EVGA Pascal cards hotspot problem

five8five · 24 Nov 2016 at 11:08

orbitalwalsh said:
double edge sword that.

Failures not down to heat but being poorly made or sub par components. would actually rather it be due to overheating lol.

May do pads and Bios but it still could go pop

least they were honest eventually, and will have to work hard with the next series/Ti

A card from any manufacturer could go "pop". There will always be a percentage (preferably very small) of defective cards.

IvanDobskey · 24 Nov 2016 at 11:11

I still feel the evga cards have poorly designed cooling.

I stand by my decision to send it back and replace it with a zotac.

fishyswaz · 24 Nov 2016 at 11:22

IvanDobskey said:
I still feel the evga cards have poorly designed cooling.

I stand by my decision to send it back and replace it with a zotac.

That's fair enough - as a consumer it's your right to vote with your feet.

Saying the cooling is poorly designed though is a bit of a generalisation. The ACX coolers are pretty good/efficient at their job, just EVGA missing the thermal pads and/or a plate attached to the fins for the VRMs was a bit daft.

mikeo · 24 Nov 2016 at 11:46

fishyswaz said:
That's fair enough - as a consumer it's your right to vote with your feet.

Saying the cooling is poorly designed though is a bit of a generalisation. The ACX coolers are pretty good/efficient at their job, just EVGA missing the thermal pads and/or a plate attached to the fins for the VRMs was a bit daft.

Think you pretty much sum it up in my opinion.

clone · 24 Nov 2016 at 12:00

Least EVGA offer you a new card as many people have said they got one.

Gripen90 · 24 Nov 2016 at 12:21

And so GamersNexus finally have put the whole internet to rest, so no more "EVGA cards will burn" comments !

All heil Steve Burke

orbitalwalsh · 24 Nov 2016 at 12:31

fishyswaz said:
Did you read the article?

It alludes to pretty much that the failure rate of the cards are the same as other manufacturers - websites down at the mo, but around 0.02% failure. Same as previous gens.

Any electronic product will have units that fail - if they fail accross the board (say one particular component fails in a large percentage of units) then that's a problem - if it's a small amount as in this case, and if you still want to worry, then you should about your mobo, psu, ram etc etc.

yep and it highlights

1 st issues
"This is not true. EVGA had black screen issues on the first ~4% of its shipping product, resolved a few months ago, but they were entirely unrelated to the VRM temperature. If a VRM gets too hot, it will not do so with grace. There will be no "black screen" that can be resolved by a restart. The FETs / power stages will go up in a puff of smoke, and the card will never turn on again. These are two unrelated issues. The black screen defect -- for which we own one card exhibiting the issue -- was already resolved."

any other company have this issue on launch - not including the micron issue which again effect some and no others.

2nd

To restate: This isn't saying EVGA is in the right. The card could have been designed better, and there are still failures, it's just not the reason everyone seemed to think. Maybe bad caps, maybe the usual mix of workmanship / supply-side quality control, but not the VRM temperatures

with 0.02% failures same as other companies... non have publicly said their current failure rates. so actually EVGA could be amazing or the worst

and all my cards have been EVGA- no problems and I sell system with ASUS so for my next card I personally hope EVGA have a better run of luck next time to upgrade my 960 SC

IvanDobskey · 24 Nov 2016 at 12:40

fishyswaz said:
That's fair enough - as a consumer it's your right to vote with your feet.

Saying the cooling is poorly designed though is a bit of a generalisation. The ACX coolers are pretty good/efficient at their job, just EVGA missing the thermal pads and/or a plate attached to the fins for the VRMs was a bit daft.

The cooling of the gpu itself is fine. It's just the total lack of cooling on the vrm area and poor thermal pad contact on the vram that's the issue. It really should have been avoided. Even with the hastily added thermal pads, the vrm cooling is far from ideal. I would question the long term lifespan of these cards.

fishyswaz · 24 Nov 2016 at 14:03

IvanDobskey said:
I would question the long term lifespan of these cards.

Based on what evidence? Just asking - if the components are operating within their thermal tolerances, do you know that they're using poor components?

This is sort of what the new article refers to - the internet's picking up on this stuff more. Yes it's crap that the units were shipped without the thermal pad that other companies fit, yes they should have fitted it. They're fixing the issue with either pads/bios update or rma.

IvanDobskey · 24 Nov 2016 at 15:08

Heat is the enemy of all electronics components.

I can be certain that the evga cards will have a reduced lifespan compared to other brands with proper cooling. Although whether or not they will fail during their useful life i couldn't say for sure.

Same as overclocking a cpu really. You are reducing its lifespan.

mikeo · 24 Nov 2016 at 15:32

IvanDobskey said:
Heat is the enemy of all electronics components.

I can be certain that the evga cards will have a reduced lifespan compared to other brands with proper cooling. Although whether or not they will fail during their useful life i couldn't say for sure.

Same as overclocking a cpu really. You are reducing its lifespan.

