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EVGA GTX 1070/1080 Overheating Issues - Company Says Thermal Pads A Solution

Raevenlord

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After users' reports (and Tom's Hardware.de testing) of EVGA FTW 1080 and 1070 cards displaying black screen issues, and sometimes even sparking and dying altogether, even at stock voltage, the company is now moving towards fixing the issue.

Apparently, the issue stems from the absence of any thermal pads over the VRM area of the FTW line of cards, which prompts higher operating temperatures. Some users were reporting heat transfer in such quantities that even the GDDR5X memory chips on the cards were being heated at 107 ºC, significantly over their rated operating temperatures of (0°C ≤ TC ≤ +95°C).





In a blog post on EVGA's forums, a company representative issued the following message:

"The test used in the referenced review from Toms Hardware (Germany) is running under Furmark, an extreme usage case, as most overclockers know. We believe this is a good approach to have some idea about the graphics card limit, and the thermal performance under the worst case scenario. EVGA has performed a similar qualification test during the design process, at a higher ambient temperature (30C in chamber) with a thermal coupler probe directly contacting the key components and after the Toms Hardware (Germany) review, we have retested this again. The results in both tests show the temperature of PWM and memory is within the spec tolerance under the same stress test, and is working as originally designed with no issues.

With this being said, EVGA understands that lower temperatures are preferred by reviewers and customers.

During our recent testing, we have applied additional thermal pads between the backplate and the PCB and between the baseplate and the heatsink fins, with the results shown below. We will offer these optional thermal pads free of charge to EVGA owners who want to have a lower temperature. These thermal pads will be ready soon; and customers can request them on Monday, October 24th, 2016. Also, we will work with Toms Hardware to do a retest."

EVGA stresses that according to their own internal testing, no overheating issues are present in the card by using it as is (i.e., without the thermal pads), and that there won't exist any long term effects on using the cards such as they are. The company reiterates that their offer stands only inasmuch as some of EVGA's users want lower temperatures specifically on the referred cards' VRM and memory, with the usage of the thermal pads not being required to achieve normal operation. In a statement, the company has also attributed the black screen issues towards an "out of spec On Semiconductor component" that affected only 3-4% of EVGA's GTX 1080 FTW/HYBRID, with these issues "not [being] related to temperatures in any way" having been fixed as of September 1st, with the company having already sent replacements where applicable.

The thermal pads will be provided to anyone with a GTX 1080 or GTX 1070 with an ACX cooler and a backplate, with other graphics card models from EVGA's models also being considered for the offer. While EVGA is surely going about the problem in the correct manner, it still leaves to customers the responsibility of dismantling their EVGA cards and applying the thermal pads on their own. Bellow is an image posted by EVGA showing the temperature results of a GTX 1080 FTW with the thermal pad solution.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
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Oopss, for the premium price that EVGA is charging this is kind of unacceptable. Not cool (literally)
 
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after sapphire, evga also have crapped their cards and that to on FTW. they must be cheapskates not to put on thermal pads that cost maybe 1-2$ max.
 
Well.. I kinda don't get it. The PCBs are clearly over-engineered, and capable of dealing with twice the required power usage.

A shame the thermal solution in some locations was skipped on. One thing for sure, it won't happen again any time soon with EVGA
 
I own a gtx 1070 ftw and my temps dont go above 72c in the witcher 3. Hope i dont run thru that problem ....... Shame on you evga
 
Eh, for the asking price those cards are hardly a smart buying decision, so the damage should be limited by default :D
 
I'm planning to buy the EVGA 1070 FTW hybrid. I'll definitely be tearing it apart and checking EVERYTHING before I install it.
 
I'm planning to buy the EVGA 1070 FTW hybrid. I'll definitely be tearing it apart and checking EVERYTHING before I install it.
I had xfire 4890s that refused to boot after I reapplied thermal paste. Turns out that the mount behind the GPU was touching with the screws fully tightened and was shorting out. I put down a few strips of electrical tape and they ran forever. QC is just terrible. That could have killed the cards.

Funny how way back then dual GPU worked fine and it's garbage, today.
 
Aff my FTW 1070 came to two days and already I'm concerned, my doubts will be the question of the guarantee, since it will have to open the VGAs to add heat sinks.
 
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I have an EVGA 1070 SC that uses the ACX cooler and backplate, should I be worried if my temperatures are fine? Depending on my fan profile i rarely get above even 60-63C?
 
I have an EVGA 1070 SC that uses the ACX cooler and backplate, should I be worried if my temperatures are fine? Depending on my fan profile i rarely get above even 60-63C?

This is a VRM overheat problem, not a GPU. Unless you have a thermal probe or Pyrometer you won't see the VRM Temps.

That said, unless you are running a high overclock and overvolting I wouldn't worry too much.
 
Furmark on nvidia cards is a worthless test seeing how it throttles the card...I am curious since it is toms hardware if they worked around that.
 
What is blowing up are the VRMs, not the GPU, your GPU may be safe with these temps.
Even though isnt that affecting the card even if the gpu temps says 71c ??? Sorry my noobness
 
Furmark on nvidia cards is a worthless test seeing how it throttles the card...I am curious since it is toms hardware if they worked around that.
+1...

You can't even stress test clocks with it because it lands on so many boost bins lower than other benchmarks/games, you aren't remotely testing the clock you want to!!
 
Even though isnt that affecting the card even if the gpu temps says 71c ??? Sorry my noobness

Yes, the GPU is unaffected by this as it is being cooled by the heatsink/fan. The VRM which deliver power to the cards do not have contact with the heatsink/fan and are failing in some cases.

EVGA said that you can request the thermal pads that they will have available starting today. If you have one of these cards I would suggest taking them up on their offer just to ensure you don't have this issue happen to you.
 
Aff my FTW 1070 came to two days and already I'm concerned, my doubts will be the question of the guarantee, since it will have to open the VGAs to add heat sinks.
Im concerned about that too.
 
This is some lousy ass engineering...
 
What's more surprising is the issue of not adding thermal pads to VRM pops up for almost any custom design. But the answer is usually "our internal tests have determined the VRMs do not get hot enough to need a pad".
So you'd think these tests are routine by now. Then again, what am I talking about, my EVGA came with coil whine, they sure like to cut corners during QC.

Edit: I haven't written this in response to RejZoR's post above, but it seems we were thinking alike ;)
 
The shown burnt cap usually isn't caused by temperature but defect and leak, thus it shorts out, wrong markings lover real voltage ratios.

It could be totally digging the wrong way.
 
Looking closely at that pic of the PCB there "appears" to smoke traces and burn marks on other components.

But, I could be wrong.
 
This is possibly the most stupid way EVGA could've responded. Do you void your warranty by fitting EVGA's thermal pads? If not, how will EVGA know if a dead card was caused by overheating, user screwing up the thermal pad install, or something else? And how many working cards are gonna be killed by well-meaning but ham-fisted users trying to apply thermal pads to them?

EVGA should issue a recall and swap the affected cards out for ones that have the pads pre-applied, at no charge to affected customers. Yeah it'll be expensive for the company, but it will ensure that they don't cut corners ever again. I'll bet this was caused by a penny-pinching manager who thought s/he could save the company millions by cutting out a 5 cent part on the bill of materials.
 
Where is EVGA explaining exactly where these pads go? And what happens for people who bought the card in the US but are using them in another country? This will be my last EVGA, tell you that.
 
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