"Broken" EBAY gtx 1080 ti

[DetailedPack70]

i found a gtx 1080 ti for quite cheap on ebay but the owner says its broken and will operate normally but when you start a game it crashes. I was wondering if that would be an easy fix because it sounds like it just has a mining BIOS installed. That being said if its been mined on, then maybe not but since its quite cheap it might be worth a shot. Any advice would help.

[Levent]

Nothing is as easy as that nowadays. If you are fine with having paid a dead hardware money, sure go for it and hope that fix is just a bios flash away. 1080ti's are notorious for having failures on the power stages due to inadequate fan profiles and cooling.

[JKRsega]

If you have technological knowledge and are up for a risk, take it.  Just think "Can I afford to lose however much cash on a possibly ruined card?"

[Poinkachu]

51 minutes ago, DetailedPack70 said:

i found a gtx 1080 ti for quite cheap on ebay but the owner says its broken and will operate normally but when you start a game it crashes. I was wondering if that would be an easy fix because it sounds like it just has a mining BIOS installed. That being said if its been mined on, then maybe not but since its quite cheap it might be worth a shot. Any advice would help.

My logic is :
If the owner flashed the vBIOS for mining, then nothing stopping him from reflashing it to standard vBIOS before selling it.
Especially if doing so means he'd be able to sell it for higher price.

Or simply say "currently it's using vBIOS for mining, so it's shit for gaming unless it's flashed to standard vBIOS"
instead of  "It works normally, but crash when gaming"

[bmx6454]

52 minutes ago, DetailedPack70 said:

i found a gtx 1080 ti for quite cheap on ebay

just out of curiosity, what is the price? if low enough, may be worth the risk. keep in mind that similar to what* others have said, there is almost zero chance the seller hasn't tried the simple things like flashing the vbios.

[OhYou_]

you also have to think about what if the previous owners setup was just bung. 
Depends on how cheap it is, but I'm never really a fan of buying stuff that "works but then stops working"
Could even be a passive broken off the board or something thermal related which is a simple fix

[DetailedPack70]

he is asking 300 Canadian but i was sending him much lower offers. thanks for all the advice im not gonna spend 300 on it but if he accepts something a bit lower then i might give it a shot 

[Beerzerker]

6 hours ago, DetailedPack70 said:

he is asking 300 Canadian but i was sending him much lower offers. thanks for all the advice im not gonna spend 300 on it but if he accepts something a bit lower then i might give it a shot 

I can understand wanting to save a few bucks and get a great deal but in my own experience it rarely pans out, esp for GPUs.
Been there, done that and got bit way more often than not.

There is a reason why it's acting up once a game starts, could be a simple matter of a re-TIM job not done right (Getting too hot under load), dying silicon, the card's RAM on it's way out, a component showing it's age.... Lots of variables here in play.

It would have to be cheap for it to be worth the risk of it being a dud so if you get it and it's bad, no need to complain.

Coming back later, asking questions about it as in what to do will probrably yield next to nothing, we're telling you now how to deal with it and that's to leave it wherever it is for your own sake.

[Mister Woof]

Too many things too go wrong and too many things are not possible for people to repair with simple tools. I would skip it.

[SimplyChunk]

Save you dollar for a couple more months Dude