Fair enough. But if the lifespan is reduced from say 20 years to 10. Then it's not really an issue is it. Only time will tell I suppose. But from looking closely at the gamersnexus article, it looks like even in the most extreme testing environment, that all the components are running within spec. So I personally don't see this as an issue myself.

Interesting to see that even trying to fry the card (with original vbios and no extra thermal pads) and under a far more extreme environment / load than any sane person would experience. The card/s still performed faultlessly.

As to the defective components, this can happen to any manufacturer. If the failure rate is as stated so far, then this is miniscule. And if your EVGA card goes pop, then you still have the backing of their 3 year transferable warranty. Don't think I'm going to loose any sleep here.

But I do respect the right of anyone that wants, or has, returned their card. Up to an individual to do what "they" feel happy with.

Dervious · 24 Nov 2016 at 17:28

IvanDobskey said:
It's just the total lack of cooling on the vrm area and poor thermal pad contact on the vram that's the issue.

There is some cooling of the VRM area. The VRMs have thermal pads on them which conduct heat to the baseplate.

fishyswaz · 24 Nov 2016 at 17:49

IvanDobskey said:
Heat is the enemy of all electronics components.

I can be certain that the evga cards will have a reduced lifespan compared to other brands with proper cooling. Although whether or not they will fail during their useful life i couldn't say for sure.

Same as overclocking a cpu really. You are reducing its lifespan.

Again, not having a pop - it's just that where's the proof making you certain they will have a shorter lifespan? The whole 'the card will die' thing's a moot point now they're operating within thermal limits.

Not quite the same as a CPU overclock though - although I totally agree that heat can kill electronics, it's also the increased voltages that can shorten a CPUs lifespan - which definitely isn't the case here.

efish · 24 Nov 2016 at 19:48

http://www.gamersnexus.net[/QUOTE]

"Now, again, that wasn't really ever the issue. Try to keep that in mind. It's just that they should have been there to begin with, but not because the heat was causing failures."

There was never an issue. Their was an issue but it never was an issue as even though it was an issue to begin with the issue is now not an issue. But even if it was an issue to begin with, which it is not, its not an issue that causes any problems. Just keep that in mind.

I do so love clarity free rambling. Almost as much as I love waiting for weeks for my pads to turn up

.

Dervious · 24 Nov 2016 at 20:40

efish said:
It's just that they should have been there to begin with, but not because the heat was causing failures.

Yes, they forgot to slap a large thermal pad across the VRM chokes, just under the heatsink fins.

efish · 24 Nov 2016 at 21:20

Dervious said:
Yes, they forgot to slap a large thermal pad across the VRM chokes, just under the heatsink fins.

I have the classy installs different. I have to remove an "old, skinny thermal pad" and replace it with a new larger one.

Seems the problematic non-problem here was running with the diet option rather than the new improved supersized full fat version :rolleyes:

jonathan_phang · 24 Nov 2016 at 22:08

Its being talked about above I see, but might as well link to the youtube video too. The more coverage this sort of channel gets the better. Actual testing, and actual results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpxQaSjQclo

its long, but I would suggest anyone who has an EVGA 10 series card watch it for peace of mind.

Now of course one set of tests doesn't mean its the whole truth, but its a darn sight more thorough than other sites I've seen about it. EVGA were in the wrong with the pads, but hopefully this puts this all to bed now. I feel a bit sorry for them in a sense, I wonder how many other manufacturers will now come under scrutiny like this... If we just had VRM/VRAM temp sensors on these cards it would be much more helpful.

No more - its going to burn down my house BS now...

Finally

efish · 24 Nov 2016 at 23:03

jonathan_phang said:
No more - its going to burn down my house BS now...

Finally

Burn a large straw man instead.

trisp · 25 Nov 2016 at 05:26

Having read quite abit about it now and watched the different videos (including the latest from gamernexus) nobody is yet to explain why these card's were/are setting on fire!!

Seriously evga are currently claiming there cards catching on fire is normal (within tech spec's) and in general everyone is concentrating on heat/thermal pads but if it is not thermal pad/heat related why are these cards exploding?

Gripen90 · 25 Nov 2016 at 09:35

trisp said:
Having read quite abit about it now and watched the different videos (including the latest from gamernexus) nobody is yet to explain why these card's were/are setting on fire!!

Seriously evga are currently claiming there cards catching on fire is normal (within tech spec's) and in general everyone is concentrating on heat/thermal pads but if it is not thermal pad/heat related why are these cards exploding?

They actually did talk about it in the GamersNexus video. Capacitors failing, maybe of a certian production run or poor man crafting some cards. But it's not something that is "unique" at all 200 cards out of 1 million fail = 0.02% failure rate. It happens to other cards and manufacturers also, but this time all the attention got directed to EVGA.
Back in 2013 Asus GTX 780Ti Matrix Platinum cards also burst into flames, but the hype wild fire didn't catch on, and it also affect few cards.

I did install the new VBIOS but can't really be bothered to install the thermalpads once they arrive. I'll keep the for added resale value :cool: