Nvidia GTX 1080 & 1070 EVGA Cards Reportedly Catching Fire & Dying Due To VRMs Overheating

rezerekted said:
This isn't the first time EVGA have pulled a snafu on customers. Some years back they sold a large batch of cards that had vram on them that couldn't do their factory OC. Can't remember which model it was now but I had one and had to do two RMAs with them because the first replacement card they sent me had flaky vram too. I think it was GTX7800 or 7900 series.

At first I fixed it myself by modifying the bios on the card to run the ram at a slower speed but later decided to rma it anyway after resetting the bios to factory default.

I've never bought an EVGA card since because of that fiasco and mostly go with Gigabyte Windforce now and have never had an issue with their cards and they are competitively priced too.
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This. I was stuck in RMA hell after the said snafu. 5 times I had to RMA my brand new 7900GT KO. Got to the point that I didn't even open the package after getting the same serial back smh.

To be fair, it wasn't eVGA'S fault. The fault laid with Nvidia for releasing cards with bad VRAM out in the wild. After the mistake was realized, I was sent a 7950 GT KO that was flawless. But it did take 5 times of RMA's at 12$ a pop before the problem was solved. :(
 
That is true but people with lack of cooling GTX 1060, GTX 1070, and GTX 1080 get free shipping both ways if they want to Advanced RMA it and not do the thermal pads themselves.
 
CAD4466HK said:
This. I was stuck in RMA hell after the said snafu. 5 times I had to RMA my brand new 7900GT KO. Got to the point that I didn't even open the package after getting the same serial back smh.

To be fair, it wasn't eVGA'S fault. The fault laid with Nvidia for releasing cards with bad VRAM out in the wild. After the mistake was realized, I was sent a 7950 GT KO that was flawless. But it did take 5 times of RMA's at 12$ a pop before the problem was solved. :(
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They ended up sending me a 7950 too but as I remember it was flaky on my mb so went and bought a new card that came out after that series, think I went to ATI for a while after that.
 
ng4ever said:
That is true but people with lack of cooling GTX 1060, GTX 1070, and GTX 1080 get free shipping both ways if they want to Advanced RMA it and not do the thermal pads themselves.
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Exactly - EVGA is doing free advanced RMA for everyone, even if the user is complaining and may not actually have any issues.
 
rezerekted said:
They ended up sending me a 7950 too but as I remember it was flaky on my mb so went and bought a new card that came out after that series, think I went to ATI for a while after that.
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Mine played nice with my mobo, so much so that I bought another one a few months later from ZipZoomFly for 160$ to SLI.

Not saying I never felt scorned by eVGA again, after I purchased 2 9800GTX's from them (which were great and I still have) I bought a 570GTX, that I've RMA'ed twice for faulty VRM's. My nephew has the card now and it artifacts like a bitch. I also believe this was Nvidia's fault for designing a shitty power delivery system for the 570.

Needless to say, I am happy it was an eVGA card with a lifetime warranty. :D
 
cambrian said:
what a fucking headache.
After browsing the EVGA forums, it appears you might not get a new card if you return yours for cross shipment. They may send you a refurbished one with thermal mod instead.

http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2576983
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This surprises you... why?

What about this would entitle you to a totally new card? You're presumably getting one that's equivalent to whatever you had before, but with their thermal pad fix applied. If the replacement card is DOA, the warranty is presumably still in effect, so you'd RMA it again.

Furthermore, if you think you're entitled to a brand new card as a result of this issue, where do you think all those cards are supposed to come from, and what do you think they're going to do with all the old ones they got back?
 
Thankfully I am getting a new GTX 1070 cross shipped back sense I RMAed within 30 days or less!
 
Just wondering. When you RMA a card I would assume that they send you a refurbished card in exchange. Do you still get your original warranty or a truncated warranty period for a refurbished card?
 
cageymaru said:
Just wondering. When you RMA a card I would assume that they send you a refurbished card in exchange. Do you still get your original warranty or a truncated warranty period for a refurbished card?
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The warranty is a contract, they can't cut it down.
 
This situation is actually going to benefit a lot of people instead of hurting them. Pretty much anyone that owns any of the cards impacted (Which is a lot of cards) are getting a free advanced RMA upgrade. Normally this costs like $40 at time of registration, and instead everyone is getting it for free. Because even if your 1070/1080 has an issue that may not even be related to the lack of cooling pads they're willing to stand behind their product and give people the free cross-ship to save their reputation.

And I agree that complaining about receiving a refurb is idiotic. The refurb has the same warranty and is guaranteed to perform at the level they say it should. I guess it could suck if you won the silicon lottery - But if you are that into overclocking and care about the silicon lottery you should be smart enough to know how to apply the fix on your own instead of RMAing the card for a replacement.
 
