RIP my EVGA 1080TI FTW3.... :-(

[TheGlenlivet]

Some time in 2018 I traded a Vega Frontier for a 1080Ti FTW3 which I put on a Hydro Copper block and installed in to a big folding/Boinc/Mining machine.  For a little over a year it ran at 100% non-stop except for updates and maintenance.

At the end of 2019 I broke up that machine and put the air cooler back on the card.  I used it for gaming and, this year because of Covid, folding again.  Lately I have been playing a lot of Snowrunner and Xplane and the card was working great, except for a VRM sensor that was stuck at 125 degrees, even at idle.  Trying to fix that issue I flipped the BIOS switch from master to slave, but it didn't fix the sensor issue. 

Performance of the card was still great, it would go between 70-80 degrees while gaming and seemed to work just fine.

Until yesterday.  

Suddenly, Snowrunner would crash after 30 seconds to a minute of game play.  A quick Furmark test resulted in a frozen, artifact filled screen that crashed back to the desktop.

I pulled the card apart, looking for any obvious damage but found non.  However, the smell of the card made me realize that in the last few days I noticed an unusual smell in the air, right around the computer that I thought was metallic in nature. 

I'm pretty sure I let the magic smoke out of something.

So, if anyone has any advise on what to do next, it would be appreciated.  The card came to me second hand via the trade I mention.  I have no receipt and no warranty.

 

Do I have an expensive paper weight/art piece?  Did flipping the bios switch have anything to do with it?

  

 

[Haro]

1 hour ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Some time in 2018 I traded a Vega Frontier for a 1080Ti FTW3 which I put on a Hydro Copper block and installed in to a big folding/Boinc/Mining machine.  For a little over a year it ran at 100% non-stop except for updates and maintenance.

At the end of 2019 I broke up that machine and put the air cooler back on the card.  I used it for gaming and, this year because of Covid, folding again.  Lately I have been playing a lot of Snowrunner and Xplane and the card was working great, except for a VRM sensor that was stuck at 125 degrees, even at idle.  Trying to fix that issue I flipped the BIOS switch from master to slave, but it didn't fix the sensor issue. 

Performance of the card was still great, it would go between 70-80 degrees while gaming and seemed to work just fine.

Until yesterday.  

Suddenly, Snowrunner would crash after 30 seconds to a minute of game play.  A quick Furmark test resulted in a frozen, artifact filled screen that crashed back to the desktop.

I pulled the card apart, looking for any obvious damage but found non.  However, the smell of the card made me realize that in the last few days I noticed an unusual smell in the air, right around the computer that I thought was metallic in nature. 

I'm pretty sure I let the magic smoke out of something.

So, if anyone has any advise on what to do next, it would be appreciated.  The card came to me second hand via the trade I mention.  I have no receipt and no warranty.

 

Do I have an expensive paper weight/art piece?  Did flipping the bios switch have anything to do with it?

  

 

Does it work now or does it not display an image at all 

[TheGlenlivet]

14 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Does it work now or does it not display an image at all 

It will work as a display adapter, but not under load.  As soon as you put a load on the card and it gets to about 70 degrees, it crashes or artifacts.

[Haro]

17 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

It will work as a display adapter, but not under load.  As soon as you put a load on the card and it gets to about 70 degrees, it crashes or artifacts.

Do you have any OC on your GPU ?

[TheGlenlivet]

2 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Do you have any OC on your GPU ?

No, no OC.  

[Haro]

7 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

No, no OC.  

Try reflashing it with the new firmware  but make sure it's 100% correct

[TheGlenlivet]

1 hour ago, TofuHaroto said:

Try reflashing it with the new firmware  but make sure it's 100% correct

I think EVGA has an update from their website for firmware/bios.

I'll try that first.

[Haro]

4 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

I think EVGA has an update from their website for firmware/bios.

I'll try that first.

Good luck 

[TheGlenlivet]

1 hour ago, TofuHaroto said:

Good luck 

So Good news/Bad news...

After reassembling the card and putting it back into the system, I switched the BIOS back to Master and booted it up.  I brought up the EVGA monitoring software and ran the internal stress test and it passed.  Confused, I then ran Furmark again and it passed that too.

I started Snowrunner and played for 30 minutes, passed that too.

That's the good news.

The bad news is I can't run NVflash.  There is an issue with my system not finding the correct path when I try to start it from the CMD window. I'd like to run it and update the firmware to see if it fixes the issue with the sensor stuck at 123 degrees.  Do you know of another way to update?

 

[Haro]

5 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Do you know of another way to update?

 

First of all try maybe installing the latest firmware for the chipset if that doesn't work maybe try another flashing software ( I know that the best flashing software is nvflash but it you have experience with something else try that ) 

But if that didn't work and the card is working well 

If the readings are wrong I would honestly take that over a broken card  so if non of the above fixes it just keep it as it is

Since it doesn't affect the performance what so ever

 

[TheGlenlivet]

10 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

First of all try maybe installing the latest firmware for the chipset if that doesn't work maybe try another flashing software ( I know that the best flashing software is nvflash but it you have experience with something else try that ) 

But if that didn't work and the card is working well 

If the readings are wrong I would honestly take that over a broken card  so if non of the above fixes it just keep it as it is

Since it doesn't affect the performance what so ever

 

I actually just did the chipset from MSI the other day and any other firmware that was available except for a Beta Bios which I didn't update.

I agree, working with a broken sensor is WAY better than crashing.

I can probably get NVFlash to work, it's just going to take some research on why it won't launch...

Stupid windows....

[Haro]

4 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Stupid windows...

Pretty much lol

[TheGlenlivet]

20 hours ago, TofuHaroto said:

Pretty much lol

Just to update this post; I did finally get NVflash working and updated to the latest BIOS for the GPU.  Unfortunately, it didn't make a difference.  The sensor is still stuck at 123 degrees. 

I can tell this is a hardware issue now for sure because RIGHT as the PC powers up, the very first thing that happens is the GPU lights come on and it shows the VRM as red because of that stuck sensor.  That's before the PC gets to the splash screen or anything.

Oh well, at least it works.

[Haro]

3 hours ago, TheGlenlivet said:

Just to update this post; I did finally get NVflash working and updated to the latest BIOS for the GPU.  Unfortunately, it didn't make a difference.  The sensor is still stuck at 123 degrees. 

I can tell this is a hardware issue now for sure because RIGHT as the PC powers up, the very first thing that happens is the GPU lights come on and it shows the VRM as red because of that stuck sensor.  That's before the PC gets to the splash screen or anything.

Oh well, at least it works.

It's probably broken sensor

But imo broken sensor better than a bricked GPU