Will water cooling a Zotach card actually void the warranty?

[Jon-Slow]

I'm not in the US, and I have seen from their product warranty page on their website that Zotach says your warranty is void if you modify the car, damage it, remove/replace the cooler. The wording is tricky and I have had conflicting information regarding the validity of the facts.

 

I've heard someone say with a bit of customer service interaction proof in old screenshots, that if you put the original cooler back in before going for RMA, it's all good. But is there anyone here who has actual experience with this and with Zotach specifically?

 

My newly purchase Zotach 4080 Trinity has no sticker on any of the screws and I'm not sure if Zotach would be able to tell any other way, so I'm looking for some professional opinion here. I've heard people say "they wont know if you don't tell them" but I can't verify this opinion as it might just be word of mouth and does not carry any professional weight behind it without further explanation.

 

Have you water cooled a Zotach card before? What information do you have regarding the warranty status of your water cooled card? Has it ever needed RMA and what happened then?

 

P.S: I really need to do this because the fans on this card are worse than useless when it comes to acoustics, they have a buzzing noise even at their lowest possible RPM.

[jaslion]

It voids it if they know basically however I think you got a defective card here with the cooler.

 

The buzzinf noise does it still happe  when you hold the fans still for a second?

[Jon-Slow]

5 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The buzzinf noise does it still happe  when you hold the fans still for a second?

You mean stoping all 3 card fans together under load? Do you mean to test if it is coilwhine?  Stopping the fans stops the noise and they hit once I even just manually turn fans to start turning at their lowest RPM. The card does have coilwhine but seems to be little and the bigger issue is the fans buzzing.

 

I believe the amount of noise it makes might not qualify for RMA, but I have had 7 graphics cards past 6years and 3 of them high end. None made this buzzing noise at just 1200 rpm. They had a windy noise that was ignorable. plus my chassis is practically silent otherwise.

[jaslion]

25 minutes ago, Jon-Slow said:

You mean stoping all 3 card fans together under load? Do you mean to test if it is coilwhine?  Stopping the fans stops the noise and they hit once I even just manually turn fans to start turning at their lowest RPM. The card does have coilwhine but seems to be little and the bigger issue is the fans buzzing.

 

I believe the amount of noise it makes might not qualify for RMA, but I have had 7 graphics cards past 6years and 3 of them high end. None made this buzzing noise at just 1200 rpm. They had a windy noise that was ignorable. plus my chassis is practically silent otherwise.

How long have you had it? If its new you can return without issue. A rma might be in order as there seems to be norhing about low rpm buzzings sounds of these fans

[Jon-Slow]

2 minutes ago, jaslion said:

How long have you had it? If its new you can return without issue. A rma might be in order as there seems to be norhing about low rpm buzzings sounds of these fans

Only a couple of days. I'm not sure if I can just return it where I live. those rules may not apply here. I could send it for RMA but then I'll have to go 1 month without a card. Which is why I'm trying find out if I should just water cool it since there are now screw stickers and put the original cooler back in if it ever needed to go for RMA

[jaslion]

26 minutes ago, Jon-Slow said:

Only a couple of days. I'm not sure if I can just return it where I live. those rules may not apply here. I could send it for RMA but then I'll have to go 1 month without a card. Which is why I'm trying find out if I should just water cool it since there are now screw stickers and put the original cooler back in if it ever needed to go for RMA

If its the us or eu you have a 2 weeks return period normally

 

As for the watercooling. Ya can but 1. thats gonna be like 300-400$ extra at least to just get a loop goin and 2. as long as you dont tell and keep the og thermal pads it should be ok

[DigitalGoat]

42 minutes ago, Jon-Slow said:

Only a couple of days. I'm not sure if I can just return it where I live. those rules may not apply here. I could send it for RMA but then I'll have to go 1 month without a card. Which is why I'm trying find out if I should just water cool it since there are now screw stickers and put the original cooler back in if it ever needed to go for RMA

Why not just ask Zotach customer support for your location whether water cooling the card will void your warranty?