You only get a new replacement card if it is within 30 days of the time of purchase.
After that it is not clear whether you get your old card back or a refurbishment, and so before doing a RMA best to get that clarified and see if you can get your card back rather than an unknown.
Still a refurbished card is engineer checked and thoroughly tested, but like most I do not want a card I do not know the history of.
 
In Denmark and most of Europe. You get a brand new card back if they cant fix it (They may not send you another fixed card). Apple is learning that the hard way in court.
 
Shintai said:
In Denmark and most of Europe. You get a brand new card back if they cant fix it (They may not send you another fixed card). Apple is learning that the hard way in court.
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AH yeah my mistake as I was originally going to say it is linked to the legal consumer act for each country, but then I thought the UK was only 14 days and so thought that this was separate.
Just learnt the law changed here in UK late 2015 to also be 30 days rather than 14, so yeah does look like EVGA will be only going with the consumer act for each country (which as you say they legally must do).

I did not realise though the legal consumer act for certain counties was such a long time period after purchase.
Would be interesting if anyone had the days after purchase figure broken down by country as will help those needing to send back in Europe, anyone know what it is in North America?
Cheers

Edit:
This is what I have found on Europe more generally: http://www.twobirds.com/en/news/articles/2014/uk/upcoming-changes-to-consumer-rights-legislation
 
I had done my research as far as what I wanted card wise before all these cooling problems had come out. I did look through some reviews and all looked good so I ordered one of 08G-P4-5173-KR 1070 Black Edition cards. Within a couple of days of placing the order is when I ran across all the post concerning the EVGA cooling problems.

I also saw where EVGA posted all cards shipped after 11-1-2016 would be updated cards without the problems. I had ordered mine on 11-4 so I contacted the seller (a very well known and respected online dealer) about whether the card I was shipped was one of the updated cards and was told no. They went on to tell me about the bios update and to order the thermal pads from EVGA to repair the card which told me they knew about the problems the card had before selling and shipping the product.

I wrote a review warning prospective buyers of the card to make sure the product they were going to be shipped had been factory updated as I do not feel that a buyer of a product priced in this range should be required to repair manufacturing defects to make the product work 100%. I got a nice e-mail back from the seller stating my review would not be posted due to restrictions about posting about defective products in the reviews. I now understand that using reviews as part of a purchasing decision may well not give the entire story and now also understand why I had seen nothing about the overheating in the posted reviews prior to my purchase. They are not allowing the truth to be posted about problem products.

I did end up doing an RMA on the brand new unopened card for a refund as I really do not have confidence in this cards cooler design or the fix to stay within specs. I do like EVGA so I ordered one of the 1070 hybrid designs which the cooler on that one does not share the same problems.
 
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LOCKEDNLOADED said:
I also saw where EVGA posted all cards shipped after 11-1-2016 would be updated cards without the problems. I had ordered mine on 11-4 so I contacted the seller (a very well known and respected online dealer) about whether the card I was shipped was one of the updated cards and was told no. They went on to tell me about the bios update and to order the thermal pads from EVGA to repair the card which told me they knew about the problems the card had before selling and shipping the product.
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Their statement was not that cards SHIPPED after 11/1 would have the mod. The statement was that cards MANUFACTURED after 11/1 would have the mod.
 
Thankfully I was getting artifacts on my first card that I bought in october and asked for a replacement from Amazon. That gave me another 30 days for this to all unfold and I was able to return my ftw 1080 and get a hybrid.
 
I have no heatspreader or thermal pads on my EVGA 1060, its the SSC dual fan model. No backplate so I am not sure why I would be RMAing mine. Works fine. My P/N is on the list though.
 
so i requested the thermal pads from EVGA. anyone know how long it takes to get? i did get an email when i requested but nothing since
 
RazorWind said:
Why would you not just let EVGA send you the pads and install them yourself?

Are you not [H]?
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I had EVGA send me the pads. Took just under 2 weeks to get them. Installed them last night and it was really simple and straight forward. Went ahead and took the opportunity to use some Noctua thermal compound instead of the generic pouch they sent. My 1080FTW is now idle around 30-32 and load up to 61 (Playing BF1). This is with the new BIOS with the more aggressive fan profile as well. If anyone has question about process, please ask.

As a side note, they sent new pads for the VRMs and the memory chips (they have you discard old pads in favor of larger ones). You have to remove both the back-plate and the front plate to apply them all.
 
ThesisStatement said:
I had EVGA send me the pads. Took just under 2 weeks to get them. Installed them last night and it was really simple and straight forward. Went ahead and took the opportunity to use some Noctua thermal compound instead of the generic pouch they sent. My 1080FTW is now idle around 30-32 and load up to 61 (Playing BF1). This is with the new BIOS with the more aggressive fan profile as well. If anyone has question about process, please ask.

