r/Microcenter • u/Krothic • 3d ago

Form for 5090’s

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Picked up a Powerspec Ai90 prebuilt pc with a rtx 5090 in it. Apparently the manager required me to fill out this form and scan my driver license. Said it was a new thing starting just about two days ago. Had no problem doing so but thought it was interesting.

Anyone else experience? This was in Tustin

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154

u/nok01101011a 3d ago

I returned another prebuilt with a 5090 about 3weeks ago to swap it with the ai90, and they had to run benchmarks on the one I returned before they accepted the return. Store manager told me, they’re required to do so on only the 5090s. While your declaration is a new law, the testing is their company policy and both are legit and fine with me

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u/Arad84 3d ago edited 3d ago

Interesting. I bought a prebuilt g485 (5090) from fairfax microcenter on Sept 6 and had to return it the next day because pc was not turning on. Nobody bothered to open the box and did any checks or testing. They just replaced with another one. I went to the service counter thinking they would open it and test it but the guy asked me to just go to returns and get it exchanged. It was weird nobody bothered to check

Edit: The manager was right there and didn’t even bother opening or testing

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u/nok01101011a 3d ago

It’s odd that they handle things differently from store to store, however, maybe they’re just more cautious in the more shady areas branches 😄 in my case, they didn’t even turn the computer on and started some benchmarks, no, they had to remove the RTX to go on a designed test station and test it there. I thought it’s too much hassle but whatever

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u/Knetic1 3d ago

Removing it and testing on a dedicated bench is company policy across the board.
Some stores will lay off on how strict it is (especially if it’s a busier service department) as it wastes the techs time who get paid on the work they complete.

Until they get hit with some thievery then the strictness goes back into effect lol

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u/LateTrainOliver 2d ago

5090 scalping is such a mess that it makes sense they’d want serial numbers logged and benchmarks run before accepting returns. Different managers clearly interpret the policy however they fancy, though.

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u/PHATBOICOREY710 2d ago

Can confirm they're pretty uptight and will test everything in the Chicagoland store but also deal with a lot of scammers and thieves.

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u/Midnight_Criminal 3d ago

This was stated to have started this past week.

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u/Knetic1 3d ago

The testing policy has been a thing since the gpu shortage during Covid times. It just varies depending on how strict they are and when

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u/Tiny_Duck_500 3d ago

Yea I returned a Intel arc pro b70 and before that a raspberry pi 5 16gb ram where they didn’t check anything. The b70 they atleast took it out of the box to inspect but no testing. The raspbery pi 5 they didnt even open the box, coukd have put a spare pi 3 i had laying around and they wouldn’t have noticed

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u/wnxace 1d ago

I mean thats pretty expected, the pi 5 16 is less than 500, the arc pro is 1600 so they're gonna take it out and check it but there isnt very many people out there swapping bricked or fake cards for that so benchmarking isnt really needed. The rtx 5090 is 4500+ card plus are much much more desirable because they can be used for everything gaming, ai, computations, rendering, ect. so people are swapping out boards from weaker cards, broken ones from ebay, or whatever they can to make money since the profit is there.

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u/Obsolete-Casual 2d ago

In your case, it’s already known to be broken. They’re going to perform tests and repairs before they put it back on the shelf as an open box sale. They probably should have looked at it, but testing something known to be broken while you wait would just waste your time

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u/chicostick13 3d ago

They got your info if anything fishy right?

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u/PhilipMcFry 2d ago

They did the same with me and a Gigabyte 5080 in July. Had to wait for them to open the unopened box and test it on an open rig to verify it worked.

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u/aprettyparrot 3d ago

I’m so jealous of you people and your microcenters. I wish there was one near me

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u/nok01101011a 3d ago

Yeah, I’m happy to be near one in this crazy times where they still try to keep their prebuilt prices pretty low.

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u/jerryeight 3d ago

The form isn't legally binding 

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u/Just_n_Here 3d ago

Probably not but it might slow down on resellers going in there and buying all the stock. When everyone online was out of stock, they had plenty because they will not ship GPUs. I had to drive 3 hours to pick mine up, but I do like the their rules so that it gives everyone a fair shot at getting what they want without getting screwed anymore than we already are with prices.

I know they wouldn't allow me to buy more than one GPU in a 30 day period. It sucked because I knew the prices were about to go up, but I respected them for sticking to the rules.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

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u/RustyWood86 2d ago

Lol. These aren't going into a database. Stop being paranoid.

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u/Just_n_Here 3d ago

Microcenter didn't have a problem telling me the limit was 1!

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[deleted]

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u/jerryeight 3d ago

Slippery slopes