TopTon Warranty Practices

[andrea87]

Hello Everyone.

I've posted several times in this forum, mostly in the N5xxx mini PC Threads. Recently I have been in the unfortunate position having one of these boxes bought on aliexpress fail.

My box was a Pentium 7505 one, bought on the "Topton official store". It crashed weirdly a couple times, then suddently it wouldn't boot anymore. Plugging the power cable would create a power draw spike around 5-7 watts for a few seconds then back down to zero. A quick check revealed a few very hot components and regulator IC in the front of the board. Most likely either a ceramic cap or a regulator IC failed taking off the standby rail of the unit.

I have heard several bad stories in the past about TopTon and their shipment practices, delays, wrong tracking numbers... You get the idea. Given the position, I tried to contact them anyways about the situation. This was end of April.

The seller had me do some tests, swap the bios battery and clear cmos to make sure I had no easily solvable issues. After a few bit of talks over aliexpress chats, they agreed to warranty the box, with shipments at my expense. As shipping the whole box would have been close to $80, we agreed to ship the motherboard only. To reach this conclusion it took more than ten days, and I finally managed to ship the board on Friday, May 12 via a registered airmail (shipment fees were around $18 from Italy to China).

The seller received the merchandise on Monday, May 29th. I've tried contacting them at least a few times, and gotten from them just a bland reply that they were going to check it... a week ago. It's been more than two weeks, and I'm yet to get an answer from them about even having repaired or shipped the unit.

Last week I've got aliexpress themselves involved, reported the seller for the bad warranty practices, if I don't get an answer in a couple days they'll step in someway.

This is a cautionary tale. I'll keep you guys posted as the situation evolves.

Did any of you have any similar experience with warranties from AE / TopTon?

 

[altmind]

not a bad response for a chinese seller?

 

[LaunderedShirt]

I got a DOA n6005 board from Topton via Aliexpress. It cost me $66 to send it back to them which I was expecting to have reimbursed. I got the original purchase price refunded but not the return shipping and the only response that I get when I send them messages is the automated response about coupons and shipping.
I figured that's the gamble of using AE.
While I was going back and forth with Topton about my DOA board, I ordered the same item from cwwk.net so that I'd be able to proceed with my project. I don't know what would happen if I had a problem with my order from CWWK but I had a better feeling with the chat interaction and getting free expedited shipping.

 

[andrea87]

Yea it's that way with them. It took me some time for me to argue with the seller to ship only the motherboard and not a 1kg aluminium heatsink.

The thing that disappointed me the most, is that they've got the board for more than two weeks and the only answer I've got - just today - is "I'll check with our factory for you".

If this is the kind of support they offer, next time I'll either buy with paypal, or just straight go to Amazon and search for a similar discounted device. Even if I pay more, I'm certain I'll get the full support throught the full warranty period.

 

[andrea87]

Two weeks after the last post, i've got a final update on this.

During the two weeks that went by, the seller never replied in an useful manner. His only replies were "i've already urged the factory, please wait" or anything similar. I've tried several times to get any useful information from them, even threatening a dispute through aliexpress or my CC issuer, but got nothing. This is a snippet of the chat I've got with the seller in the past month or so:



On Tuesday, absolutely pissed that the seller was still not answering to any message, I've contacted Aliexpress again through their support chat. They've been quite cooperative, and asked me all sort of data (including screenshots of the conversations) plus the tracking number for the return parcel and any picture available. I had documented everything, so I was able to give them a pic of the package being made, the receipt from the post office, plus the original discussion and fault report to the seller. What I asked in chat was a full refund, as I didn't trust anymore the seller after the way he behaved himself, and I didn't want to have anything to do anymore with them. The situation got reported to the higher management team for inquiry. Mind you, I've bought a fair amount of stuff from aliexpress, but nothing extraordinary. Just trinkets here and there and a few eletctronics items. I'd say excluding the mini PC 150-200€ a year top.

A day after the chat, I've received a mail from the AE support team telling me that they "applied for a refund for you in the maximum amount of € 172". Tonight I've got this very nice confirmation email about it.




In the end, I believe mine was a lucky case, as I had inquired endlessly with the seller, trying to remain polite as far as I could, building a solid case against them. If you buy items like those from AE, make sure to have all the protections possible in place (PayPal, your own CC) and take pictures of everything to have all the proof if you need to dispute anything.

 

[idle_user]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I really wish I saw this before ordering from them.

I recently receieve the n305 baremetal version from them. Arrived relatively quickly and decent packaging. No complaints there.

The unit was isn't DoA, but I am running into mem test errors on new ddr5. I am testing with another (new) stick of ram tomorrow to see if it's the original RAM cuaisng the issue or the hardware itself. Or maybe just a BIOS issue, who knows.

I did reach out to topton through AliExpress chat, but so far only those automated response you kentioned.Really don't want to deal with this whole warranty process.

 

[JonasRokas]

I have tried 14 sticks of ram from various major brands and all of them fail mem test with 3 Topton mini pc routers. The units run extremely hot that it becomes touchable. The Topton seller keeps saying to use major brand ram, while I have provided 6+ tests of major brand ram failing. I filed a complaint to AE after 10 days of testing without any successful results or useful responses from seller, feel like it’s a bot that doesn’t read and same responses.

