I got a AR drone as a gift last year, and flew it a handful of times with a few light crashes.  I build and fly other RC helicopters as well so flight time is split.  Anyway, to make a long story short my AR Drone stopped working one day and will not show up in the WIFI list on my devices anymore.

The bottom light will briefly light up either reddish orange, or orangeish red and stay off...   sometimes it comes back on and stays red.  I've read a great many cases of people having this same issue in different forums.  Some were reporting that Clamping one of the larger chips on the main board will get the board working and pointed this out as failed BGA.  I tried this myself, clamping one of the chips with my fingers and powered on the mainboard and it lights up green and I see it again in the WIFI list.

This is clearly a defective mainboard, yet Parrot support wants me to send in the entire drone for repair.  Finding a box is going to be challenge and is going to cost me a good penny to ship in such a large box!  I'd rather send in just the mainboard and get a replacement but they won't have it.  And can't seem to find a reasonable person who can listen to reason at parrot support.  And even if I send in the entire drone I'm still at the mercy of the repair center telling me I have to pay for the repairs! 

What has everyone's experience been with defective mainboards?  This is very frustrating, I have not had this type of frustration with other RC Heli and parts manufacturers with this obvious of a defective product.  Parrot must know they have defective boards in their customers' hands and have a better procedure to support them.