What's the point of all the features if... (My Viking Experience)

[dudesikoff]

The controller is manufactured poorly. My controller has broken around four times, not at the fault of my own. I'm not some stupid little kid that spills drinks on his controller, or has no idea how to use technology. I do have to admit that they repaired my controller out of warranty, but if you take pride in your company, and truly value your customer base, you would do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. My controller is currently in a semi-working state, upon receiving my controller from my last repair, The first LED was not the same color. This was fresh out of the box, and my controller sometimes actus up, and won't charge, and sometimes the fourth LED wont come on when I am powering up the controller.

I'm sure everyone is going to take Viking's side, maybe I just got a lemon, but they said they repaired all the internals of my controller 3 times, so then what does this leave? Either improper assembly and lack of testing, or misuse on my part. But I have never dropped my controller, never loaded it with Legacy drivers, never spilled anything on it, there is no way I could be doing this.

If Odingalt is reading this, I want to request one final repair, when I get my new Xbox, on 9/20/11, to rule out if it is my Xbox's USB port somehow frying the controllers components.

I don't want to bash this company, as I feel they have innovated the modded controller in ways people couldn't imagine, but I WILL NOT be taken advantage of, and will not let my complaint go unheard.

All I want is a macro controller that is 100% functional, and reliable. But it seems whenever I get it "repaired" it is broken straight out of the box, or lasts only a short period of time. This repair is the longest my controller has lasted, but the poor assembly, and lack of total functionality really aggravates me.

I really thought this was a good wholesome company that would do whatever it takes to make the customer happy, that is clearly not the case.

So there is my Viking experience. Hope you heed my warning.

 

[ILBIEAST]

When I had my evil controller I had sent it back to them probably four times as well. Its not the company somtimes things happen. Would I ever buy another evil controller? No , this has something to do with that answer but I also dont like the mod at all, toooooo skippy. I have had no problems with my Viking. Im sure if you send Odingalt a message or open a support ticket they will be more than happy to help you out.

 

[dudesikoff]

When I had my evil controller I had sent it back to them probably four times as well. Its not the company somtimes things happen. Would I ever buy another evil controller? No , this has something to do with that answer but I also dont like the mod at all, toooooo skippy. I have had no problems with my Viking. Im sure if you send Odingalt a message or open a support ticket they will be more than happy to help you out.

Actually the customer support person told me they have given up on my controller and refuse to repair it any more.

 

[ILBIEAST]

That sounds pretty unlikely but send odingalt a message or Nyjets or fredrow . Fredrow could look at it for you hes good with controllers

 

[dudesikoff]

Pretty unlikely? Take a look at the attachment. I do appreciate your advice though, I will most likely contact them pretty soon. The guy who has been fixing my controller is Einar.

 

[Sgt Jax Mehoff]

Pretty unlikely? Take a look at the attachment. I do appreciate your advice though, I will most likely contact them pretty soon. The guy who has been fixing my controller is Einar.

That is seriously not right!

 

[ILBIEAST]

You were out of warranty and they still tried to fix it 3 times. Send me a message I want to ask you something.

 

[HippieMagic]

Einar is Odin.

I honestly have to take his side on it. He states that he has replaced it 3 times and he knows what he is doing. He isn't going to lie to you about fixing the controller. It seriously sounds like something is causing the issues because I have not had any issues at all with mine and the manufacturing on my controller is top notch. A huge number of us own the controllers and have no real issues with them. I find it hard to believe that something can break that many times.

There is a point that a company has to cut its losses and not everyone will be satisfied with that. He is NOT the owner of a large corporation. He owns a mod-shop. He can't afford to keep replacing a controller for someone because it is clearly not working in your case. If it breaks once, possibly a manufacturing error. Twice? Either a huge fluke or the customer is at fault... Three times? That is almost certainly user error or outside interference causing the issue. You are the only person I have seen having this sort of an issue with the controller.

