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Anyone know why my 970 caught fire?

This is what happens with a GTX970 when they exceed 3.5GB of VRAM usage, there were warnings about it at lunch.

:p



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.
Please tell me you don't go to sleep/work and leave a tumble dryer running...
 
Please tell me you don't go to sleep/work and leave a tumble dryer running...

Exactly right and i wouldn't leave my pc on all day doing anything taxing either.

Interesting points in this thread about warranty. It's really not ok for electrical stuff to catch fire. Maybe I've just not heard about it but i dont recall reading much about consoles or tvs catching fire.
 
One of your fets failed. It happens sometimes.

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

Doesn't really make any difference to the fets. If anything, it's better for them as there's no thermal cycling. A properly configured mining rig wil run at reduced TDP, too. So current levels are lower than what would be seen on a gaming rig.
 
Are NVidia cards more likely to fail thermally? I thought AMD cards usually ran hotter/used more power.
Doesn't make a huge difference as it's not the core that's going pop so core temp isn't hugely relevant, the MOSFETs will be specced to be just enough for the card in most cases so the margin will be similar regardless of actual draw. Reference designs from both sides are normally pretty robust.
 
Are NVidia cards more likely to fail thermally? I thought AMD cards usually ran hotter/used more power.

Some manufacturers use rubbish components.

My Gigabyte 970 was an awful card and eventually become unstable on stock clocks. But my XFX rx480 has VRMs etc which are overspecced, they don't even need heatsinks on them. It will also run undervolted at a point where it uses less power than a 970.
 
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Some manufacturers use rubbish components.

My Gigabyte 970 was an awful card and eventually become unstable on stock clocks. But my XFX rx480 has VRMs etc which are overspecced, they don't even need heatsinks on them. It will also run undervolted at a point where it uses less power than a 970.

I have a friend thats gone through 3 XFX's now 1 480 blower black version, then a black dual fan version. That blew a month ago so they sent her a brand new 580 which has now also gone up in a puff of smoke and taken her power supply with it. Corsair has both items atm and told her its definitely the gpu thats caused the power supply issue. I think some people are just cursed with bad luck no matter the brand.
 
I have a friend thats gone through 3 XFX's now 1 480 blower black version, then a black dual fan version. That blew a month ago so they sent her a brand new 580 which has now also gone up in a puff of smoke and taken her power supply with it. Corsair has both items atm and told her its definitely the gpu thats caused the power supply issue. I think some people are just cursed with bad luck no matter the brand.

Depends which model. The GTR XXX which is the one I have has way over-specced VRMs. The standard ones may not.
 
Exactly right and i wouldn't leave my pc on all day doing anything taxing either.

Interesting points in this thread about warranty. It's really not ok for electrical stuff to catch fire. Maybe I've just not heard about it but i dont recall reading much about consoles or tvs catching fire.

A tumble dryer is at a completely different order of magnitude of fire risk to typical consumer electronics. In a tumble dryer you have a heating element at a much higher temperature than anything you'll find in a PC, a potential supply of dry dust and lint which is extremely combustible (high surface area and all) and lacking any flame retardant chemicals, and on top of that the circulating air provides an excellent supply of oxygen to turbo charge any nascent flame.

Components in consoles and TVs can and do catch fire, but I guess it's much less often (and not just some bias in journalism). Also circuit boards have been treated with flame retardant chemicals for yonks, so a fire is less likely to spread. In the case of graphics cards, the close proximity of the large chunk of metal otherwise known as the heatsink (and in some cases the backplate too) reduce the risk of propagation even further.

It's a valid concern though that amateurs (meant in the true sense, and not in a disparaging way) can be operating equipment with insufficient care or knowledge to ensure longevity and safety, but ultimately this applies to so many things in life!
 
A tumble dryer is at a completely different order of magnitude of fire risk to typical consumer electronics. In a tumble dryer you have a heating element at a much higher temperature than anything you'll find in a PC, a potential supply of dry dust and lint which is extremely combustible (high surface area and all) and lacking any flame retardant chemicals, and on top of that the circulating air provides an excellent supply of oxygen to turbo charge any nascent flame.

Components in consoles and TVs can and do catch fire, but I guess it's much less often (and not just some bias in journalism). Also circuit boards have been treated with flame retardant chemicals for yonks, so a fire is less likely to spread. In the case of graphics cards, the close proximity of the large chunk of metal otherwise known as the heatsink (and in some cases the backplate too) reduce the risk of propagation even further.

It's a valid concern though that amateurs (meant in the true sense, and not in a disparaging way) can be operating equipment with insufficient care or knowledge to ensure longevity and safety, but ultimately this applies to so many things in life!

Makes a tumble dryer sound terrifying!
 
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'm not an expert but i have a fair amount of electronic experience to say that's 100% not repairable, the pcb on a gpu has many many layers and when a component like a mofset dies in that way it will damage all the layers of the pcb.
 
I'm not an expert but i have a fair amount of electronic experience to say that's 100% not repairable, the pcb on a gpu has many many layers and when a component like a mofset dies in that way it will damage all the layers of the pcb.

Yes, was worried that'd be the case, and they have now confirmed it too. Cheers, Darket.
 
Ok just being picky, but if by repairing your including replacing different parts then anything is repairable. ;)
 
Cheers, contacted Galax and their response was 'Haha your warranty expired two months ago'. Doesnt particularly make me want to buy their products again, but there you go. If you are in the business of graphics cards these days it's a happy time.
 
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