With which models? The only major EVGA issue I remember was with thermal pads with some 10 series cards.
Potentially any of them with an iCX MCU. There was a big number of bricked cards at the beginning due to MCU update problems. Their software would pester users about out of date MCU firmware, people were essentially forced to update to continue using the software that provided the advertised features, and then the card would be bricked. I mean the card wasn't bricked, just the MCU firmware was bricked. No more RGB. Third fan spinning 100% all the time without control. Essentially bricked since it was unfixable and no owner could live with it. It seems like their software got better with time and it happened less often, but still you see a new report from time to time.
Then there was the clicking fans. So many clicking fans. The design didn't have enough hysteresis or something and everyone's fans cycled. And so many clicked when cycling. Reports never stopped. How could the product go through design and testing without this being caught? The official fix was to use a custom fan curve to make it so the fans never stopped. Recommended by users and even tech support. Brilliant fix. Couldn't they just update the firmware?
The iCX MCU had some kind of output frequency restriction which caused the third fan to make an audible whining noise at various frequencies. And it had some sort of issue with receiving a reliable tachometer feedback from the fan which caused the fan speed to audibly fluctuate.
Then the RGB. Besides forcing updates causing the MCU firmware to be bricked, the RGB would forget its aim at life and just randomly do different things. The colors were way off and not calibrated. And the RGB burned out.
30 series came out. Lessons learned? Nope. Same problems. Where was the testing and refinement? They used to be known for their refinement and product features. Same problems as the 20 series, plus more fragile hardware which failed more than any other vendor. Fail. Oh, and the PWM aux header didn't even work because they made an unfixable hardware design error. No product testing?! No revisions? Even though they realized that the aux fan header was broken and didn't plan for a hardware revision, they didn't stop advertising the feature.
And the solder lie. lol. EVGA caught themself in that lie.
And then the support problems already mentioned.
What is prolific is the amount of people who flash GPU bios. I am almost 100% certain that may have something to do with it.
As I just posted, it was essentially forced. I could be wrong, but I think there was actually a way to decline the updates, but it was presented in a way that appeared forced without an option. I think people sometimes could revert to an older software version to access the features without a firmware update, but I am not sure.
I got burnt by a bad 10 series that killed PCIe slots back in the day. Amazingly EVGA credited me for my ASUS Z170 hero mobos full retail and their card as well in store cred at the time... something I'll always remember. Hard to get that support level these days sadly.
You are lucky. Many customers were told to use homeowners insurance because their warranty only covers their products. Except known community members seemed to get special treatment. Kind of like the paid Tesla social media mafia you see these days, EVGA paid its community members and provided a different level of service depending on the customer.
I know I sound like a lunatic, but some of EVGA's biggest fans are too. Honestly, the reason I am so vocal is because of how annoyed I am with the fanbase. Fanboy: EVGA paid you for your community involvement and for recommending their products. Realize that you have a compromised viewpoint and start being objective. You got special treatment. Time and again the non-special public came to the forum to complain about how they were treated and only then did EVGA suddenly change their decision and change who was assisting with their claim. And all the paid fanboys would echo 'this is what I love about EVGA!'. How many non-special public didn't complain? And the rest of the public: they heard it from 1000 paid fanboys; it must be true. EVGA was no longer great after the 20 series. The refinement was gone. The love was gone. The support was gone. The employee pay and retention was gone. The R&D department was thinned down to a skeleton and is now gone completely. Their tech support was clearly instructed to pinch more and more money and become more and more petty unless backlash grew too strong. And NVIDIA wasn't the reason EVGA is shutting down. NVIDIA was just the trigger at that time. A couple years later, it would have been Intel's fault that they were leaving the mobo market and business isn't sustainable. The truth is that the company was already on a 2-year decline, the 30 series was a half-hearted product, and the company was destined to close because that is ultimately the owner's intent.
Full disclosure: EVGA paid me too. I got store credit. I got direct deposit. I got a free backpack. I got a free mouse. I got a free mousepad. I think I got a keyboard somewhere that I never used. I got a t-shirt and lanyard. Most of these items came after no purchase in at least a year. But I never stooped to the level of being an affiliate.
I have over 16,000 posts on their forum and over 300 blue ribbons (although some were lost to forum corruption). I have a pretty good idea about what I am talking about.
Do you know what is better than a varying level of support? Not needing it. You finally move on to the alternative and then you are like, oh, wow, it just works. You don't need to learn the product and its quirks and adjust it to work the way it should. Maybe it's like an old muscle car; some people aren't happy unless they have to keep messing with it.
