"Slightly" botched MSi GTX 970s were released - MSi says to just RMA your card

[Ren]

This is directly from one of the MSi forum threads regarding the issue: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=183618.150

 

Ruudt (Administrator)

We discussed this internally and the fan issue (fan2 @100%) is most likely caused by the sticker.

Many fans can withstand the removal of the sticker without any damage but a small amount of fans seem to get damaged.

Our production has already stopped using these stickers.

So we recommend all users that suffer from this issue to return the card to the point of purchase for warranty service.

From what I've gathered via this thread, they placed a branding sticker for the Hybrid Frozr technology on the fan with very strong glue and it causes issues with fan #2 that lead to 100% fan speeds regardless of what you tried to do in your bios settings, MSi Afterburner, driver updates or anything else. There have been a few users that have corrected this with heavily using their graphics card (likely due to luck) but it is not a driver issue. It's a fault within the card design itself.

There is 1 solution you can do by yourself which is slowly peeling off this sticker from the fan. It's strong glue but it will come off and you should be as gentle as possible if you go this route. Despite that, many people including MSi themselves recommend that you return your MSi GTX 970 instead of trying to fix it yourself and cause more damage to the card.

Questionable plays in this business from MSi. Lots of if's for a $350 card and I do not like that..

It should be noted that future revisions of MSi's GTX 970 will not (should not) have this issue.

Edit: Fixed a couple things and wanted to clarify that this issue should only be on the Twin Frozr 5 cooler for the GTX 970.

[Puddleuk]

[Kyuubixchidori]

At least they are addressing the issue. still dont know how they didn't find this during testing though. or how a sticker effects this.

[qwertywarrior]

im confused

how would the sticker cause it to go to 100%

[deathjester]

This is directly from one of the MSi forum threads regarding the issue: https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=183618.150

 

From what I've gathered via this thread, they placed a branding sticker for the Hybrid Frozr technology on the fan with very strong glue and it causes issues with fan #2 that lead to 100% fan speeds regardless of what you tried to do in your bios settings, MSi Afterburner, driver updates or anything else. There have been a few users that have corrected this with heavily using their graphics card (likely due to luck) but it is not a driver issue. It's a fault within the card design itself.

There is 1 solution you can do by yourself which is slowly peeling off this sticker from the fan. It's strong glue but it will come off and you should be as gentle as possible if you go this route. Despite that, many people including MSi themselves recommend that you return your MSi GTX 970 instead of trying to fix it yourself and cause more damage to the card.

Questionable plays in this business from MSi. Lots of if's for a $350 card and I do not like that..

It should be noted that future revisions of MSi's GTX 970 will not (should not) have this issue.

Edit: Fixed a couple things and wanted to clarify that this issue should only be on the Twin Frozr 5 cooler for the GTX 970.

 

"There is 1 solution you can do by yourself which is slowly peeling off this sticker from the fan." NO. The fans are calibrated/balanced with the weight of the sticker. Never remove the sticker from any fan.

 

RMA the card, and it is good to see MSI is recommending that. 

[dragosudeki]

im confused

how would the sticker cause it to go to 100%

How wouldn't it? Its the same idea as putting racing stripes on your car to go faster! jk

[deathjester]

How wouldn't it? Its the same idea as putting racing stripes on your car to go faster! jk

 

Imagine racing stripes and the car holding a knife. Fastest car in the world. 

[Khvarrioiren]

"There is 1 solution you can do by yourself which is slowly peeling off this sticker from the fan." NO. The fans are calibrated/balanced with the weight of the sticker. Never remove the sticker from any fan.

RMA the card, and it is good to see MSI is recommending that.

The damn sticker is huge and says "Remove this before gaming"

It covers nearly half of the cooler

[deathjester]

The damn sticker is huge and says "Remove this before gaming"

It covers nearly half of the cooler

 

Here is MSI from the thread.

 

"We discussed this internally and the fan issue (fan2 @100%) is most likely caused by the sticker.

Many fans can withstand the removal of the sticker without any damage but a small amount of fans seem to get damaged.

Our production has already stopped using these stickers."

 

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=183618.150

 

"So we recommend all users that suffer from this issue to return the card to the point of purchase for warranty service".

 

You don't put a sticker on unless the fan is balanced for the additional weight. It would be like removing the intel sticker from a stock fan. It is a no no. You might be able to remove it and it might be ok. You might remove it and the fan is totally off balance and will break.

 

MSI is right. Return it. 

 

Now if it was balanced then they added a sticker to remove? To a fan? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. The glue would remain and going all off getting it off would screw the fan up. The engineers are probably beating down the person who decided that was a good idea as we speak lol.

