It arrived through the letterbox in blank packaging with Element14 printed on it. I had it assembled and running within the hour, all I needed to do was transfer the SD card straight from my other Pi.
However, it kept crashing leaving only the red LED on. I transferred the board over to my Living room system to exclude all connections, with no success. I then tried a fresh install, testing with both Raspbmc and Xbian. It crashed more often when I copied over large folders from an external storage using either USB or powered hard-drives. If I disconnect the Ethernet cable it crashed less often. Sometimes, it would also re-boot and if in Raspbmc, once restarted it flagged a message suggesting power supply problems (nice feature).
Having established that the board was faulty, I returned it to the supplier. Curious why it was posted through the letterbox and that it came in a blank box with Element14 printed on it, I took photos of the board for my own reference. Retailaneous did not offer me a replacement just a refund if the unit was found to be faulty, which it did. They also added £2.60 for the return post despite it costing me £3.70.
I ordered a new board from RS Components via Raspberry’s own site. It arrived via Parcel Force a few days later, I assembled it and it works O.K. (USB sockets a little tight though). The packaging was more decorative and the board was made in the UK not China as the previous one was. My first Pi was also made in china and has worked flawlessly since purchased mid 2013.
Despite these problems, I would recommend Raspberry Pi to everyone especially for projects as it is so inspiring.
So, just for your information I will picture the differences and maybe it will assist others who have had similar issues:
Purchased last year from RS components (Don’t laugh, I couldn’t find smaller heat-sinks)
Problem board (Element14 boxed) purchased from Retailaneous
Working board from RS components
Fortunately, that's that RMAs are for, I'm glad it worked out for you in the long run!
