User Discovers PowerColor RX 6700 XT Card with Thermal Pad Covers Still On

[btarunr]

A user discovered a manufacturing defect with their PowerColor Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card. Apparently a card still has the protective covers of its thermal pads still in place on a finished graphics card. "angry_kitten" on Reddit posted pictures of a disassembled PowerColor RX 6700 XT graphics card showing protective covers over the thermal pads that pull heat from secondary components such as memory chips and VRM. The user spotted the blue protective film before installing the card, and decided to take the card apart. With modern memory chips and MOSFETs capable of heating up beyond 100 °C, this card would have raised quite a stink. This is likely a defect at the plant that assembles the card, installing the cooler onto the PCB, rather than at the OEM that makes these coolers. These protective covers are meant to be removed at the final assembly line. There's no evidence at this point to suggest that the issue is widespread.



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[nguyen]

Ain't no body got time to remove those stickers, they have to assemble them cards ASAP

 

[TheUn4seen]

I guess quality and quality control really took a nosedive in the past two years. My thousand dollar 3080 had the worst quality thermal pads I have ever seen on any product, they felt like clay and dripped oil everywhere. Changing them to something decent dropped memory temperatures by over 20°C.

I understand supply problems but come on, oil dripping from my graphics card is probably among the things I want to see the least.

 

[ixi]

worst quality thermal pads I have ever seen on any product, they felt like clay and dripped oil everywhere.

That's alot of damage. Normal phenomen for evga. Is it?

 

[eidairaman1]

Did they report the problem to powercolor technical support & rma department!?

 

[Crackong]

I guess quality and quality control really took a nosedive in the past two years. My thousand dollar 3080 had the worst quality thermal pads I have ever seen on any product, they felt like clay and dripped oil everywhere. Changing them to something decent dropped memory temperatures by over 20°C.
View attachment 211773

I understand supply problems but come on, oil dripping from my graphics card is probably among the things I want to see the least.

Yeah this is a wide spread issue across this generation.
They had tons of inventory of these kind of thermal pads
But these thermal pads aren't designed for the high heat output of GDDR6X
They degraded very quickly in high temps.

 

[eidairaman1]

And its not a manufacturing defect, it is a qa problem

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

And its not a manufacturing defect, it is a qa problem

training a new guy takes time.

 

[rusTORK]

On a Reddit topic pretty funny chat between PowerColor and AMD. %)

 

[Haile Selassie]

Such drama over a line operator error.

 

[btarunr]

I guess quality and quality control really took a nosedive in the past two years. My thousand dollar 3080 had the worst quality thermal pads I have ever seen on any product, they felt like clay and dripped oil everywhere. Changing them to something decent dropped memory temperatures by over 20°C.
View attachment 211773

I understand supply problems but come on, oil dripping from my graphics card is probably among the things I want to see the least.

Because their primary customer is crypto miner and not gamer.

 

[Titanium_Carbide]

and sometimes they are not even centered, here is a pic of stock thermal pads on my PS4 (CUH-1200):

 

[Vayra86]

Such drama over a line operator error. Clear Trend

FTFY

And its not a manufacturing defect, it is a qa problem

Its cost cutting measures in a market that is booming. Explain the madness. I call it collective stupidity. Idiocracy the movie, except real.

 

[Rithsom]

and sometimes they are not even centered, here is a pic of stock thermal pads on my PS4 (CUH-1200):

Yikes. If a line worker hates their job so much that they refuse to put in any effort greater than this, maybe it's time that they look for another job. Having standards this low is just malicious.

I get it, assembly is tedious and often stressful. I've worked enough minimum wage summer manufacturing jobs to know. But still, I consider this unacceptable and am very surprised it slipped past QC like this. At least with PowerColor, the thermal pads were aligned nicely...

No wonder robots are replacing human workers...

 

[Nazar]

My Asus R6E Encore. Fortunately decided to install monoblock

 

[lexluthermiester]

I understand supply problems but come on, oil dripping from my graphics card is probably among the things I want to see the least.

To be fair, mineral oil is non-conductive and non-reactive. It will not hurt anything. I agree with you that they should do better.

 

[ppn]

actually my gigabyte card had the same blue sticker under the heatsink, just one forgotten there, wonder what that was I never thought it could be that sloppy as I sold it. but not my problem anymore I guess.

 

[KainXS]

I guess quality and quality control really took a nosedive in the past two years. My thousand dollar 3080 had the worst quality thermal pads I have ever seen on any product, they felt like clay and dripped oil everywhere. Changing them to something decent dropped memory temperatures by over 20°C.
View attachment 211773

I understand supply problems but come on, oil dripping from my graphics card is probably among the things I want to see the least.

+1 on this on the Gigabyte cards in particular they do this on nearly every 3080 and on mine my memory runs around 100 - 110C loaded(and I mean gaming not mining). The VRM pads end up leaking a ton because of the heat and you can see the oil without even taking the heatsink off.

 

[delshay]

training a new guy takes time.

Giving you a like because you made me laugh, but I believe you. It take's two day's training how to remove a sticker.

 

[MikeSnow]

That's alot of damage. Normal phenomen for evga. Is it?

In my case I had to replace the pads on my Gigabyte 3080 Vision OC after less than two months, with the same issue, oily thermal pads that were getting worse and worse at cooling the memory chips. The memory temperature was very high but didn't affect performance while gaming. However, it was throttling when mining due to the memory temperature reaching 110 Celsius.

 

[mechtech]

No wonder robots are replacing human workers...

In heavily populated countries like China the people are the machines.

 

[D1craig]

I guess quality and quality control really took a nosedive in the past two years. My thousand dollar 3080 had the worst quality thermal pads I have ever seen on any product, they felt like clay and dripped oil everywhere. Changing them to something decent dropped memory temperatures by over 20°C.
View attachment 211773

I understand supply problems but come on, oil dripping from my graphics card is probably among the things I want to see the least.

It's really only a 600 dollar card. But yea you are right this shouldn't. Let's buy nvidia the next 3 generations to see if its still a thing though rather than going AMD.

 

[Audioave10]

I'm very sure the Millionaire CEO's of these companies don't care and won't pay better wages anyway.
Many of these products are premium priced luxuries and it didn't used to be like this.
I've seen many Audio Premium products last for 40 & 50 years. The old days really were good.

 

[ixi]

It's really only a 600 dollar card. But yea you are right this shouldn't. Let's buy nvidia the next 3 generations to see if its still a thing though rather than going AMD.

Problems on nvidia side too happens. Few comments up you can see that on rtx 3080 was leaking oil from vrm thermalpads. Same things happened to me on 1080ti.

 

[D1craig]

It was a sarky comment saying people will always go nvidia no matter what problems they get with their cards.