BFL Product Failures / Underperformance.

[the joint]

Wow, out of 45,000 units shipped, you managed to find... wait for it... 12 failures.

Now, I don't claim to be a math whiz or anything, but... I'm gonna say the failure rate is quite acceptable.

Lets be generous and say you found 1/100th of the actual failures, so that means there would be 1200 failures... a whopping... wait for it... 2.6% failure rate.

Holy hell batman!  Stop the presses!

Yep because 2.6% failure rate that can lead to your house and children burning is pretty remarkable.  It'd be great if cars braking systems only had a 2.6% failure rate.  I'd buy a new one of those tomorrow!

Awesome job.  Do you like being dumb?

Edit:  Btw, the pre-ordered unit that I sold failed within weeks.  That was a few months ago.  As far as I know, your customer service team has failed to reply to his attempted contacts to remedy the situation.  I sold it because I had the intuition to realize that your company is awful.  Obviously, I made the right choice to dump your product...because it sucks.

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[Xian01]

Good Job!  Whatever you do, don't ever address the actual substance of a post.  Just go into personal attack mode.  It's what all reputable company spokesmen do after all.  

 You know you have no case to defend yourself with, when all you're left with is doxxing your former customers and lobbing personal attacks.

 Honestly, it's just sad to watch Josh Zerlan self-destruct so publicly.

[Bicknellski]

The thermal pad applied to most of these units are just WRONG.

Given the pictures available they are way way way too thick. You wonder why people are pulling units apart and putting their own thermal compound on or trying to get better air flow? How can you get that wrong? Seriously?

[jojo69]

The thermal pad applied to most of these units are just WRONG.

Given the pictures available they are way way way too thick. You wonder why people are pulling units apart and putting their own thermal compound on or trying to get better air flow? How can you get that wrong? Seriously?

When I first posted in this thread I did not know you had such an agenda.  The overly thick thermal pad is not uncommon in industry.  It allows for greater mechanical variance in installed die heights to be accommodated and if it meets the performance profile then great.  If it works and helps hold the price point then it is not "wrong".  GPU clockers have been applying aftermarket pastes for years. 

I would advise any user contemplating paste or thinner pads to first have a very close look at how well their die tops are aligned.  The issue, if there is one, is that BFL chose thick pads for a reason.  One possible reason would be that they were seeing assembly variations they needed to account for.

[Bicknellski]

I would advise any user contemplating paste or thinner pads to first have a very close look at how well their die tops are aligned

A simple solution to uneven die height? Thicker heat sink pad.

Why are so many of the die heights uneven?

Or those thicker pads were cheap in bulk.

[jojo69]

Or they were cheap in bulk.

that is, of course, another possibility.  The torx screws were certainly bottom of the barrel.  I would still caution users to do a close inspection before risking their chips.

[Bicknellski]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342861.msg3730677#msg3730677

The thing is, when I finally got these little singles, I took one look and stripped the cases and threw them and the power supplies away. they didn't even include a fan for the heat sink! one fan only and that is the intake fan, which is terribly constricted by that ridiculous face plate and I thought "I can do better"

So I stripped them down, set the intake fan on top of the heat sink blowing down, and that blower fan blowing across them.

[bcp19]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342861.msg3730677#msg3730677

The thing is, when I finally got these little singles, I took one look and stripped the cases and threw them and the power supplies away. they didn't even include a fan for the heat sink! one fan only and that is the intake fan, which is terribly constricted by that ridiculous face plate and I thought "I can do better"

So I stripped them down, set the intake fan on top of the heat sink blowing down, and that blower fan blowing across them.

How is someone not liking how something is set up a failure?  Was the unit overheating before he made his 'changes'?  Sometimes Bick, you truly fail hard.

[jzcjca00]

Here's an indication of how busy they are with repairs.

I woke up one morning to find my unit dead.  I sent an email to support, and got no response.  I sent a PM to the employee in charge of RMAs and got no response.  I phoned them, and the phone system transferred me to voice mailbox that was full, so I could not leave a message.

I posted on their support forum, and other customers suggested ways to troubleshoot the problem.  I got no response from BFL support.

After 8 hours of attempting to get through to BFL, I shipped my unit back without a RMA number.  Three days later I got notification that they had shipped it back to me.  I was positively impressed with the short turnaround time.  I'm guessing all they had to do was replace the power supply.  I don't know, because they never gave me any indication of what failed.

