A bone to pick

As the title of this post may indicate, I have a minor bone to pick in regards to one manufacturer that was used in the building of my PC.

For those unaware, I did build a PC recently. It was the culmination of 3 years of constantly changing hardware plans, financial roadblocks, and other things that prevented me from doing it the way I wanted to. I was finally able to not just buy the parts recently, but build the PC and I'm mostly satisfied with it.

Yes, there is always going to be the possibility of buyers regret at some point and I'm no different. However, my issue isn't so much with the quality of said product, but how the company that makes said has handled the multitude of issues that I've run into with one of their products.

For the unfamiliar, my PC is comprised of an Intel i7-5820k processor sitting on an ASUS X99 A-II motherboard. It has 32GB of G Skill Ripjaws V memory at 2400mhz. The CPU is cooled with an NZXT X62 Kraken AIO cooler. My main boot drive is a 256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 NVMe solid state drive; I also have a 1TB Samsung Evo 850 SSD for my steam library, a 500GB Samsung Evo 850 for other games, a 2TB Seagate Barrucuda at 7200RPM for recording to, and a 4TB Seagate Barracuda at 7200RPM for mass storage. Games are powered by an ASUS GTX 1070 Strix OC while the system itself is powered by a Corsair RM850 power supply. The stock fans have been replaced by a Corsair AF140 Red LED fan in the back as well as Noctua SF-P12 fans in the front for better airflow and control. This is all housed in an NZXT H440 Red and Black Matte case, which has been the crux of my issues with this build.

See, the H440 was found on NZXT's website as part of a sale on refurbished products. This case is normally anywhere from $110-120, but it was $99 refurbished. They were offering 30% off of refurbished products, so my price ended up being $69 ($85 after shipping costs). I could not pass that price up as this was the case I had set my sights on.

It arrived less than a week later and I was ecstatic. For a refurbished product, it looked pretty good to me.

Then the issues started cropping up. First thing I noticed was that there was no power supply bracket, which is crucial to keeping the power supply in place. It took over two weeks for NZXT's customer service to finally issue a replacement, but I figured that was not a huge deal. I still hadn't actually bought all the rest of the parts yet, so it wasn't like my system was put together and this was the last thing I needed to do.

Unfortunately, NZXT did not send me any of the thumb screws needed to attach the bracket to the case. The hardware kit had screws to attach the bracket to the power supply, but not the case. That was terribly unfortunate and while their social media team indicated they'd send me some out, I never received them. Thankfully, the HDD trays had captive screws that, with a little work, would do the job for now.

Other minor issues I ran into included not being able to mount my Kraken radiator in a push configuration as the fans pushed against the secondary CPU power and wouldn't allow the fans to spin (something I found semi-surprising since NZXT touts being able to fit a 280mm radiator in the top, and their CAM software occasionally deciding it wasn't going to recognize my Kraken existed. This made tuning the fans and lights more challenging than it needs to be, but this seems to be a regular occurence.

In fact, CAM's buggy nature is what convinced me not to go with the Hue+ kit or any of the other products that use CAM to work since it seems to forget people's settings and not always detect hardware like it should. If it continues to be buggy, I may have to switch to a competitor's AIO or just say fudge it and go into a custom water loop like I am planning to in the future.

One thing that could happen sooner than later though is me switching this build from the H440 into a different case, such as the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX TG, which is one hell of a sexy case, but runs nearly $200. I could also give the Fractal Design R5 Windowed edition a look, but not sure I want to go with another case from 3 years ago as well.

Fact is, there are a ton of case options out there. Cooler Master has a whole slew of new cases out that are intriguing, Corsair has introduced new cases, and Phanteks has a couple of intriguing options. I could easily swap this system out and see what it's like in a new one, especially if NZXT is not going to respond to a simple inquiry about fan set up.

Oh yes, let's not forget what might be my last straw with NZXT.

About 20 days ago, I sent a request into their support team asking how to properly set up my fans since my case, in addition to lacking a power supply bracket, was lacking an owner's manual. You know, that thing that tells you where to connect the 37 wires they have preinstalled on their case.

I didn't have that. The one that's online just talks about how you can connect multiple fans to their fan splitter, but not how to actually set it up. I later found from searching how NZXT wants you to do it, but I'm still disappointed that NZXT couldn't even take 5 minutes and tell me how to do it after nearly 3 weeks.

This has become my biggest gripe with them now though. I am willing to deal with faulty equipment as long as it can be resolved. My ASUS GTX 1070 was bugged out too, but Micro Center helped me resolve it and that issue is in the past. It took 10 minutes of questions and inspection before the guy gladly took the faulty GPU and gave me a new one.

20 days later, NZXT still hasn't answered me on a simple question. I'd hate to see how long it would take if this Kraken stopped working for some reason. It wasn't very reassuring to get an email stating that they were behind on tickets either. This just tells me that their products are not functioning as they should and maybe people shouldn't be buying them.

I don't know. It's hard to write this because I like what NZXT is trying to do. Their Hue+ kits seem nice, but I don't want to pay $60 or $70 for something that seems to break pretty easily (at least per the internet, which is NEVER wrong). The Kraken has been very well-received and highly rated by the review community, but the CAM software has been up and down.

Their products are stylish, seem practical, and are well-received. Some of their stuff just looks awesome. But looking awesome means nothing if it doesn't always work and you can't get reasonable help.

And 20 days is very, very poor service.

In the end, I'm likely switching the build to a new case. I'll keep using the Kraken for now, but am going to keep an eye on the CAM software. It's unlikely that I'll be purchasing anything else from NZXT in the immediate future, unless they get their customer service issues straightened out.

I don't have money to throw around and need my products to work as intended and have all the things needed to work.

The ball is in your court NZXT. How will you respond?

Will you respond?