Allnet warranty - return and repair

#1

Hello
Do anybody know what is exactly guaranteed by allnet regarding Radxa ROCK boards? I’m trying to figure out what as EU customers we can expect from this shop (located of course in China) as a Radxa Partner.

For now on their page I could find only this small information:

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There is only two small subpages about whe they are and contact, but not much about returns, how claims are working and what can be expected from them as Radxa partner. In Europe there are several law rules that each shop must follow regarding taxes, returns, warranty, restocking and many many others that makes all those clear for every customer.

I was also unlucky to get board that was not stable with nvme and soon after if failed completely, here was discussion about that:

Advised by @RadxaYuntian I contacted with allnet ro RMA board, they replied to me that I need to send it back (at my cost) with tracked parcel and they will check it. It was first time that I needed to do that but this may be understandable, shipping cost was about $6 and took few weeks.
Recently I’ve got answer from Allnet that board arrived and they replaced SoC and WiFi chip (I neved used wifi so was not aware any problem with it) and board is right now working (attaching video to e-mail showing lsblk). The cost of repair is $20 which I need to pay via pp (probably plus shipping it back, but I wanted to order from allnet BTW).
I asked for more information about this process, what we can expect from this shop, what is their responsibility and how warranty should look. As I mentioned earlier - there is no details on page at all.

To be clear $20 is not that much for repair. Fankly I expected that it would be not worthwhile, especially with two ways delivery, but it’s also some experience - how does this process looks like, also because it’s Radxa Partner probably with some responsibilities.

To remind that, I got two boards and one was unstable from start, I’ve done everything I could to diagnose problem and be sure that it’s not something related to anything in software. Tested carefully with second board swapping every component to good one and trying to find any difference. Of course I did not resolder anything cause that could void warranty.

Do anybody needed to send anything back to Allnet? How that looked?
Are there any warranty conditions? Do they apply to anywhere outside country?
(the only thing that I knew was to fit with return to 1y) Right now I tried to find any information how this looks i.e in ameridroid and there is no word about warranty on rock 5b, so according to their docs it should be 4 weeks upon sbc reception, on radxa zero and rock pi 4 there is 1 year so technically 5B at their site has very short warranty :wink:

Right now there is OKDO available here in Europe, in USA there is Ameridroid.
I’m trying to figure out what we can expect from all of those three suppliers, how much time do we have to make extensible tests.

#2

I speak out as I did not had good follow ups on mayor Chinese company’s, I did send back something back 5 times now, with an RMA. After half a year I got 3 of them back at my mail address in The Netherlands. Only 2 times it went successful because I did monitor and managed the process.
I can’t speak for Raxda because I only did business with them once when I bought the 5B, not that that one is flawless, but I can work with it. So this is for your information, and I don’t speak bad about Raxda!
Mark Amsterdam

#3

I don’t know the exact details about how each of our distributor works, but since you are in EU I’d suggest you go to OKdo first. They are not only a distributor, but also a manufacturer, as we licensed our products to them, so they have more technical know-hows to help you with potential hardware issues.

#4

Do You suggest that for boards bought from Allnet I need to contact with OKDo? It was ordered before they cooperated with Radxa and board that I’m not sure if it’s even available from them. I don’t expect from them any responsibilities regarding that :slight_smile:
This was rather general question, what should say others in Asia?

I’m trying to figure out what is relation between radxa and allnet, are they some kind of partner, or do they need to assure some quality, maybe organise whole production and support? Who is responsible for such faults - can they return such board to some factory, or is radxa supplying them? It seems that it’s not some random shop on aliexpress, but part of bigger agreement.

As far as remember board cost was $65 + shipping and it has issues (second one is ok). Repair and additional two shipping is something like extra $40 and hopefully repaired board was well tested and issue is permanently solved.

If allnet does not take any responsibilities for products then they just sells beautiful objects that may work or not so it’s like trying armbian on exotic amlogic tvbox, which makes Igor mad saying “you on Your own and don’t disturb any of us unless You pay” :wink:

As I earlier said $20 for repair is not that much and probably I would not even resolder anything here at this price. But it’s also just extra addition to board price. I spent extra time to be sure that it’s something in hardware, and not software to avoid sending back when it’s not necessary. Also more and more have problems with their boards so I guess that we all need to know is allnet is anyhow reliable or not.

#5

Once I get faulty eMMC and allnet did not respond to my e-mails about that. It was not so expensive memory and eventually I just resolder it - something was wrong at connector.

If this would be some random shop I would not expect any comment here on that, then risk is clear and probably I would not order anything there. But the whole point is that radxa and allnet seems to work together sharing some of responsibilities, providing end to end process from factory to customers as well as after sales.

Maybe @jack or @hipboi can say more on those. Allnet is extremely empty about any warranty, repair or return.

#6

No obviously you need to contact who you placed order with. I was suggesting that in the future you could use OKdo as your first choice.

ALLNET or OKdo APAC divsion.

We make the products, sell to ALLNET, then they sell to everyone else. If there is quality related issue they send the returns back to us for analysis and repair.

They are like a car dealer and we are like a car factory.

Yes they are an authorized dealer.

2 Likes
#7

Thanks for answer, but still I could not get any information about quality and responsibility for such product.
What should happen when You’ll get faulty product from allnet? Should they return it to radxa and replace if needed or rather repair? Should they charge for that? And what is time frame for that?

I’m trying to get any information about warranties from allnet, so far with no luck :frowning: I’m also getting yet another sbcs from them so it would be nice to know that for future. It took me about 1-2 week to see problem with board, then few months to be sure that it’s not software problem, then yet some time to sent it back.

#8

I actually does not know the exact details about our warranty policy, since I’m a software engineer. You could write to sales@radxa.com for this kind of questions.

#9

Thanks for answer, I just got reply from allnet that they will pass my questions to someone from radxa who is responsible fot this topic, hopefully this will make it clear.

For now from my point of view Rock 4B+ initial cost was $68 + shipping (about $9), something was wrong about it at start but I needed some time to be sure about that. Return shipping was about $4.5 (tracked) and repair was $20, return delivery should be again somewhere at $9. So final board price is about about $110.
I’m just trying to be sure what we can expect when particular board has some defect. As we know radxa announce from time to time recalls, some of them includes resoldering particular item, some return shipping.

Also if board is faulty and out of warranty maybe allnet provides some repairs to clients, but then math is completely different, because You either buy yet another board at same price or repair it (which seems to be significantly cheaper).
Maybe yet another option is to repair yourself, today even bga soldering is not that rocket science and it can be done in all big cities with qualified technicians. Then parts availability may be some problem, probably You can’t get that easy SoC or PMIC (it’s know problem for raspi). People who do that here usually need some donor boards to get something to work.

Ok, I’m still waiting for my answers :slight_smile:

#10

I hope you got your warranty concerns answered. I had to complain here for warranty claims.