My EVGA FTW 1080 caught on FIRE!

fpstecj

Prominent
Oct 5, 2017
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Above title says it alll really :(.

Anyway, its the 2nd 1080 ftw i have owned the card for around 7 months, due to RMA'ing the first one due to poor clock speeds and generally bad performance. (although i do understand that this is just a case of luck really). Up until recently this card has been fine, when a couple of weeks ago i had a random shutdown and the pc would not even turn on for at least 2 hours, until i figured that i may aswell reseat all components etc. After doing this the pc turned on fine and ran with no issues except stuttering in games and drops to 70% usage with NO bottleneck (cpu around 70-85%).
I thought it may be the CAM software i was using to monitor my new Kraken X62 cooler as i heard it can be a bit tempermental. NOW we're getting to the exciting part. Just last night i started a game of PUBG, and as soon as the lobby screen popped up...my pc turned itself off. And before i could stand up to investigate, it turned back on but then BOOM, a bright flash from the back right of the GPU with a horrible sound. The pc turned off again and i think it kept trying to turn back on and off but at this point there was a lot of smoke and intermittent flames coming off the GPU. And that famous smell which i can now say i have experienced. I turned everything off as quick as i could, opened the windows to clear out the smoke and then had a look to see what the damage was. As i only saw the first spark or flame out of the corner of my eye, i initially thought it came from near the sata port on the mobo but i couldnt see any damage so i looked around that general area but nothing really stood out to me. I removed the gpu and had a look around, there is no visible damage but the back right of the card the same side as the logo on the backplate absolutely stinks, like burnt electrics and acidid, so i assume it was that.

I dont have any pics of the GPU as i put it straight back into its packaging never to be seen by me again!

I am still worried that other componemts may have been damaged around that area...or maybe even the PSU could be bad? Although its less than 12 months old.

I was planning an upgrade around this time and was planning on helping my friend out with my spare parts but i dont want to give him broken gear.
Basically.

1. Am i correct in assuming the GPU was just one of the few bad ones (previous cases of this issue also on the exact same card)

2. Could the PSU be the issue? As my upgrade path is basically a full build minus the power supply and i dont want the same thing to happen.

3. Would my Kraken x62 be damaged by the sudden shutdown and restarting of my PC?

Nothing else inside the case smells now, just the GPU smelt so nasty like burnt plastic and just...obviously not right haha.

My specs:

PSU: corsair RM650X gold 80
I7 4790k
Gtx 1080 FTW (2017-2017 RIP)
Msi z97a gaming 7
Corsair dominator platinum ddr3 16GB
1tb HDD
480gb SSD

If you need more info please ask and ill try my best :) Thanks in advance
 
Solution


No, I also had two RMA, it is not your computer, it is THIS CARD! I had enough and sold the RMA to someone else and bought an MSI 1080 TI Duke. All my issues went away. EVGA, never again! Your power supply is fine, this card is an abomination

Here is my newegg review,



This review is from: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW GAMING ACX 3.0, 08G-P4-6286-KR, 8GB GDDR5X, RGB LED, 10CM FAN, 10 Power Phases, Double BIOS, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC)

Pros: -Best Price/Perfomance ratio for any 1080 GTX
-OC easily over 2000 MHz out of the box
-No more cooling required for hitting the 2100 MHz wall of the 1080 GTX
-Incredible customer support from EVGA, 5 stars easily! They paid for both shipping way TWICE with a little convincing.

Cons: -Reliability and Quality Assurance is not there... Don't sugar coat this, it's a bad PCB with many weaknesses
-Overheating of VRAM problems making the card degrade over time until it dies
-A brand new EVGA SuperNOVA power supply blew up with this fantastic 1 month old card
-Nvidia drivers not stable at 4k in windows 10
-Closing or opening a game can make your system crash
-Not as powerful as I was expecting, should have sticked to my dual 290x or waited for a 1080 TI
-Random Displayport and HDMI signal drops when the resolution change in games settings... it's crazy, it's that bad. I cannot say if this is Nvidia drivers or the card, however my IGP never shown any issue with the same cables

Other Thoughts: Edit: Had to delete the review to edit the title and post as anonymous. Newegg, you should provide mean to update those things easily.

Update:
My card died for a second time in less than a year. The last time I saw something like that was with a Gigabyte GA-965P. the board died 3 time in 16 months. This is unacceptable and you end up RMA the thing until your warranty is valid. After that, you are on your own. Problems with these cards are going to appear more and more with the time passing as the weak VRAM degrade due to overheating issues and the lack of thermal pad.

I had enough, I ordered a new MSI 1080 TI and I am going to sell my RMA card to an unlucky guy. I am not going to wait for another 3 weeks without a desktop waiting for the replacement.

I learned that my credit card could have covered the cost of the card because newegg refused to take the card back after 30 days. Inform yourself, some cover you up to 90 days. Of course, newegg didn't informed me.

Original:
I bought this card because it was 2 slots only and was providing enough cooling for hitting the 2100 MHz barrier of the 1080 GTX. Buying anything with more cooling power is a waste of time and money since no one can push these cards further. This was the perfect choice.

I woke up one morning and my desktop was shut down. I tried to turn it on but didn't succeed. I suspected a Power Supply failure, however it was the graphic card that died. The card died in idle during the night. Anyway, I was building myself a new mini-itx computer and I decided to test my system with my graphic card. Big mistake, the card exploded and the power supply in my new system was an EVGA SuperNOVA B2 750W. Hard for EVGA to dodge that one. My mobo died also and was perfectly working.

Lessons learned, if your PC doesn't turn on, remove the GPU and test it again.

Also, the new card is showing the same display feed dropping behaviors on a fresh install. It is really annoying and make windows 10 literally crash. In game crashes are rare for me, but jumping in or out of a game is problematic and can make my PC crash due to resolutions conflict issues that are OS or driver related. For those praising Nvidia drivers, I can tell you I never noticed something similar with my 290x AMD cards in crossfire. My system was more stable with my Powercolors CF.

I cannot recommend this product at all. It's an important investment and I am left with a bad experience, I had to RMA from 3 different companies. However, EVGA paid for all the shipping charges even if I am canadian and I received my replacements in less than 3 weeks.

1 egg for product
2 egg for Newegg support (didn't provide any help even if barely 45 days of ownership)
5 egg for EVGA customer support (at least you know they are going to take care of you if something happens)

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

I do apologize for the troubles you are having with your EVGA GTX 1080 graphics card. I can assure you that we are here to assist and support you as best we can. If you haven't already done so, then I would encourage you to contact our 24 hour Technical Support team by phone 1.888.881.3842 and pressing option 1 or by email: Newegg@EVGA.com so that we can assist you with warranty services if needed.

Sincerely,
EVGA Customer Support

 
Solution

fpstecj

Prominent
Oct 5, 2017
16
0
520
Wow! Thankyou so much for your answer! Can i also just mention that i too experienced desktop crashes and stuttering etc weeks before it blew up. Could this have really been a sign of what was coming? I just assumed the freezes were due to windows 10 being buggy. I too am looking at getting a 1080ti, no way am i touching a 1080 ftw again! Thanks again for the reply, at least i know its the gpu and not another component :)