What Gigabyte SHOULD Have Done: Fractal Recalls Torrent Case for Potentially Faulty Fan Hubs

The Rogue Wolf

Stealthy Carnivore
Legacy
Nov 25, 2007
16,302
8,779
118
Stalking the Digital Tundra
Gender
✅

So Fractal recently released their Torrent computer case, to widely positive reviews from tech channels. But it turns out that there's a flaw in the fan hub PCB design that could potentially cause a short; so far there have been "less than five" (the company's words) units affected by this.

Did Fractal insist that their product is fine and blame the media sphere for "doing it wrong"? No, they immediately contacted resellers to stop sales of the affected case, started a recall and sent notices to their customers that there could be a problem, offering to replace the hub or refund all Torrent cases rather than just those in a narrow band of serial numbers.

Sure, the cynic in me wants to say "they just saw NZXT and Gigabyte get raked through the coals and they want to avoid that", but hell, that in itself pretty much earns a business a gold star these days. And the fact that they personally reached out to one of the big tech channels and let them know, and have basically put the message out everywhere they can quickly rather than hem and haw about it, shows that they're a company who want to stay in business by offering good products rather than covering up bad ones. So yeah: Big oof for having an issue in such a well-reviewed case, but thumbs up for getting out ahead of the problem and actually working to make it right.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dalisclock

Dirty Hipsters

This is how we praise the sun!
Legacy
Feb 7, 2011
7,885
2,235
118
Country
'Merica
Gender
3 children in a trench coat
It's ok and understandable when an issue comes up with a product. Stuff is hard to make, sometimes there's QC issues or an unexpected design flaw that doesn't get noticed until a few thousand of them are in the wild. What's important is how a company handles those issues.

Do they go the Ford route and pretend that everything is fine based on a calculation of the expected number of lawsuits, or do they do actually look out for their customers and remedy their mistakes?

Stuff like this makes me much more likely to buy a product from fractal. You can get a part that's a lemon from any manufacturer, but this shows that if you buy a defective product from Fractal you're more likely to be able to get the issue fixed or refunded without it being a hassle and that's really important.

I've owned stuff from NZXT and Gigabyte before and haven't had problems, however I'm now much less likely to buy future products from them just based on how they've treated these problem products. Now I know that if I do have a problem with one of their products down the line they're much more likely to try and fuck me over, and the fact that it hasn't happened in the past isn't an incentive to continue buying from them.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dalisclock