I got the unit back about a week after I sent it out, and it worked fine.

Then, about a week after that, I finally got a response from the company telling me that they had fixed it and returned it to me.  So kudos to the repair group for the fast repair time, but clearly they lied about delivery dates, way underestimated the power usage, produced a poor quality product that died in less than a month, and are so swamped with repair requests that it takes them weeks to respond to customer emails.

Steer clear of this company.  They have the worst business ethics.

[PuertoLibre]

Here's an indication of how busy they are with repairs.

I woke up one morning to find my unit dead.  I sent an email to support, and got no response.  I sent a PM to the employee in charge of RMAs and got no response.  I phoned them, and the phone system transferred me to voice mailbox that was full, so I could not leave a message.

I posted on their support forum, and other customers suggested ways to troubleshoot the problem.  I got no response from BFL support.

After 8 hours of attempting to get through to BFL, I shipped my unit back without a RMA number.  Three days later I got notification that they had shipped it back to me.  I was positively impressed with the short turnaround time.  I'm guessing all they had to do was replace the power supply.  I don't know, because they never gave me any indication of what failed.

I got the unit back about a week after I sent it out, and it worked fine.

Then, about a week after that, I finally got a response from the company telling me that they had fixed it and returned it to me.  So kudos to the repair group for the fast repair time, but clearly they lied about delivery dates, way underestimated the power usage, produced a poor quality product that died in less than a month, and are so swamped with repair requests that it takes them weeks to respond to customer emails.

Steer clear of this company.  They have the worst business ethics.

Did you try their number in Costa Rica?

[philipma1957]

Please guys  do not insult Josh he is my hero.  I never been banned by anyone until he banned me for life.  from his forums.  No warnings just a ban.

 Oh  he had my money since Jan 2013. no machines no hash. HE  took a hundred bucks for an update on a canceled order.  then transferred it to an order I did  not want the upgrade on. No refund. even though he said on his forum 'you will get your hundred back'.

     every day I pray for josh so that he knows what i know.


But all you BFL haters  let tell why I love him and bfl.  I realized I would be screwed and would not be able to best them in a game of internet forum tag  long before I was banned.

  So I said I have to get even a different way. My first move was buying AM stock back in the day when friedcat was running for president I made some decent coin.  I even tossed a few bucks at bfl for upgrades on 2 orders of jallys.  that turned into another 200 down the drain.  I then said oh bitminter is taking an add for cloud hashing I will try that. more coin tossed and why BFL did not ship to cloudhashing on time. (amazing how The BFL influence spreads out.)  I still had profits fro the am stock.  I purchased some knc group buy which had made money  and I made the decision  that worked out well for me.  I decided to sell AM sticks on ebay.  So what did I do from july to today        I sold about 2000 am sticks.  always at a good price and always fast shipping.  I used the BFL name over and over and over .  AM sticks in hand not bfl pre order and I sold like a motherfucker.  my ebay  sales were great I gave the best deals possible  always thinking of how I would make up for the bfl fuck over.   Well today I am fully ahead and I started many happy miners ..  All because of JOSH  and BFL..   I will always think fondly of him whenever I think of bitcoin.   Also if anyone on the forum feels screwed around just mention well at least it is not as bad as BFL and the person perks up.  I also truly believe that they are mad genius talent at being soooo very nasty to the rest of us   we the BTC world do better by each other since no one wants to think they are as bad as BFL.  So I say to you Josh keep on keepin on.  I can't wait to see what you do with my 49GH cloud mining order that is due whenever.

 My goal is to always change orders and never get gear. just be waiting for the next gen.   I will attempt to set the record of the longest preorder in bfl history.  It is great fun.. But after this post they will most likely cancel the 534 dollar order and not refund me a dime.  But who knows they have soo many good moves.. like a great chess player 4 5 6 7 moves in advance.  .

[Bicknellski]

Product Failures / Underperformance...


Not scammed and chucked to the side of the road BFL stories please got 100 of those threads. Just need a nice single repository for people who have had got the hardware, then it broke or under performed.

[SLok]

Please guys  do not insult Josh he is my hero.  I never been banned by anyone until he banned me for life.  from his forums.  No warnings just a ban.

Dream on, I banned you.

under performed.

