GIGABYTE Barcelona RMA Center

Hello :D,

The headquarters of many hardware manufacturers are located in Taiwan and that's the place where most of tech gadgets are built. GIGABYTE as its Headquarter offices and two production plants in Taiwan.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/2...abyterma01.jpg

But... For most of us Taiwan is on the other side of the world and sometimes we experience problems with products and we need to activate the warranty service so the product can be repaired or replace.

In some cases, the products need to flight back to the HQ and that takes time causing problems to end user, reseller and even to distributors. In order to work closer to the costumer and improve the overall service quality, GIGABYTE has some RMA centers around the globe. Recently, a new RMA center opened, it's located in Barcelona, Spain.

For now on, the RMA process will be much faster for the people living in Portugal, Spain and some more countries from Western/South Europe. I hope your motherboards don't need to visit this location very often but I want to share some pictures! My english isn't very good and I know you prefer pictures than my boring text, so... let's get straight to the business!

Inside a more quiet room, some machines to fix some major problems with the most sensible components. If the problem is caused by the chipset, it will be like new after a replacement. In Barcelona, GIGABYTE can do it!

If it's needed to replace the Northbridge.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7...abyterma03.jpg

Remove and replace the Southbridge its work to another machine.

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6...abyterma04.jpg
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9665/gigabyterma06.jpg

After receiving a new Northbridge, here's a motherboard during the process of Southbridge removal.

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/6217/gigabyterma05.jpg

A small collection of some chips from repaired motherboards.

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/8...abyterma07.jpg

To remove the slots, no matter which kind, here's the machine for the job! You can see it has been busy! The extractor is there to absorb the fume from the process of soldering removal.

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7...abyterma08.jpg

If the problem is a bit easiest than that, MOSFETs, capacitors and other "small" chips, there's another table assigned with hot-air guns, soldering
iron with soldering station and, again, the extractor.

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/8...abyterma09.jpg
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/2...abyterma10.jpg

Now the testing area, here you can see the technical guys with very nice equipment to verify the motherboard status. Some small tools we can't see on the pictures are the in the dreams of most xtremsystems users. And man... These guys now how to handle them!

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/2759/gigabyterma15.jpg
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/6...abyterma16.jpg

They also repair some problems here and they work really fast! A video would be nice but this time was impossible...

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7...abyterma14.jpg

Of course they need to stock lots of components and accessories. No matter what, they need to keep everything in place and organized.

From electric components

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4...abyterma17.jpg

To connectors, coolers, slots

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/8...abyterma18.jpg
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/8...abyterma19.jpg

and other items we are not used to see off the motherboard.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6872/gigabyterma20.jpg

There are some areas inside the RMA center where you can see piles and piles of boxes and color boxes ready to move :)



Every artist need motivation! A feminine presence is always a pleasure and welcome!



Hope you enjoyed this small trip to the Barcelona RMA center in Barcelona :)


Sorry for my english! :cool:

Sweet :D

Very interesting. I imagined it very different from what we can see in OP. Especially those huge testing / fixing machines. Very cool! :cool:
Looks like a fun place to work at! :up:

We've got a similar setup in Australia too including all the machines :up:. I like those temperature controlled storage cabinets with VGA chips :D

i like that hot air station thingie :cool:

awesome pictography marco...

can they replace cpu sockets too?

If I were employed by Gigabyte, I wouldn't show that "office". Looks like crap if you think of it as an official facility, but nice if it was a private lab.

After GOOC 2010 I visited the one in Bangkok, the RMA center, on ground floor of the Gigabyte office, but, had doubts which pictures I could release. Interesting place, but honestly thought there would be more activity.
(Got some pretty detailed pictures of the BGA heater)

Thing I was most impressed about from the RMA center part - was the working inviroment, I expected it to be poor, as it is in Asia, and labor is cheap, but not at all, they had plenty of safety equipment - Big cudos.

Dino, can you log on to facebook chat? I'll open up this one specific album for you, perhaps you can verify or decline if anything is too detailed? :-)

The gigabytegirl should beholding something more in line of a mini-itx board or so...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mean Machine

If I were employed by Gigabyte, I wouldn't show that "office". Looks like crap if you think of it as an official facility, but nice if it was a private lab.

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its not a fab plant...any after sales service area looks like that...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hondacity

awesome pictography marco...

can they replace cpu sockets too?

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Forgot to answer that one... Yes, they can... I brought along home this little beauti

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1344876_n.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mean Machine

If I were employed by Gigabyte, I wouldn't show that "office". Looks like crap if you think of it as an official facility, but nice if it was a private lab.

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I was thinking the same thing. We have to clean up our workshops if people are visiting! I get a hard time if my bench gets that messy just in day to day operation (unfotunatly doesn't take long)

Ooooh, I'd love to have one of those south- or northbridges on my keychain :) That'd be nerd pr0n :)

Mr Beier

is it like a bga underneath? ball grid array?

Very nice! i look the o-scopes and i really like those soldering stations, reminds me of a tuned down version of an engineering firm I worked at for a few years, all the technicians had all those toys!, i loved the tiny smd clips/grabbers!!! perfect for measuring voltage read points!

nice look at "behind the scenes" :)

I should bring one of my 5KW amplifiers to you guys to get the 'fets changed out lol

nice tools to remove large BGA chips!!!

Nice to see this stuff.

I had thought that time to repair vs sending new board was to costly when boards went to RMA land.

Great report, thanks for sharing Marco :up:

I always enjoy watching these.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hondacity

Mr Beier

is it like a bga underneath? ball grid array?

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I honestly dont know, but the first machine in picture is capable of heating up a very accurate area, keeping it steady, allowing removal of BGA components. I got pictures with the details, and still needing verification if it reveals too much - I am not pushing so much for this though, its a busy man, even after our meeting and dinner, he returend to work at 9-10PM or so :eek:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Buckeye

Nice to see this stuff.

I had thought that time to repair vs sending new board was to costly when boards went to RMA land.

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well that depends on several factors. First one must calculate the cost of testing [Automated testing is an order of magnitude cheaper and faster than hand].
Then calculate the time required for replacement combined with the cost of replacing the part.
Finally compare the the sum of the previous steps and if it is less than the cost of a new board, then repair it; otherwise, it probably makes more sense just to send a new board instead.

I'd say that, if only one or two parts are bad, it'd be worthwhile to repair... especially higher-end products.

they should hire the girl for extra motivation, productivity and cleaning up the place :p

I like this kind of disclosure. I may make my next board a Gigabyte.