With my 7A, it appears that the sky’s the limit (if I’m willing to wait long enough for my pocketbook to handle the cost of the mini PCIe card).

–BriAnn

xp1990 December 9, 2007 at 6:19 pm

sly like a fox art thou asus!

ilh December 9, 2007 at 7:12 pm

So does this apply to everywhere or just the US?

bluetech December 9, 2007 at 7:16 pm

Thank you for the update, good to know!

RF9 December 9, 2007 at 8:13 pm

I’m glad to see this. RAM upgrade on a laptop is a normal standard option on any laptop, there’s no reason it should void a warantee.
I just purchased the 8G/1G model. It’s nice to know I can add RAM if I want to.

May December 9, 2007 at 9:20 pm

where is the Mini-PCI-E Slot ?

can anyone provide a picture of where it is?

thanks

VampyreWolf December 10, 2007 at 2:06 am

whit: that would be the Magnuson-Moss Act, USA 1975. If you read the FTC site, it covers tie-in purchases quite nicely.

_Mark_ December 10, 2007 at 2:47 am

So, anyone got a handy part number/description for the appropriate 1G upgrade? (preferably a newegg link :-) I can only run one of kphotoalbum, firefox, or akregator at a time with 512M, now that I have “real” data loaded up instead of just tests, so it’s time…

Brendan December 10, 2007 at 3:07 am

May: http://pic.xfastest.com/EeePC/2GB/epc-ks-2gb-03.JPG

The top part is the mini-PCIe slot, and if you look closely under the left ledge on the top hole, you will see the connector.

celyst December 10, 2007 at 3:54 am

VampyreWolf: So for clarification, this applies to US only? If so, it might be better to make it clearer as the EEE PC is available in many other countries other than the US.

Bob December 10, 2007 at 9:24 am

Can anybody confirm if this rings true in the United Kingdom too? Considering upgrading RAM but this is holding me back…

May December 10, 2007 at 5:11 pm

thanks Brendan !

fadumpt December 10, 2007 at 7:22 pm

well, the best thing to do if you are unsure of coverage is to call up or email Asus and reference the article and see what’s up. While your at it, ask about the MINI-PCI-E slot and see what they say…tell us their answer of course.

Thanks

mono666 December 10, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Those warranty stickers are tough to remove!! It’s great that I can upgrade ram without worries but it suck that I don’t have the mini pcies bah! I’ll never need the mini pcies anyways

Bremen December 11, 2007 at 8:31 am

When I got my E (three weeks ago) I turned it on to be sure it worked. Then I pulled out the 512 and put a gig in. I knew in spite of the sticker there was no way Asus could win saying that voided my Warranty. They had to change it, it did not make sence before….now since I am running XP on it I wish I would have went with 2 gig :)

Seraphim December 11, 2007 at 3:11 pm

Bremen, your email is VERY interesting. Can you please clarify which model you have? My understanding is that you replaced the 512MB with 1GB, but you wish you had replaced it with 2GB. Do 2GB RAM modules exist for eee?
Thanks.

Mace Moneta December 11, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Mace Moneta December 11, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Mace Moneta December 11, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Gerard December 11, 2007 at 8:48 pm

I just got off the phone with Asus Tech Support in Australia and they said that the press release applied here and that there with no problem with opening it up and putting in a memory upgrade. By the sounds of it they had taken a fair few calls on the subject since as soon as I said “press release” the guy knew what I was on about and cut straight to the chase.

On a side note, the entire call took under a minute. How’s that for fast tech support!

So in short, it looks like AU is covered. Yay!

fadumpt December 11, 2007 at 10:13 pm

i just popped open the cover on the EEE at work…no PCI-E….gonna try the 2gig upgrade soon

Bob December 12, 2007 at 3:08 am

Anybody over in England heard anything from Asus tech support? I’m getting nothing back here but would like to know if an upgrade can go ahead or not… Cheers!

Peter December 12, 2007 at 4:26 am

I had a reply from Brian at Asus via email this morning: ‘…the upgrade limitation has been cancelled in the USA. However, the issue in other areas isn’t decided at present.’

Adam December 12, 2007 at 11:01 am

Hi Guys!
I spoke to Asus UK and was told its ok to remove the warranty sticker, it will NOT void the warranty!

Peter December 12, 2007 at 12:48 pm

That’s not what they said in their email to me Adam – I think I’ll wait until they’re definite!

Peter December 12, 2007 at 1:02 pm

I just got off the phone to Asus UK and they’ve told me it is fine to replace the memory, and also told me in detail which memory to purchase. Finally!

lightbomb December 12, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Great! Now… I wonder where I can find replacement trapdoor screws…

fadumpt December 12, 2007 at 1:28 pm

newegg has 2gig sticks for pretty cheap…just make sure you get a *decent* brand (doesn’t have to be most expensive) ram quality does matter with computing even if the effects of a bad brand choice are immediately apparent.

sambartle December 12, 2007 at 2:48 pm

From Technical Support regarding this in the UK:

“Dear Friend :
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.
My name is Brian and I would be assisting you today. For your problem,the upgrade limitation has been cancelled in the USA. However, the issue in other areas isn’t decided at present.Sorry for any inconvenience.