As a side note, they sent new pads for the VRMs and the memory chips (they have you discard old pads in favor of larger ones). You have to remove both the back-plate and the front plate to apply them all.
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Does the more aggressive fan profile affect the idle noise? Will it still wait til 60 degrees to kick in the fans? I don't mind a bit more noise during gaming, but idle must remain dead silent otherwise this card is pointless to me lol.
 
ReaperX22 said:
Does the more aggressive fan profile affect the idle noise? Will it still wait til 60 degrees to kick in the fans? I don't mind a bit more noise during gaming, but idle must remain dead silent otherwise this card is pointless to me lol.
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Hi Reaper (got my original account back so i'm posting under this name now). I am not sure exactly when the fans turn on, but at idle they are still off (so zero noise). I am sitting at 33 now and the fan is 0 rpm. I don't notice any huge difference in sound from idle to load. I will boot up some BF1 tonight and get you better fan RPM numbers.
 
ReaperX22 said:
Does the more aggressive fan profile affect the idle noise? Will it still wait til 60 degrees to kick in the fans? I don't mind a bit more noise during gaming, but idle must remain dead silent otherwise this card is pointless to me lol.
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I have some additional information. Played BF1 for 1/2 hour. Fans at 860 rpm, Fan% 26%, and GPU temp 55c
 
vmaddogv said:
I have some additional information. Played BF1 for 1/2 hour. Fans at 860 rpm, Fan% 26%, and GPU temp 55c
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You must have some great airflow haha. ITX case here so it'll be a bit of a different story for me most likely. Might do the BIOS update once the pads arrive.. If they ever ship >.>
 
ReaperX22 said:
You must have some great airflow haha. ITX case here so it'll be a bit of a different story for me most likely. Might do the BIOS update once the pads arrive.. If they ever ship >.>
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Honestly, I was surprised as well. I am running a Corsair 600t, 140mm Noctua intake and (3) 120mm Noctua redux exhaust. One HDD cage removed from the front as well.

In my completely unscientific one time test, it is looking like the combination of the thermal pads and change of thermal compound has given me a decent result.
 
Entire reporting is bullshit just like exploding Samsung Note 7 or even their wash machines.
 
Installed thermal pad mod kit, went easy as pie, took my sweet time and it was a ... maybe 30 minute job? Temps seem down a few degrees, even on the core. No great mem sensors, so not 100% sure on that, but who knows. The people online who have done the thermal guns show a pretty drastic reduction. Overall, still extremely happy with eVGA's customer service, been with them for awhile and will continue to do so.
 
I finally received my thermal pads from EVGA in the mail yesterday, It came with thermal grease and illustrations in addition to the thermal pads, will be installing them tonight and report back.
 
Mine literally just showed up in the mail over the weekend. Install took roughly 30 minutes "1070 SC". So far, core temps seem to have dropped a bit. Idles @ 29c-31c and during gaming never goes above 60c. I'm running a FT02 with all the fans undervolted. As far as noise is concerned, even with the updated bios the card is pretty much silent even at full tilt.
 
pendragon1 said:
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Great vid and nice to see an in-depth analysis on this subject.
The irony is that der8auer who is a known international extreme OCer stated when this 1st started to happen the issue is nothing to do with the VRM and heat, and was quite irritated by how it all spinned out of control over the internet and as news with tech sites :)
Still I would had been conservative about overclocking the card with fan profile set more optimal for quietness until this analysis was released, I would probably just go for the pads and keep a better (lower) fan profile without the BIOS albeit still custom defined.

Cheers
 
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RazorWind said:
Why would you not just let EVGA send you the pads and install them yourself?

Are you not [H]?
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Asked for the pads almost a month ago and they still haven't arrived.
I finally RMA'd yesterday and everything got confirmed today. Just got tired of waiting.
I know they say all of this is optional but then why is every card now sold coming with upgraded pads and a new bios? They obviously don't think it is optional for them.

Hated to do it as my card clocked well but weird shit was starting to happen after I did the BIOS flash so... off it went. I'll just feel better getting a card that has been checked out and has all of the mods "factory" installed.
Especially since I figure I will be keeping this thing till it dies since the resell on these cards is going to be shit.

They are indeed doing the advanced RMA and handling shipping both ways. Just need to do the credit card thing and upload an invoice.
 
pendragon1 said:
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Written article is better. ;) 200 DPPM failure rate is crazy good. I've never bought something from China that was perfect; including Nvidia cards in the past. I think it's awesome that they are able to achieve this level of quality control. Only 200 defects out of 1 million product shipped is impressive. Too bad that the 200 people got upset and made such a stink.
http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2691-final-evga-vrm-thermal-torture-test-and-analysis

TaintedSquirrel :) :) :)
 
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