Get a yes/ no answer from the manufacturer instead of asking the internet for opinions.

With the answer from Zotach you can then decide if it is worth your time, money and risk to modify the card or whether to just return it to the point of sale due to the noise, which might be a sign of faulty fans, maybe from a faulty batch since the chance of all the fans having the same issue is pretty low otherwise, unless it is just a poor design issue.

There is also no point asking anyone if Zotach would notice the cooler had been removed then replaced for warranty as you will only find that out if you RMA the card at some point, another risk you will have to decide for yourself if it is worth it or not.

[Jon-Slow]

36 minutes ago, jaslion said:

As for the watercooling. Ya can but 1. thats gonna be like 300-400$ extra at least to just get a loop goin and 2. as long as you dont tell and keep the og thermal pads it should be ok

ah so the OG pads could be kept and placed back in? I actually never done that and thought the pads are gone once you open the cooler up

 

14 minutes ago, DigitalGoat said:

Why not just ask Zotach customer support for your location whether water cooling the card will void your warranty?

Get a yes/ no answer from the manufacturer instead of asking the internet for opinions.

With the answer from Zotach you can then decide if it is worth your time, money and risk to modify the card or whether to just return it to the point of sale due to the noise, which might be a sign of faulty fans, maybe from a faulty batch since the chance of all the fans having the same issue is pretty low otherwise, unless it is just a poor design issue.

There is also no point asking anyone if Zotach would notice the cooler had been removed then replaced for warranty as you will only find that out if you RMA the card at some point, another risk you will have to decide for yourself if it is worth it or not.

 

Yeah, that's fair. Although I did ask them and they just repeated the same wording as in their warranty page. I think they would obviously just say that, while I'm not saying that this is not conclusive, as  @jaslion said, I might be able to put it back together with the original cooler and they would accept it, which is what I've heard from others too. I also saw a screenshot of an interaction with their customer service that more or less said the same. I was hoping to see if anyone has had actual similar experiences but I guess that's tough to find. Currently, I'm leaning towards doing what @jaslion said but would sill like to have more input from more people before doing it.

 

Really frustrating stuff, I think changing the cooler on the card while keeping the original in case of RMA should be a right for any consumer like myself if the card is not damaged in the process.

[jaslion]

24 minutes ago, Jon-Slow said:

ah so the OG pads could be kept and placed back in? I actually never done that and thought the pads are gone once you open the cooler up

Keep em on the cooler they are reuseable. Some will rip yes but you can actually just smush em back togheter

 

 

[PDifolco]

1 hour ago, Jon-Slow said:

Only a couple of days. I'm not sure if I can just return it where I live. those rules may not apply here. I could send it for RMA but then I'll have to go 1 month without a card. Which is why I'm trying find out if I should just water cool it since there are now screw stickers and put the original cooler back in if it ever needed to go for RMA

God bless Amazon Prime, 1 month return window no question asked (technically they ask why, but answering "because" is accepted  ) 

[Jon-Slow]

26 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Keep em on the cooler they are reuseable. Some will rip yes but you can actually just smush em back togheter

 

 

So just to be clear, I'm not buying new pads. Right? Just take off the cooler and keep the pads there, smush them back toghether if they rip and put the new cooler on it?

[jaslion]

36 minutes ago, Jon-Slow said:

So just to be clear, I'm not buying new pads. Right? Just take off the cooler and keep the pads there, smush them back toghether if they rip and put the new cooler on it?

Oh you are for the gpu plate. The pads you have will not work. Normally the plate comes with em.

 

As for the old cooler. Just be gentle and keep em on the oldy. Small storage tip is ceran wrap the heatsink to prevent gunk in them.

 

Also for removal its easier when they are warmer

[Jon-Slow]

5 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Oh you are for the gpu plate. The pads you have will not work. Normally the plate comes with em.

 

As for the old cooler. Just be gentle and keep em on the oldy. Small storage tip is ceran wrap the heatsink to prevent gunk in them.

 

Also for removal its easier when they are warmer

Ah thanks for the info.