 

[MJ23KB24]

thats weird my contoller has always worked flawlessly i take care of it like crazy cause it wasnt cheap but if it has never really worked then i guess you can express your oppionion cause if that was me in that situation then i would be pretty mad too

 

[Mythrandor]

I have two... and one on the way.... and I have never had an issue with ANY of them. Sounds like you 1. got a cursed controller or 2. you are treating it like ****

 

[ChiCubsFan14]

That is seriously not right!

I disagree with you Sarge. I think Odingalt went out of his way to give great customer service in this case. I'm sorry dudesikoff is losing out, but they repaired it THREE TIMES after it was out of warranty. Find a large business (car, computer, etc) that would do that for you. I think Viking did the best and most they could.

 

[NYjetsNY1]

Sorry "dudesikoff"

We have repaired your controller COUNTLESS times.

You must be doing something wrong! We have repaired it so many times it is ridiculous. Absolutely ludicrous.

We can't be responsible if you break your controller 4 times. We tried to help you by repairing it three times already!

No one else other than you has broken their controller this many times. We just can't keep fixing your controller to have you break it again.

"If it breaks once, possibly a manufacturing error. Twice? Either a huge fluke or the customer is at fault... Three times? That is almost certainly user error or outside interference causing the issue. You are the only person I have seen having this sort of an issue with the controller. "

If you break it a fourth time, then obviously you are breaking it. We can't just repair the controller because you are ruining it. We know what we are doing here and no one except you has ever had to send it in multiple times.

"My controller has broken around four times, not at the fault of my own.

It has to have broken at the fault of you because we fully repair it every time, test it out multiple times, and then ship it to you. You are doing SOMETHING to break it each time.

"I do have to admit that they repaired my controller out of warranty, but if you take pride in your company, and truly value your customer base, you would do whatever it takes to make a customer happy."

We have repaired your controller out of warranty THREE TIMES. We take pride in our company and truly value our customer base. We can't afford to repair your controller after you just keep breaking it every single time. It is obvious that it is not our fault. We haven't yet had a customer that had to send it back as many times as you.

 

[camper]

I think the saying go's, "A BAD WORKMAN ALWAYS BLAMES HIS TOOLS" I've done so much homework into buying a TOP of the RANGE CONTROLLER and it's always VIKING that come out TOPS,

 

[odingalt]

(No flamewars please, we told dudesikoff to feel free to write a poor review of Viking because in this case, he is indeed an unsatisfied customer. Thanks for keeping this thread professional so far.)

Dudesikoff is either the unluckiest customer ever (as we did send brand new controller three times) or he's got a PC with a bad USB port that is frying these controllers. It's not like we just slap these together and ship them out the door. My wife personally spent 8-10 hours in total sitting around playing with the last two controllers before shipping them out. She started with drained batteries, plugged them in and watched them charge for hours (she LITERALLY sat in front of the console watching the thing charge). She ran the button and EEPROM tests, loaded the production firmware. She played with it in games, loaded different macros, played some more, etc.

If it wasn't my own wife that personally sat down and processed the last two returns, we'd probably take the return and send him a fourth. But she knows what she's doing with these and they were tested to death before going out the door. My best guess is either dudesikoff has got a bad cable or bad battery pack or a PC with a bad USB port that is frying the modchip in the controller, or he's plugging it into an original xbox or something weird, or loading up rapidfire drivers, or, I cannot deny the possibility that he is the unluckiest customer ever and simply received four bad broken controllers in a row. That would statistically speaking put him at about the same odds as a lotto winner.

I'd replace the thing for free and send a fifth new one, if I thought it would actually work for him, but based on the last four, I can only imagine that they will keep arriving broken?

Since I don't have a scientific explanation for all of this, it seems only fair that dudesikoff be allowed a very negative review of Viking360!!!

 

[odingalt]

Actually the customer support person told me they have given up on my controller and refuse to repair it any more.

This is a true statement.