English teacher.....

[philipma1957]

Please guys  do not insult Josh he is my hero.  I never been banned by anyone until he banned me for life.  from his forums.  No warnings just a ban.

Dream on, I banned you.

under performed.

English teacher.....

 good to know.  thanks   you helped me out quite  a bit.

[Bicknellski]

Point being take they screwed me badly posts to the other threads.
 
Like to hear more about how lousy the BFL line of products are and how they are consistently underperforming for a statistically significant number of users. From that the users, that pretty much got shafted with crap products, can salvage things as they have been doing pretty much without any BFL support.

Bad design.
Poorly assembled.
Bargain basement parts.
Weak and ineffectual CRM.

Ya, let us point out the error of the compound word... ya that's what's fucking wrong here right? What a "douche" bag. Hyphenate that insult.

Too many ...... at the end there buddy ..... not the proper way to use an ellipsis .... is it..... The most common form of an ellipsis is a row of three periods or full stops (. . .) or a precomposed triple-dot glyph (…). The usage of the em dash (—) can overlap the usage of the ellipsis. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends that an ellipsis be formed by typing three periods, each with a space on both sides.

Code:

Quote from: SLok on Today at 18:01:56
 
English teacher.....

You have been edmucated. Note you have been on my ignore for a good many months and with recent slanderous commentary from the BFL peanut gallery I have added Josh his ilk to that as well. So, that will be the only free punctuation lesson you get from me tool. I am a lot more than an English teacher have been for years so you might want to keep digging through the net for hours to learn the truth. You guys must really really like me to go to all the effort of digging up pictures from 10 years ago, truly laughable.

I sense desperation in these posts... what nothing jumped out like being a defendant in criminal case? Obviously because I don't have a record, never been arrested never stole anything from anyone, and I have tried, as best as I can, in my life to be honest and act with integrity. Unlike Mr. Josh Zerlan vs. his customer base or Time Warner Cable was it?

When you attack the character of people at least try to make it convincing by using facts. All one should do to find out what kind of people defend Josh and BFL is look at these forums. It is all plain to see all you need to do is read no one needs to embellish, slander or lie about what BFL does and what Josh posts. Make up your own minds. Intelligent people will simply deal with more reputable companies and that is happening.

How about we get back on topic. BFL products blow... got anymore examples?

[not.you]

Back on topic, my 25 Gh/s miner topped out at 21.5 Gh/s a full 14% below advertised spec and not the +/-10% they claim.  So I got that going for me.  I complained to support about it more than 2 weeks ago (not that I would RMA the POS since that would make my fraction of ROI all that much worse) but they never responded.

[Bicknellski]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=329370.msg3540734#msg3540734
   

My buddy just got his Feb order and it was DOA! FAIL!

[rupy]

Geez, this pie throwing contest is really getting boring.

Facts:

- I got a 45GH single with smashed heatpipes. Getting RMA number was slow 1 week. Had to pay for delivery?! Lost 2 weeks mining without any hint of compensation.
- I got a 57GH single with heatsinks instead of the advertised heatpipes required for really silent cooling.

But on the upside: BFL delivers a USB device that is compact, try the competition for that. As for W/GH I don't care until summer, need the heat anyhow.

All in all I wished they weren't assholes (yes SLok I'm talking mostly about you) and had some respect for their customers, but place yourself in their shoes; they are making their customers rich! WHICH COMPANY IN THE WORLD DOES THAT!? It's time for everyone to appreciate this.

[SLok]

Point being take they screwed me badly posts to the other threads.

?? So, there is an agenda, bet it says "butt-hurt" on every day for the last year?
Fact is, once you are able to sell tens of thousands of devices, maybe even up to a hundred thousand, there will be a number of devices failing, DOA or after some period of use. Maybe, one day, you will finally be able to turn your pipe dreams into a product and bring it to the market, maybe then you'll realize that DOA's do happen, that products will fail over time, that postal services do fuck up addresses or damage packages and content. Until then, your ill efforts, see the thermal pad comment failure or the "complaint" post someone made about his devices hashing too fast, are of the same caliber as Puerto Libre's drivel, butt-hurt clownery.

[jojo69]

- I got a 57GH single with heatsinks instead of the advertised heatpipes required for really silent cooling.

meh, the full singles with the pipes howl pretty loud, don't think you're missing much there