What could have caused my 980 to burn ?

[Hibou]

Hello guys,

 

Long story short, last wednesday I was playing BF1 for like 10 minutes when my pc straight shut down. Tried to reboot but it wouldn't. After 15 minutes it finally boot, logged in and check the temp, everything was fine. (CPU 35°C/GPU 33°C)
5/10 minutes into the session, the screen went black and half a sec later, I heard a little "pop" sound and a strong smell of burnt.

 

In an other post I actually thought it was the PSU, so I returned my EVGA 650GQ and my bother in-law lended me an other PSU to test my system and that's when I figured out it was the GPU. First boot with the new psu, the fan spins for half a sec then nothing would happen if I pressed the power button again. So I unplug the gpu and tried to boot, it did. So I went grab an old GTX460 and the system booted into the bios normaly whatsoever.

 

After close inspection of the gpu's pcb, I found some burnt spots. But to this day I still have no clue why my gpu burnt all of a sudden..

 

The GPU was a GTX 980 Windforce 3X OC from Gigabyte. My dad bought it when it first came out and gave it me to since he bought a 1080Ti. So it's not under warranty anymore.

 

I OC'd the card with afterburner, do you think I did something wrong ? I raised the power limit to the max, +134mhz on the core and +100/150mhz on the memory (but I think it was +100), did not touch the voltage and the temp were great imo. In 2560x1080p high preset in BF1 the card was around 68/74 °C depending on ambient room temp. (BF1 was the most demanding game I played, I played Heroes of the Storm or Diablo as well but it was defenitly not pushing hard on the gpu.)

 

The system is a Ryzen 2600, Dark Rock 4, X470 F-Gaming (bios set to perfomance mode), 2x8Go Ripjaws V 3200Mhz ("xmp" profil enabled), GTX980, 2HHD & 1 SSD and EVGA 650GQ as power supply. 4x140mm + 1x120mm fans for airflow inside a Phanteks P400.

 

If I forget to mention some data please let me know, also, for the same price I can either have a Seasonic Focus+ 650W (platinum) or a Focus 750W (gold). What do you think would be best, I'm planning to buy either a Vega 56 or 1070Ti around Christmas.

Thank for reading. 

[DailyProcrastinator]

980 and 980Ti's were very hot running cards (I had a 980Ti), if the thermal paste was all dried up it probably wasn't doing its job and that could have been a contributing reason as to why it failed. Also can't say for sure but voltage ripple can also cause components to fail even if your PSU doesn't.

[Hibou]

2 minutes ago, JM21 said:

980 and 980Ti's were very hot running cards (I had a 980Ti), if the thermal paste was all dried up it probably wasn't doing its job and that could have been a contributing reason as to why it failed. Also can't say for sure but voltage ripple can also cause components to fail even if your PSU doesn't.

Ok thank! I feel bad because it was a great card though. Used it for nearly a year without any issues and now it's gone 

[GamerDude]

Also a possibility is that the GPU fan failed, or were failing, and the card simply got to hot and burnt, so many possibilities as to what could have gone wrong. Between the VEGA56 and GTX1070Ti, I'd go for the former only IF I had a Freesync monitor, if not, the GTX 1070Ti is the faster card.

[Spotty]

16 minutes ago, Hibou said:

The GPU was a GTX 980 Windforce 3X OC from Gigabyte. My dad bought it when it first came out and gave it me to since he bought a 1080Ti. So it's not under warranty anymore.

How long was the warranty on the card? 3 years? 4 years? I'd still contact Gigabyte customer support and see if they will do anything with it even if it is out of warranty.

[Hibou]

1 minute ago, GamerDude said:

Also a possibility is that the GPU fan failed, or were failing, and the card simply got to hot and burnt, so many possibilities as to what could have gone wrong. Between the VEGA56 and GTX1070Ti, I'd go for the former only IF I had a Freesync monitor, if not, the GTX 1070Ti is the faster card.

Thank for replying, I have a 75hz freesync monitor actually. But I can found a Vega 56 Pulse for around 440€ and a decent 1070Ti (zotac or evga) for 520€ +-

[Hibou]

1 minute ago, Spotty said:

How long was the warranty on the card? 3 years? 4 years? I'd still contact Gigabyte customer support and see if they will do anything with it even if it is out of warranty.

It's a 3 years constructor warranty and he bought the card 4 years ago 

[DailyProcrastinator]

4 minutes ago, Hibou said:

Ok thank! I feel bad because it was a great card though. Used it for nearly a year without any issues and now it's gone 

Yeah, that is to bad. But I'd go for a Seasonic Focus Gold 750W PSU, it's tier 1 with 10 years of warranty so you'll be issue free. Also since you have a Freesync monitor I'd get a vega 56.

[Hibou]

Just now, JM21 said:

Yeah, that is to bad. But I'd go for a Seasonic Focus Gold 750W PSU, it's tier 1 with 10 years of warranty so you'll be issue free. Also since you have a Freesync monitor I'd get a vega 56.

Thank for the feedback! 

[DailyProcrastinator]

2 minutes ago, Hibou said:

Thank for the feedback! 

No problemo!

[Jurrunio]

I doubt it's the components in your picture. The dark spots could be thermal pad juice (I guess it's more of an oil, but whatever), just not burnt marks because the components themselves look intact.