If having any problems, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Let’s discuss this issue together.
Thank you for using ASUS products and enjoying ASUS services!

Brian Zhang
ASUS Customer Service Center (Shanghai , China)
If you have any suggestions or com! plaints about our technical support
service, please e-mail your feedback to support@asus.com.cn. We will then
arrange for a specialist to work on your issue. Your suggestions and
feedback are most appreciated and allow us to serve you better.

Adam December 12, 2007 at 5:28 pm

I spoke to Asus UK today and they said its fine to upgrade the memory, if you remove the warranty sticker, the warranty is not void! come on guys even in the UK a company can’t restrict upgrades!

Dan December 12, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Burstr8 December 13, 2007 at 11:06 am

http://ca.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=9224

Looks like the great white north is also covered.

Ronald December 13, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Adam December 14, 2007 at 12:45 pm

The E beats that everest or easynote xs (uk) it has a 30gb hard drive but only 12gb is left, same size screen and is more expensive! go figure.

nimh December 14, 2007 at 1:59 pm

Peter, can you go into detail which memory Asus recommended to purchase?

leeinusa@hotmail.com December 15, 2007 at 1:23 am

Memory update;
Eee PC has (1)stick 0f 512K Ram in 1 slot. If memory compartment is open, it will break the Asus seal. (The seal say, “Void Warranty, if break”.

Groklaw Reader December 15, 2007 at 10:13 am

I just watched an 4G Surf get unboxed on YouTube, and there is no panel on the back to upgrade the RAM. Can anyone with a 4G Surf tell us if when the rest of the case is removed, if we still then have access to a RAM socket to upgrade the RAM from 256MB to 1GB or 2GB?
AND if there is a miniPCIe behind all that missing 2G Surf and 4G Surf missing back panel bull that ASUS is pulling on us consumers?

Ronald December 15, 2007 at 2:29 pm

At has been my understanding for quite some time that while RAM of the G4 is upgradeable, RAM of the G4 Surf is not.

elycomputersltd December 15, 2007 at 2:55 pm

I have emailed my contact at Asus UK to see if theis applies to the UK. They were sticking to void if removed on tuesday as I have the honour of having the first DOA unit in the UK :( and asked them if i could check it with a different dimm as it appears to be a memory fault and they wouldnt allow it despite the fact they cannot replace the unit!

fadumpt December 15, 2007 at 5:39 pm

that’s completely wrong

we have a black 4G surf and it has upgradeable ram and the area where the express card would have been…we are planning on putting a 2Gig card in so I’ll tell you how that goes

Quinten December 17, 2007 at 3:06 am

“Seraphim wrote:
Bremen, your email is VERY interesting. Can you please clarify which model you have? My understanding is that you replaced the 512MB with 1GB, but you wish you had replaced it with 2GB. Do 2GB RAM modules exist for eee?
Thanks.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007 at 3:11 pm # ”

Hi,

They do exist.. I just upgraded my Eee PC (4G) from Newegg.com: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145172
Model: CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Notebook Memory – Retail I also bought the 8GB SDHC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211180 Model: A-DATA Turbo 8GB Secure Digital High-Capacity(SDHC) Flash Card Model TurboSD SDHC 8G – Retail. Which both I can confirm works with my Eee PC.

Quinten

Quinten December 17, 2007 at 3:13 am

All,

From NoteBookReview.com you can see what type of RAM it has (http://www.notebookreview.com/picture.asp?f=28066) and how the inside looks like.

If you must get the same RAM from SiS here is a link: http://cht.sis.com/support/support_memory_16.htm.

For newbies who are not that aware of PCs: Any standard RAM with this specification should work: 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667.

Quinten

Quinten December 17, 2007 at 3:15 am

Go here: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4062 to see what it looks like inside your Eee PC.

Quinten

Groklaw Reader December 17, 2007 at 6:43 am

2G Surf is out… seems in the forum that someone got one (but it has 512MB, not the 256 as advertised)?
Is this true? 512MB not 256MB?

Also – since 4G models has about .7GB of space left, much more than 2GB used, then with the 2G exactly what has been left off (software wise)?
Does the 2G Surf have OpenOffice.org still?

Would love to see a comparison of software between 2G surf and 4G versions! Anyone know?

taras December 17, 2007 at 8:16 am

Do NOT remove the sticker if you’re in the UK.

“Dear Friend :
Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.
My name is Brian and I would be assisting you today.
For your problem,the upgrade limitation has been cancelled in the USA. However, the issue in other areas isn’t decided at present.Sorry for any inconvenience.”

Larrys December 18, 2007 at 3:07 pm

WARRANTY

I went to the ASUS site to look at the details of the warranty. It says there IS a limited warranty, but fails, AFAICS, to state the term. Is it a year??
Or something else.

Striderspike December 27, 2007 at 1:05 am

Can anyone has picture on where the SSD on the 4G. Is it upgradable? how about in 2G surf?

code 007 January 11, 2008 at 3:02 pm

we are waiting for an official announcement about warranty stickers in France

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