PC Drivers & Software

[ubermik]

I feel I need  to vent this and  couldnt find anywhere that seemed more suitable

Having watched the rise (ryse? lol) of amd over the last few years its been like watching a rocky film where the underdog rises back up off the canvas and batters the snot out of the expected winner.

After the launch of the 3000 series I felt it was time to help support AMD  with my wallet rather than just "well  wishing", so I bought  a Tomohawk plus with a 2700x for  my sons machine, a 3600 and an aorus elite for my fall back gaming rig and as I wanted to have an all AMD build I got the Strix OC 5700XT and then replaced my home server with a Threadrippper on an ASROCKRAK X399 board

I was tempted in no  small measure  by the various cash backs, if I  recall correctly 3 or 4 microsoft play  anywhere subscriptions and about half a dozen pretty  good games

Sounds awesome, except  it relied  on AMD actually being able to write a piece of software that ACTUALLY worked

So  the reality was that the AMD product verification software refused to run on ANY of the machines, even when I reinstalled a clean windows install onto my game drive still error after error, couldnt find the hardware,  crashed or  just wouldnt run

So I got absolutely  NOTHING, no cash backs, no games, no microsoft game subs

Then to add insult  to injury the Strix OC 5700XT was a pile of TAT, although that wasnt AMDs fault, but the manufacturers and that is being returned on tuesday

So all in all I find I regretted every single purchase except for the threadripper build, felt like I had been what I can only described as ripped off to the tune of several hundred pounds worth of software and cash backs and find myself now looking at switching back to the intel 10600 or similar with an Nvidia card and ditching the all AMD machine completely in favour of things that not  only work, but dont offer stuff that is impossible  to get as a borderline fraudulent incentive to purchase

Every single other cash back or promotion I have EVER had just needs the proof of purchase or invoice number, its done and dusted in seconds and ACTUALLY works

Whereas AMDs nonsensical approach dependent on a complete pile of trash program that I now wonder if it was DELIBERATELY written to not work  to AVOID people getting what was offered and which is needlessly laborious and time consuming even if it HAD worked

To AMD what I bought wasnt exactly a big deal  the top  flight stuff, but also wasnt an exactly insignificant outlay either which I only made when I did  BECAUSE the "free stuff" made it worth the getting then rather than waiting until the prices dropped, only to find it was hinged on a shoddy program at best or was a deliberate way to "appear" to offer things at face value with no intent whatsoever to actually  make good  on that offer at worst

And that was before the also shoddily written  driver problems that have been ongoing for how long now?

And it seems I am far from the only person ripped off by  the  use of the unfit for purpose product verification nonsense 

Not impressed  and as someone who  WAS extremely excited to FINALLY be able to go  back  to using AMD hardware after what is probably over a decade I am extremely unlikely to be be purchasing any more AMD hardware in the foreseeable future nor suggesting it for customers especially where its "value" is dependant on bundled software or cash backs that are apparently IMPOSSIBLE to actually obtain

What an absolutely appalling show AMD, you really should be utterly ashamed of yourselves

PLEASE ditch this pile of  trash product verification crap and just do offers in the same way EVERYONE ELSE does them, its pathetic

[elstaci]

Open a AMD REWARDS SUPPORT Ticket and let them know about your issue with the Verification tool from here: https://www.amdrewards.com/support 

AMD, on their own discretion, may award you the game(s) without the Verification tool if they see it is applicable to your case.

Most Users have gotten their games without too much hassles. Others, like yourself, has had problems either with connecting to AMD Rewards website, Verification Tool not working correctly, Game Coupons, etc. 

Most are resolved when they open a AMD Reward Support ticket. While others are not because it is the Retailer at fault and not AMD or some other reason.

NOTE: You must realize that there is a lot of Fraud going on. So AMD is taking precautions to prevent the games from being fraudulently used by a User.

[ubermik]

Yeah fraud is probably a concern from a lot of manufacturers, how companies like Dell have gotten around it is to have "approved" resellers where they can check the validity of an invoice number and ensure the same number isnt used more than once with their frequent cashback offers

But thanks for the advice, after I bought the items my work meant I was working away from home for quite a while, then when I was working locally again the time limit had expired so I just wrote the whole thing off and swallowed the bitter taste (only to be regurgitated again here I guess lol)

If it had been a problem with intel I would have probably just thought "well its intel, what do you expect" knowing full well about their monopolistic business practices. But I had been rooting for AMD to be competitive since I stopped using their products towards the end of the Athlon years when they couldnt maintain a competitive edge. So with the advent of Ryzen it was like a breath of fresh air to watch, which I think made it sting that much more if that makes sense

As I said in the OP, the problem with the strix wasnt AMDs fault either, that was the over engineering of the heatsink and a lack of testing, so purely the fault of Asus as we have also seen with some of the AMD based laptops recently which I had also been looking at purchasing and where I am now waiting for a while longer to see if any manufacturers stop crippling their AMD offerings by curtailing the GPUs paired with them, which again isnt the fault of AMD themselves

So cheers for the suggestion, I'll give it a go when I am next working from home

As I really just wanted to feel "heard" when I posted this,  if they will consider addressing my problems that would be pretty great to be honest and quite a surprising turn of events to be honest

Have a great weekend and thank you

Mike