EVGA 970 GTX GPU Fire

[The Sausage Man]

Was playing Counterstrike earlier when the computer turned itself off. Turned it back on and a plume of black acrid smoke was ejected from the back of the GPU and a small fire started. What are these chips that have failed do? Looks like a bad time for a GPU failure .

 

[The Sausage Man]

Its never a good time, but seems to be getting common! How old was yours?

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/anyone-know-why-my-970-caught-fire.18812177/

3 years and 4 months, a while but you'd hope it would last a bit longer.

They're MOSFETs, and are parts that make up a VRM (voltage regulation module).

If you're handy with a soldering iron, you could give a repair a crack, it looks like you can acquire those components inexpensively. I'd be inclined to replace anything that looks dodgy, so from your picture the obviously blown Q22, and the bulging/half burst Q13.

It is tempting due to the insane GPU prices at the moment.

I may just put the old 470 GTX back in for a while however.

 

[The Sausage Man]

This is what happens when the VRAM usage goes over 3.5GB

I see you're getting good mileage out of this joke!

Seeing as it's a EVGA card it should have a decent warranty so is it still covered? If so start a RMA with them. You never know, you may get a 10 series card back if they don't have any 970's left over.

Looks like it's 4 months out of warranty.

 

[The Sausage Man]

I'd still contact EVGA about an RMA... never know!

I expect EVGA will replace it. Customer service and RMA is excellent. I wouldn't buy any other make of GPU now and in fact would buy all EVGA parts if I could and they sold them (Just have GPU and PSU)

I've seen quite a lot of posts about how EVGA's support goes above and beyond but they've treated me no better or worse than what they are required to. 3 years and 4 months may as well be 10 years. Computer says no.

Hi,,

Thank you for coming back and letting us know about registration.
The product seems to be out of warranty at this moment as per the registered details.
We will not be able to assist you with warranty, Unfortunately.
Please feel free to contact if you need any further information.



Regards
EVGA

I pressed a bit further but no non-warranty repair or replace options are available.

VRM's don't tend to have any direct cooling but can run extremely hot.

It's likely been caused by insufficient case airflow tbh.

What you need to do is mod a 120 mm fan into the case blowing fresh air over the gpu or at the gpu. then make sure you set up in afterburner a custom fan curve, the stock ones are built for silence rather than effective cooling.

This is a possibility. I replaced everything but the GPU about 6 months ago. Same fan configuration (2 in, 2 out) as before but maybe it's not quite as aggressive.

 

[The Sausage Man]

To wrap up this little tale, £549.99 later I have a 1070 Ti and hopefully won't be looking at graphics card news or prices till ~2022!