Friday, August 25th 2017
Inno3D Warn Miners Of Possible Warranty Void on Their Graphics Cards
The mining craze has generated overwhelming demand for graphics cards in the last few months, which led to increased prices from distributors, retailers, and the secondhand market. Miners usually don't look towards which brand they're buying their graphics cards from for their POW endeavors; they just buy whatever is available at the cheapest price, with some considerations thrown in for the cooling solution that is implemented.
One side effect of running multiple graphics cards in systems/racks that don't possess sufficient ventilation is damage to the graphics cards; some fans also give in to the strain of working 24/7 at maximum (or close to) speeds, and a look through mining forums or threads is enough to show that the amount of RMA'd cards that are used for mining is much greater than what usually results of "normal" usage of said products. Inno3D has apparently been affected by enough RMA requests and the economic effects of these that they have begun distributing their graphics cards with stickers warning users against mining on their GPUs, under threat that they reserve themselves "the right to void the warranty if there is any damage associated with this application." The sticker may be enough to deter some users; however, these are hardly legally binding, and should pose no problems for users in Europe or the United States looking to RMA their graphics card. Adding to this the fact that it would be very hard for any company to prove that damage on their graphics card products originated from a particular workload, it seems as a simple bluff from Inno3D - one that can be easily called by users.
Source:
Reddit
One side effect of running multiple graphics cards in systems/racks that don't possess sufficient ventilation is damage to the graphics cards; some fans also give in to the strain of working 24/7 at maximum (or close to) speeds, and a look through mining forums or threads is enough to show that the amount of RMA'd cards that are used for mining is much greater than what usually results of "normal" usage of said products. Inno3D has apparently been affected by enough RMA requests and the economic effects of these that they have begun distributing their graphics cards with stickers warning users against mining on their GPUs, under threat that they reserve themselves "the right to void the warranty if there is any damage associated with this application." The sticker may be enough to deter some users; however, these are hardly legally binding, and should pose no problems for users in Europe or the United States looking to RMA their graphics card. Adding to this the fact that it would be very hard for any company to prove that damage on their graphics card products originated from a particular workload, it seems as a simple bluff from Inno3D - one that can be easily called by users.
43 Comments on Inno3D Warn Miners Of Possible Warranty Void on Their Graphics Cards
Sorry, I know I'm off duty now, but I'm just a helpful frog.
Typo corrected.
- Refusing service to people w/ modded BIOS will have lots of enthusiasts pissed off (though, that's the easiest violation to find)
- Having a "magic counter" on VRAM will also put CUDA devs, educational institutions who use consumer cards instead of overpriced teslas, Folders, and Chinese/Russian hackers in the same basket with miners.
- Broken fans also happen often on non-mining cards in a single-GPU setups and decent case airflow, so that's not the criteria for refusing service.
- VRMs also burn on normal cards and actually is the most common RMA reason, after dead GPU.
Other than that, I can't find a single viable way Inno3D can exercise their right to refuse service without it being "baseless". Normal and overmined slave-cards look the same.Thriving in Europe and Asia on par with Zotac and Palit.
once budget oriented, now their iChill coolers make their cards quite premium
Also, I still have their previous iChill x3(Herculez AirBoss), which is just like X4, but no small side fan. This is one helluva massive heatsink!
It's obvious that running graphics cards flat out 24/7 is gonna wear them out faster than a typical desktop/gaming combo usage. It's just the same as buying a new car and racing around with it everywhere foot to the floor. Besides getting nicked, accidents etc, it's obviously gonna need a lot of maintenance and will eventually be scrapped much sooner.
These cards are all built to a consumer level price (ie quality and durability really isn't that high) so aren't intended to be run like this. Before mining, it wasn't necessary to point this out as desktop and gaming was the default use for them. However, getting hammered 24/7 is another thing. So, what should they do? Sell graphics cards with a usage policy that the customer has to sign and adhere to? Clearly ridiculous and the customer quite rightly wants to use the thing that he paid for in any way that he wants, so there's no clear solution to this.
What I can say for certain is that I'll think twice before buying this brand if my chosen model comes with such a disclaimer. The problem is that they can use it to deny warranty even where I haven't done any mining. Don't like it? I can go sue them. Yeah, I don't want to get into all that. :shadedshu:
i See this Email coming
from
Inno3D
Dear Sir / madam
With Regard to your Warranty Claim and with Regards to our Updated T&C (Copy included as Attachment Your Screwed.PDF)
We have Analyzed your product usage via Telematary provided by nvidia Our partner and it has Been Determined that this Card has been extensively used for Cryptomining
Your Claim Therefor has unfortunatly Been Refused
Yours sincerly
out u hung
senior RMA Claims Advisor Inno3D
They use telematary to refuse Warranty
They use lack of telematary to refuse Warranty
Either way cost you an ARM/leg /kidney ect to pursue Claim thru legal Action
Best not to buy/recomend this Brand to friends /Customers Ect
loss of Sales ( And Sales to Competitors) will hurt them.
beside inno3d, nvidia and other AIB spoke a lot about mining with the equal chips, so i don´t know if inno3d whould get away with this move at any court.
on the opposite side:
think of manslaughter, where the court/judge blaming a producer of kitchen-knifes because they where too sharp.
For example :
- Zotac GTX 1080 AMP Extreme is $223 cheaper compared to ASUS GTX 1080 STRIX, $126 cheaper than Gigabyte AORUS GTX 1080, and $268 cheaper compared to MSI GTX 1080 GAMING X.
- Zotac GTX 1060 6 GB single fan (their cheapest 1060) is $50 cheaper than Gigabyte G! Gaming 1060, $45 cheaper compared to ASUS 1060 DUAL, and $70 cheaper compared to MSI ARMOR 1060 6GB.