Anyone know why my 970 caught fire?

Devlish · 20 Feb 2018 at 15:14

My Galax 970 died sob. Playing PUBG, no overclock or doing anything overly exciting - two months out of warranty (sheesh) - sudden pop and hiss. Anyone tell me what melted here?

malachi · 20 Feb 2018 at 15:32

You just got unlucky. Hardware randomly died with no expectation. Just like an PSU. Probably a brown capacitor.

Vince · 20 Feb 2018 at 15:35

I actually think its components on the other side of the card. Looks to be roughly inline with where the VRM's are.

Danny75 · 20 Feb 2018 at 15:52

Looks to be yet another burnt mosfet as happened to my KFA2 (same brand as Galax) 970 end of January. Look on the underside of the PCB as Vince suggests. Take some pics. Had it for two years and a couple of months as well.

Apologies for the poor quality:

This shows the top-side of the PCB, you can make out some melting showing as dark liquid spots.

This is the under-side showing one of the mosfets gone.

Under-side, close-up.

Danny75 · 20 Feb 2018 at 16:14

P.S. I have linked KFA2 support to this thread. I'm waiting on them to provide me with the name of the mosfet so I can attempt repair, or (rather hopefully) offer to repair for a fee. I have been told the matter has been passed on to their R&D team.

One thing this has taught me is to be a lot more cautious about leaving the computer on when I'm not present. Thankfully I was present when it caught fire and shut it down immediately. Nobody needs a fire in their home other than in the fire-place.

Devlish · 20 Feb 2018 at 16:27

Thanks for the replies. Here is the reverse of the card, its seems the bottom half of this one is a mess, but the top looks OK.

Danny75 · 20 Feb 2018 at 16:43

Okay, so what you've circled is a mosfet too. Same area as mine (yours is a different card so not exact same layout - mine's a KFA2 970 OC). The damage went upwards in your case, whereas the majority of damage in mine took place between a thermal pad and the mosfet. My card had a mosfet heatsink and thermal pad (which are removed in the pics above). But here's a very blurry one of it showing the heatsink and a circle marking the spot:

james.miller · 20 Feb 2018 at 16:49

Eek that sucks. hope my galax infin8 doesn't go the same way, it's getting on now :s

uk_unbeliever · 20 Feb 2018 at 18:51

This is the kind of thing that immediately comes to mind when I read about miners with multiple gpus in multiple machines running constantly.

Danny75 · 20 Feb 2018 at 19:30

Well no mining here.

Wrinkly · 20 Feb 2018 at 19:49

uk_unbeliever said:
This is the kind of thing that immediately comes to mind when I read about miners with multiple gpus in multiple machines running constantly.

I would imagine keeping cards at a constant temp without powering off is a good way to extend the life span. Though the fan bearings take a hammering.

Perfect_Chaos · 20 Feb 2018 at 19:50

That's the time bomb they hide in hardware for just after the warranty runs out..

Just bad luck

Devlish · 20 Feb 2018 at 22:43

Hah yup, seems that way gah.

uk_unbeliever said:
This is the kind of thing that immediately comes to mind when I read about miners with multiple gpus in multiple machines running constantly.

Is it even feasible to mine with a 970? I cant imagine you would make more than the electricity cost. Anyway, it seems too easy an excuse to say every GPU that blows now is down to mining, although I suspect we'll be hearing it more often now.

Danny75 · 21 Feb 2018 at 04:13

Devlish said:
it seems too easy an excuse to say every GPU that blows now is down to mining, although I suspect we'll be hearing it more often now.

Unfortunately that'll be the case. Although there's evidence out there of cards blowing, for those bothered to look, that have nothing to do with long-term prolonged mining use. For instance the EVGA cards (some) which had a problem with VRM cooling and caught fire in the first days/weeks of ownership- https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...vga-geforce-1080-1070-1060-graphics-card-fire

uk_unbeliever · 21 Feb 2018 at 06:30

Devlish said:
Hah yup, seems that way gah.

Is it even feasible to mine with a 970? I cant imagine you would make more than the electricity cost. Anyway, it seems too easy an excuse to say every GPU that blows now is down to mining, although I suspect we'll be hearing it more often now.

Sorry, I didn't mean your cards popped due to mining, I meant every time I see a card that has caught on fire and someone says how lucky it was they happened to be sat next to the pc when It happened it makes me think of all the mining rigs left on when people arent nearby. Probably no nore likely a risk than tumbledryers catching fire, but would still worry me going out knowing my pc was on and working hard all day when I wasn't there.

fastwunz · 21 Feb 2018 at 07:33

And there is nothing KFA can do? It’s still relatively young, not overclocked and damned expensive. Despite the warranty I would be making a bit of a fuss at least - it shouldn’t happen

DarkHorizon472 · 21 Feb 2018 at 08:31

I would contact them and see what they say. Under UK sales law items have to be as described and of reasonable quality. Two years does not seem long for a Gpu to last.

Geck0 · 21 Feb 2018 at 09:09

Built to a price point. You can see it in the images.

orbitalwalsh · 21 Feb 2018 at 12:49

damn, just missed out on Gibbo's cheeky sale on cards too

Speed · 21 Feb 2018 at 13:24

DarkHorizon472 said:
I would contact them and see what they say. Under UK sales law items have to be as described and of reasonable quality. Two years does not seem long for a Gpu to last.

This! Warranty isn't the be all and end all. I'd have gone through the retailer personally under the SOGA.