 

[odingalt]

The first LED was not the same color. This was fresh out of the box,

My advice is to stop using the crappy microsoft play-and-charge battery packs. They put out 2.4 volts fully charged and decrease from there. Compared to the 3.0 volts you are going to get from traditional alkalines or even NiMH rechargeables. Remember, the Viking has 12 LED's instead of the stock 4 LED's. It has red, green and blue LED's in each player position. I really would try to get away from Microsoft brand rechargeables and go with NiMH AA's or similar. Remember, Microsoft's goal from accessories is to make profits, not provide quality accessories! If we do get controllers sent back on LED color, I ask the employees to triple check the orientation of the flexible r-g-b LED add-on board we use to make sure the LED's are lined up underneath the "light pipes" of that center XBOX guide button.

and my controller sometimes actus up,

(Is there any way you provide more details on this one)

and won't charge,

This has to be impossible -- on the last two returns, my wife literally spent hours sitting in front of a console doing nothing but charging battery packs in that controller and watching the charge indicator go up. She told me basically if I didn't believe her I could get out lol.

and sometimes the fourth LED wont come on when I am powering up the controller.

Do you mean like there is a delay when you first power on the controller? This sounds like normal operation of the macro controller. Is it only on the first blink, and then the fourth LED starts blinking and all is normal? Here's what happens, the macro controller boots up the same time your controller circuit board boots up. IT first has to read the status of the real LED's, and then relay that to the "aftermarket" red-green-blue LED board we added. I've seen this lag when booting up the controller and it's normal and harmless. If it occurs it lasts for about one blink and then all is back to normal. However if this is not the problem you are talking about let me know.

I'm sure everyone is going to take Viking's side, maybe I just got a lemon, but they said they repaired all the internals of my controller 3 times, so then what does this leave? Either improper assembly and lack of testing, or misuse on my part. But I have never dropped my controller, never loaded it with Legacy drivers, never spilled anything on it, there is no way I could be doing this.

I think this might be a case that you are expecting too much from The Viking. This is an aftermarket mod chip that is installed painstakingly into a stock controller. Not a pre-built turbo controller from China, where we have had software developers illegally hack and re-use microsoft code to accomplish the job. I think maybe the customers that are the happiest with this controller have actually overlooked some of the shortcomings of the controller in favor of the features that it has? Like the LED lag when the controller first boots, charging (this may just be a case of trying to charge the controller with the LED's on, which would take a long time?), etc? The Player 1 LED color being a little off from the other LED's. Have you honestly tried just ditching the play-and-charge packs and going with real batteries? That's always been the #1 solution offered to customers who are having issues because frankly, there are microchips on the board that will work better at 2.7-3.0 volts, than the 2.0-2.4 volt range that a play-and-charge pack provides.

A near-dead play-and-charge pack at 2.0 volts is not going to supply as much current to all the electronics as a nice fresh set of new NiMH's or Alkalines. Electronics need good power. The modchip is a power hungry modchip - if you have seen it, it actually has FIVE different microchips on it. It's consuming milliamps (which is a lot in terms of embedded electronics). I haven't worked out the numbers but I feel like a Viking on a full charge isn't even going to last 24 hours of gameplay. Can anybody comment on this one?

In other words maybe the customers that are die hard Viking fans are spending too much time building macros and having fun and less time thinking about the other stuff? (this is just a thought, I'm not telling you not to expect perfection from a $200+ product, I'm just trying to think of reasons why we have happy customers if our products are indeed crapola)

If Odingalt is reading this, I want to request one final repair, when I get my new Xbox, on 9/20/11, to rule out if it is my Xbox's USB port somehow frying the controllers components.

I don't want to bash this company, as I feel they have innovated the modded controller in ways people couldn't imagine, but I WILL NOT be taken advantage of, and will not let my complaint go unheard.

All I want is a macro controller that is 100% functional, and reliable. But it seems whenever I get it "repaired" it is broken straight out of the box, or lasts only a short period of time. This repair is the longest my controller has lasted, but the poor assembly, and lack of total functionality really aggravates me.

I really thought this was a good wholesome company that would do whatever it takes to make the customer happy, that is clearly not the case.

So there is my Viking experience. Hope you heed my warning.