 

[blunden]

The unit was isn't DoA, but I am running into mem test errors on new ddr5. I am testing with another (new) stick of ram tomorrow to see if it's the original RAM cuaisng the issue or the hardware itself. Or maybe just a BIOS issue, who knows.

It could certainly be a BIOS issue that causes bad memory compatibility. If they don't fix it, it doesn't really matter if it's a BIOS or hardware issue though.

If their BIOS provides extensive voltage, and timing control for memory you could probably make it stable. If it doesn't, perhaps those options can be unlocked using a custom BIOS where those options have been unlocked, assuming they are available in the reference BIOS the current one is based on.

 

[idle_user]

Wanted to provide a quick update on my situation.

The new RAM stick didn't throw errors, but I get reboots during memtest86 and Prime95 memory tests. So something is definitely wrong with the memory controller or there's an incompatibility somewhere. I have lowered the power consumption to ensure it's not a power issue as well.

I have began a dispute with TopTon on AE. This is what triggered them to actually respond to me in DMs. They are not very helpful either way. They just wanted to verify the BIOS version and are telling me to run a fan on the unit. They even tried to bribe me with a fan if I closed the dispute.

In the dispute, I made the mistake of being too kind, and only requested a 60% refund. I was hoping to just take some loss and get over this bad experience. But that didn't help, as TopTon is telling me the partial refund is too high. They expect me to pay for the return (which is around 25% of the total costs). They even provided me with some strange instructions to lie about how much the item is worth and what's in the package "for customs purposes". So if I return the unit, I will be around same loss situation as if accepting the partial refund.

I chatted with AE support again and they ensured me to wait for their dispute team to step in if the seller is not being cooperative.

If all fails, I'm going through my my payment provider for a chargeback.

 

[johndelaney]

I bought a DOA J6412/J6413 NAS motherboard from Topton over Taobao. Probably going to attempt a return/refund and never touch Topton again. Their customer support was telling me to check the RAM and SSD which is funny because they don't even have a QVL.

 

[valentinmtl]

I had a similar experience.
The PC refused to turn on after less tahan a year.
It took me weeks to get Topton PC Store to the warranty repair request.
I shipped the motherboard. They confirmed receiving it, and then did not respond to my messages for over a month.
I contacted Ali express customer support, and sent some emails to bella@toptonminipc.com, I finally got an answer, and a week later, they shipped a package back to me. The day the package was delivered, they sent me this message:
"Hi Dear. Our colleague contacted me, we sent a new board to you, and this new board cost $155, and the board already sent it to you, Our colleague told me I need to charge you the fees. is it ok for you to pay this charge?"

I am on vacation, away from home, so I did not get a chance to see what exactly they sent back. Needless to say that I have no plans to pay 155$ for a warranty repair/replacement.

 

[andrea87]

I would inquiry what fees are they talking about. You paid shipping to send the parcel to them, the return should be at their expense. It's a repair under warranty, I wouldn't expect them to ask me to pay anything unless they made an offer in writing which I accepted. Especially after they shipped the item. If the old MB is unrepairable and they shipped you a new one, I would still demand it to be covered (as it should) under warranty.

Also, if you're in Europe, keep in mind we're covered by 2 years of warranty as of aliexpress - EU trade agreements.

 

[unmesh]

It would be nice to have good warranty service for a small PC but even nicer if we did not need warranty service, especially for a networking application

So Lenovo M920q TMM (1 liter) with add on riser and NIC card? HP T740 thin client (2 liters) with NIC card?

 

[andrea87]

It would be nice to have good warranty service for a small PC but even nicer if we did not need warranty service, especially for a networking application

So Lenovo M920q TMM (1 liter) with add on riser and NIC card? HP T740 thin client (2 liters) with NIC card?

I believe the Lenovo lineup is one of the best you can choose. After having my own trouble with the chinese boxes, I've bought two used lenovo machines over time, a m720q and a m920q. Both with risers and network card in them. Price is usually affordable for those pcs, at least in the european market I've found them between 100 and 150€ roughly for the 8th gen i5 models.

There's a whole thread here on STH for these machines:

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/lenovo-thinkcentre-thinkstation-tiny-project-tinyminimicro-reference-thread.34925/

 

[valentinmtl]

This is the reply to my question about the nature of the fees:
"the board we sent you is a new board, the returned board from you cant be get repaired
and our engineer told me need to pay replacement fees
get it"
So I think they want me to pay the 155$.
There was absolutely no mention of fees before I shipped the defective board, or before they shipped the replacement.
I am in Canada.
I was using the pc as a router, and it did not look like it will get fixed anytime soon, so I adapted a used Dell 7040 micro to the task.

 

[andrea87]

You are within 12 months of the original purchase, so the warranty should still hold. The PC ceased working, you shipped the board back, and after they determined the board wasn't repairable, they deciced to replace it, just shipping it, without telling you in advance they would try charging you for it.

I would call them out, as you sent the board out for warranty. It's still in the 12 months period, so the cost of servicing (repair or replacing the board) needs to fall on them.

 

[valentinmtl]

That is what I told them. Also, I am not sure what they can do if I take no steps to pay them.

 

[andrea87]

Contact aliexpress as well. Tell them the whole story, grab screenshots from the seller's chat. For me, they've been fundamental in solving the issue with topton.