[Blue fellow]

This only affects the Gaming 4G one right? I have a 4GD5T OC (what kind of name is that ) which does not seem to have any issues.

[tobben]

i just ripped off the sticker, didn't think too much of it, the fan didn't flex insignificantly but i thought, screw this, i don't have time for this shit, it can handle it.

as far as i can tell the fan isn't running at 100%, so it's probably fine, my pc is screaming like a child but i think it's the psu. Of all the places to weld down a gigantic sticker though.. 

[Altecice]

Welldone MSI for acknowledging your screw up and try to fix it  

[Khvarrioiren]

Here is MSI from the thread.

"We discussed this internally and the fan issue (fan2 @100%) is most likely caused by the sticker.

Many fans can withstand the removal of the sticker without any damage but a small amount of fans seem to get damaged.

Our production has already stopped using these stickers."

https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=183618.150

"So we recommend all users that suffer from this issue to return the card to the point of purchase for warranty service".

You don't put a sticker on unless the fan is balanced for the additional weight. It would be like removing the intel sticker from a stock fan. It is a no no. You might be able to remove it and it might be ok. You might remove it and the fan is totally off balance and will break.

MSI is right. Return it.

Now if it was balanced then they added a sticker to remove? To a fan? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of. The glue would remain and going all off getting it off would screw the fan up. The engineers are probably beating down the person who decided that was a good idea as we speak lol.

It's not a tiny sticker on the hub of the fan. It's a big ass sticker covering the whole fan. How hard is that to understand?

[Verne]

Almost ordered that MSI card because Gigabyte's offering was out of stock with a long estimated time for next delivery. Good thing I decided to wait I suppose.

[Misanthrope]

A faulty sticker? And you can damage the fan by removing it? Wow, amazing that you can get a complicated electronic product produced precisely and without issues but a fucking sticker? Woah slow down that is really complicated!

[flibberdipper]

This is possibly one of the funniest manufacturing problems ever.

[-ism]

Someone please post a picture of pre-sticker-removal GTX 970 MSI I am dying to see this

[Xirod]

 

There, you can see the sticker on the fan in thee first few seconds, I bought this card and removing it was fairly easy was not too sticky at all, but I can see how can someone be not careful enough and rip the thing off the fan and potentially damage it. 

[deathjester]

It's not a tiny sticker on the hub of the fan. It's a big ass sticker covering the whole fan. How hard is that to understand?

 

It is hard to understand for the reasons I presented. It is literally absurd to put a sticker on any fan to be removed, after it has been installed. That is why I threw out that possibility as even plausible, only to find out that is what happened.

 

 

This is possibly one of the funniest manufacturing problems ever.

 

^ This. The engineers must be uber pissed right now. They created what looks like the second best 970 or right up there with the Gigabyte, and some dumbass further down the line decided putting a sticker on a fan to remove was a good idea, cus it looked cool and or advertised the product.

 

Someone is getting fired for this lol.

[shiftberry]

They actually botch every product they put their hands on or is it just me disliking their low quality fans.

[deathjester]

They actually botch every product they put their hands on or is it just me disliking their low quality fans.

 

MSI made some very good r9 cards and GTX cards last series I loved their motherboards on z87. Great bang for buck.

 

This isn't a engineering problem, this is a someone is a real dumb ass within the company problem. I imagine this is what the meeting with that person looked like today.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb7FgSzeGqg

[Ren]

im confused

how would the sticker cause it to go to 100%

Maybe I didn't make it clear but the glue underneath drips down, causing a problem with the bearings/whatever spins. It's how the fan was designed that's the issue but the fact that they globbed it on top is probably just as bad.

I'm with you anyway and don't understand how that makes it go to 100% but it's their fan design. I've never taken apart or even owned a Twin Frozr cooler card, hard to tell what exactly is happening. In any case this is supposed to be an out-of-the-ordinary sort of thing, you'd need to own one of these cards or manufacture/design them to know what's going on exactly.

[Tonylu1595]

So would 2 stickers make the fans go at 200% speed?

[Ren]

I would assume they'd brand it as a 100% silent fan card when the fan just stops moving from the gobs of crap stuck inside.

Haha. Asus, you're so funny..

[Real_PhillBert]

The engineers must be uber pissed right now. They created what looks like the second best 970 or right up there with the Gigabyte, and some dumbass further down the line decided putting a sticker on a fan to remove was a good idea, cus it looked cool and or advertised the product.

 

Someone is getting fired for this lol.

 

As an engineer I can tell you that this is far from the first time marketing has fucked up a product. I know from experience