I think I need to nail down the exact list of the problems you are having with this fourth controller before we can agree to anything, most of your problems sound pretty straightforward with the exception of this one which is pretty open-ended:

and my controller sometimes actus up,

I'm willing to personally go down to the shop and look at your issues but I want an EXACT list of EVERY SINGLE issue you are having. Some of these I just don't think I am going to be able to solve. Vis-a-vis the recharging problem, as my wife already spent countless hours charging up the controllers before shipment. Possibly can reseat the flexible LED board for the player1 problem. The "LED" lag, if that's just at powerup, even my test controller sitting right here at my home computer skips one blink when I first power up the controller. I guess what I'm saying is I think we can agree that I'm not going to be able to make you 100% happy. Maybe we can at least come up wiht a full list of problems with this controller and maybe I can make a committment to solve some of them?

 

[Sgt Jax Mehoff]

My advice is to stop using the crappy microsoft play-and-charge battery packs. They put out 2.4 volts fully charged and decrease from there. Compared to the 3.0 volts you are going to get from traditional alkalines or even NiMH rechargeables. Remember, the Viking has 12 LED's instead of the stock 4 LED's. It has red, green and blue LED's in each player position. I really would try to get away from Microsoft brand rechargeables and go with NiMH AA's or similar. Remember, Microsoft's goal from accessories is to make profits, not provide quality accessories! If we do get controllers sent back on LED color, I ask the employees to triple check the orientation of the flexible r-g-b LED add-on board we use to make sure the LED's are lined up underneath the "light pipes" of that center XBOX guide button.



(Is there any way you provide more details on this one)



This has to be impossible -- on the last two returns, my wife literally spent hours sitting in front of a console doing nothing but charging battery packs in that controller and watching the charge indicator go up. She told me basically if I didn't believe her I could get out lol.



Do you mean like there is a delay when you first power on the controller? This sounds like normal operation of the macro controller. Is it only on the first blink, and then the fourth LED starts blinking and all is normal? Here's what happens, the macro controller boots up the same time your controller circuit board boots up. IT first has to read the status of the real LED's, and then relay that to the "aftermarket" red-green-blue LED board we added. I've seen this lag when booting up the controller and it's normal and harmless. If it occurs it lasts for about one blink and then all is back to normal. However if this is not the problem you are talking about let me know.



I think this might be a case that you are expecting too much from The Viking. This is an aftermarket mod chip that is installed painstakingly into a stock controller. Not a pre-built turbo controller from China, where we have had software developers illegally hack and re-use microsoft code to accomplish the job. I think maybe the customers that are the happiest with this controller have actually overlooked some of the shortcomings of the controller in favor of the features that it has? Like the LED lag when the controller first boots, charging (this may just be a case of trying to charge the controller with the LED's on, which would take a long time?), etc? The Player 1 LED color being a little off from the other LED's. Have you honestly tried just ditching the play-and-charge packs and going with real batteries? That's always been the #1 solution offered to customers who are having issues because frankly, there are microchips on the board that will work better at 2.7-3.0 volts, than the 2.0-2.4 volt range that a play-and-charge pack provides.

A near-dead play-and-charge pack at 2.0 volts is not going to supply as much current to all the electronics as a nice fresh set of new NiMH's or Alkalines. Electronics need good power. The modchip is a power hungry modchip - if you have seen it, it actually has FIVE different microchips on it. It's consuming milliamps (which is a lot in terms of embedded electronics). I haven't worked out the numbers but I feel like a Viking on a full charge isn't even going to last 24 hours of gameplay. Can anybody comment on this one?

In other words maybe the customers that are die hard Viking fans are spending too much time building macros and having fun and less time thinking about the other stuff? (this is just a thought, I'm not telling you not to expect perfection from a $200+ product, I'm just trying to think of reasons why we have happy customers if our products are indeed crapola)



I think I need to nail down the exact list of the problems you are having with this fourth controller before we can agree to anything, most of your problems sound pretty straightforward with the exception of this one which is pretty open-ended:



I'm willing to personally go down to the shop and look at your issues but I want an EXACT list of EVERY SINGLE issue you are having. Some of these I just don't think I am going to be able to solve. Vis-a-vis the recharging problem, as my wife already spent countless hours charging up the controllers before shipment. Possibly can reseat the flexible LED board for the player1 problem. The "LED" lag, if that's just at powerup, even my test controller sitting right here at my home computer skips one blink when I first power up the controller. I guess what I'm saying is I think we can agree that I'm not going to be able to make you 100% happy. Maybe we can at least come up wiht a full list of problems with this controller and maybe I can make a committment to solve some of them?