 

What about the other side of the PCB?

[GamerDude]

14 minutes ago, Hibou said:

Thank for replying, I have a 75hz freesync monitor actually. But I can found a Vega 56 Pulse for around 440€ and a decent 1070Ti (zotac or evga) for 520€ +-

Freesync is awesome, for me anyway. I have my two VEGA 64 in CF Mode on a 144Hz Freesync monitor (Gsync should die a horrible death!) and it's been lovely to game at 3840x1080 on my monitor. Actually, I don't really need Freesync now as my games can pretty much hit >100fps. Surprisingly, the one game that brings my system to its knees is Crysis, run it at absolute max ingame and I can only do 50fps to 80fps. Meanwhile, I'm happy to report that I've found DX12 game that seems to support CF Mode, Strange Brigade runs absolutely great at >100fps, max ingame (didn't turn on something about limited RT option, but will try that later).

 

Since you have a Freesync monitor, the VEGA 56 is the obvious choice, but do get one with a good cooler, the reference card/cooler just ain't cutting it for me. Below is a screenshot of my PowerColor Red Devil and Gigabyte reference cards after a typical gaming session, do note the vast difference in temps between the cards (both GPU and HBM temps, as well as the auto boost clocks), and looking at the temps, I don't have to tell you which is which, do I?

[Hibou]

10 minutes ago, GamerDude said:

Freesync is awesome, for me anyway. I have my two VEGA 64 in CF Mode on a 144Hz Freesync monitor (Gsync should die a horrible death!) and it's been lovely to game at 3840x1080 on my monitor. Actually, I don't really need Freesync now as my games can pretty much hit >100fps. Surprisingly, the one game that brings my system to its knees is Crysis, run it at absolute max ingame and I can only do 50fps to 80fps. Meanwhile, I'm happy to report that I've found DX12 game that seems to support CF Mode, Strange Brigade runs absolutely great at >100fps, max ingame (didn't turn on something about limited RT option, but will try that later).

 

Since you have a Freesync monitor, the VEGA 56 is the obvious choice, but do get one with a good cooler, the reference card/cooler just ain't cutting it for me. Below is a screenshot of my PowerColor Red Devil and Gigabyte reference cards after a typical gaming session, do note the vast difference in temps between the cards (both GPU and HBM temps, as well as the auto boost clocks), and looking at the temps, I don't have to tell you which is which, do I?

k 

No, you don't! ^^ 71°c for 3.4K RPM, must be noisy 

[Hibou]

8 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

I doubt it's the components in your picture. The dark spots could be thermal pad juice (I guess it's more of an oil, but whatever), just not burnt marks because the components themselves look intact.

 

What about the other side of the PCB?

The smell definitely coming from those spots. The rest of the pcb is fine though, didn't spot other burnt marks

[Jurrunio]

2 minutes ago, Hibou said:

The smell definitely coming from those spots. The rest of the pcb is fine though, didn't spot other burnt marks

I mean the side underneath the heatsink. You can't check them without taking the cooler off.

[GamerDude]

3 minutes ago, Hibou said:

No, you don't! ^^ 71°c for 3.4K RPM, must noisy 

Heh, I actually find it reassuring to hear the fan rev up.....I've been with AMD GPU's since the good old ATi Radeon 9700Pro days. And yes, the stock cooler on the reference VEGA64 is loud, but I'd used the HD5870's in CF Mode, HD6990 + HD6970 in TriFire Mode, etc, so I'm pretty used to the noise. Recently had an issue with my 2nd GPU in ULPS mode, basically the 2nd card was totally idle, even the fan wasn't spinning, worried the hell outta me as I needed to hear the fan spin even if it weren't spinning fast in idle mode.

[Hibou]

2 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

I mean the side underneath the heatsink. You can't check them without taking the cooler off.

Oh, my bad. I might try to take it apart tomorrow to check

[Hibou]

3 minutes ago, GamerDude said:

Heh, I actually find it reassuring to hear the fan rev up.....I've been with AMD GPU's since the good old ATi Radeon 9700Pro days. And yes, the stock cooler on the reference VEGA64 is loud, but I'd used the HD5870's in CF Mode, HD6990 + HD6970 in TriFire Mode, etc, so I'm pretty used to the noise. Recently had an issue with my 2nd GPU in ULPS mode, basically the 2nd card was totally idle, even the fan wasn't spinning, worried the hell outta me as I needed to hear the fan spin even if it weren't spinning fast in idle mode.

Ahahah I bet! As I have an open-back headset I tried to build something relatively quiet! But I guess with a headset you're not able to hear the fans while gaming, are you ?

[GamerDude]

22 minutes ago, Hibou said:

Ahahah I bet! As I have an open-back headset I tried to build something relatively quiet! But I guess with a headset you're not able to hear the fans while gaming, are you ?

I'm the headphonedude too, I have a number of cans, from mid to high end, a couple of closed back cans like the Beyerdynamic DT7700 Pro and AT ATH-A900X LTD Ed, or I'd use my Rokit5 G3 and pump up the volume a little.

[sazrocks]

That spot looks like there was heat on the other side of the board, not the back. Looks like about where the VRM is.