Some of the yellow LED's and Orange ones are just green... but I use Microsoft's rechargeable pack with PnC.

 

[dudesikoff]

I understand they repaired it three times, but when I say I don't do anything wrong I mean it. Upon two of my shipments of the repair, the controller was broken out of the box! So tell me how that's my fault.

Don't get me wrong I truly appreciate them fixing my controller, it was a very nice thing to do, but this is not out of user error, this either the person repairing the controller, or some type of third party, environmental problem (some type of waves damaging the internals)?

Here are my exact problems that I have been encountering lately:

First LED is not the same color as the rest, it is darker.
Controller RANDOMLY won't charge, this is a problem that comes and goes and no matter what I do I can't fix it, it just decides whether or not to charge (when I say charge I mean a light come on in the PnC, whether it is Green or Red.) Turning the controller on and off, pulling the battery pack out etc. does not help the problem.
Sometimes my mod completely halts, this doesn't happen too often, but when it does it usually gets fixed by a simple turn off and on of the controller.
A part of the controller is chipped, this is an issue that I noticed upon opening the controller from my second repair, I cannot prove that they did this, so it really doesn't concern me too much.
The fourth LED does not flash upon the controller powering up, connecting to my xbox, this again is not a big deal, but it wasn't doing this for about a week or two, and out of nowhere started doing it.
Fresh batteries do NOT help any of my problems.


And I understand there are many happy customers, but why am I having all these problems, I do ABSOLUTELY nothing bad to this controller, and I use very simple macros, I currently only use a rapid fire macro.

I am a guy that takes care of my electronics, I clean my monitor and TV twice a week. Turn off my comp every night. I'm not some stupid little 12 year old that drops his controller on the ground, I am very proficient with computers and electronics, so I'm no idiot, and know how to treat my things.

Like I said earlier I understand the repairs were out of warranty, but if I'm not causing these problems, then the blame has to be placed either on something the assembler is doing wrong, or some type of environmental thing, possibly even something during the shipping process.

This is really something you just have to take my word on, it's a shame because I was really thinking about making a Viking series on my channel giving Viking more business, but clearly that won't be happening at this point.

 

[dudesikoff]

If it is just a curse I wish it would be on some snotty little kid, who didn't even earn the controller, I was saving up for a while, selling a lot of personal items.

 

[odingalt]

First LED is not the same color as the rest, it is darker.

I think I can fix this.

Controller RANDOMLY won't charge, this is a problem that comes and goes and no matter what I do I can't fix it, it just decides whether or not to charge (when I say charge I mean a light come on in the PnC, whether it is Green or Red.) Turning the controller on and off, pulling the battery pack out etc. does not help the problem.

Question, is this when using the new PnC cable and new battery pack that we sent with the last return?

Sometimes my mod completely halts, this doesn't happen too often, but when it does it usually gets fixed by a simple turn off and on of the controller.

Can you attach the .VKS file that you are using when this happens? This could be due to a corrupt macro file from old versions of the software (even if you are using the newest version of the software and firmware, if you downloaded a macro that was mistakenly approved in our library that was created with some of the very old Viking software it could cause the controller to hang). I have a dissassembly tool that will let me analyze your macro for possible issues.

A part of the controller is chipped, this is an issue that I noticed upon opening the controller from my second repair, I cannot prove that they did this, so it really doesn't concern me too much.

(I would just chalk this up as wear n' tear on a 6 month old controller, maybe our techs idd it :-(, but I have them use foam padding on all our tables and our drill box and the shipping/*****ng station, and their soldering stations to try to protect the controller when it is on any tabletop surface). It's that roll-out foam stuff you can buy from Fredmeyer/Walmart/etc.

The fourth LED does not flash upon the controller powering up, connecting to my xbox, this again is not a big deal, but it wasn't doing this for about a week or two, and out of nowhere started doing it.
Fresh batteries do NOT help any of my problems.

I think I can fix this.