Video card failures

[Shrek]

I seem to have a growing collection of old failed ATI video cards, but not NVIDIA; just me or is this a theme?

 

[64K]

I seem to have a growing collection of old failed AMD video cards, but not NVIDIA; just me or is this a theme?

Are you trying to start a forum fire?

 

[natr0n]

Almost like a pile of dead seagates. It is what it is I guess.

 

[bobbybluz]

I have an old HIS 4870 in my parts pile that just stopped working one day about 6 years ago. Other than that I've been good with ATI/AMD GPU's.

 

[Lindatje]

Yes it is just you.

We have alot GPU’s here and also alot old one’s from Nvidia and AMD and not one is broken. (We have a company)

 

[Nuckles56]

I've had cards from both vendors fail so I'm going to say it's just you.

 

[sam_86314]

I have a dead Radeon X1950 Pro (alongside a working one), and a dying GTX 780 Ti.

I'm sure everyone will have different experiences with which components die.

 

[Fouquin]

I seem to have a growing collection of old failed AMD video cards, but not NVIDIA; just me or is this a theme?

I've had about 50/50. More recent nVidia cards like Turing/Pascal that are just inexplicably dead. Some older AMD cards, mostly Hawaii and Cypress. Lots of ASUS and Gigabyte GeForces with bad fans but still mostly working if a bit clock sensitive due to overheating.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Well, you could make wind chimes out of them like they do from HDDs.

How to make hard drive wind chimes | Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

www.evilmadscientist.com

 

[FireFox]

just me or is this a theme?

It's not just you.

 

[Keullo-e]

My casualties are pretty equal for now. Right now from my collection I have a dead 9700 Pro and X1950 GT, from Nvidia side I have dead 7600 GS and 7800 GS cards.

 

[Shrek]

Are you trying to start a forum fire?

Nope, although I was a little worried, but people here have been very reasonable; good to know that it is not just ATI, and even if it was, things could have changed and I believe my cards are from before AMD bought ATI.

Almost like a pile of dead seagates. It is what it is I guess.

Now you have me worried; I used to buy only Western Digital, but wanted a hybrid drive after Western Digital stopped selling them, so I got three 3.5" Seagate Firecudas. So far all three are still doing well.

It's not just you.

I just happen to now have a lot of NVIDIA, but that was more by chance than intentionally and was driven by a desire for fan-less cards.

There is also the clever trick with fanned cards that can be used to reduce temperature fluctuations and so solder fatigue, namely to run the fan purposely slow at low loads to keep the GPU temperature up.

 

[GerKNG]

i had around 50-60 GPUs so far and the only dead nvidia card was a gigabyte GTX 660 windforce (died around 1 year after purchase)

AMD so far:
6670 reference
RX 580 Armor 8GB
6900XT Merc 319

edit:
had a dead fan controller on a 2080 ti amp extreme.

 

[freeagent]

Hardware lives and dies, sometimes just out of the blue, sometimes there are warning signs.. just like us.

 

[Mr.Scott]

With around 150 GPU's, I'm about 50/50 on manufacturer.
Dead cards happen. Most depend on how they were treated.

 

[Shrek]

i had around 50-60 GPUs so far and the only dead nvidia card was a gigabyte GTX 660 windforce (died around 1 year after purchase)

AMD so far:
6670 reference
RX 580 Armor 8GB
6900XT Merc 319

My experience is distorted as I pick up things people have dumped, so I see more failures than I would had I purchased new; that is why I am asking here.

Not trying to spark a flame war.

 

[GerKNG]

My experience is distorted as I pick up things people have dumped, so I see more failures than I would had I purchased new; that is why I am asking here.

Not trying to spark a flame war.

it's hard to tell what a person did to a GPU over the years.
my brother ran a GTX 480 for 8 years straight at 90-95°C without any problems. it even overclocks the same as on day one.
then there are other cards that were pretty bad after a few years of gaming.

PCB wise AMD has sometimes by far the better reference PCB. but the GPU, it's supplied voltage at stock (which is pretty high imo) might be an issue over several years of usage.

but in general i'd say Nvidia and AMD are basically on par.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

I've had two cards die on me, I had a MX440 die within a month of buying it, and I had a 8800gt that stopped working, I baked it, it started working, and failed again a couple years later. I also was given a 780ti that stopped working and I was unable to get working. I've never had a AMD/ATI card fail on me

 

[Deleted member 177333]

I've been pretty fortunate. I've only had one video card die in ~25 years of heavy gaming - it was a Radeon 4870 that was overvolted but liquid cooled and a VRM popped on it while gaming - I remember I had a full cover Koolance block on it, but I believe that was back when they didn't get very good liquid flow over top of the VRMs and they ran warmer than they should have. I don't blame ATI on that one, though, more the waterblock.

 

[Deleted member 205776]

Had a Zotac 2070 die on me, right as the GPUpocalypse started. It was not overclocked and only a year old. Don't buy from Zotac.

I was extremely lucky to find a 3070 Gaming X Trio in stock at MSRP.

Other than this, no dead cards at all.

 

[mclaren85]

yes, according to my own experience, amd fails lot quicker.

 

[freeagent]

I had an XFX GTX 295 kick the bucket, one card kept dropping out until it was just a single GPU card. RMA was approved.. I killed a Zotac AMP GTX 285. That one still stings a bit. It was only a week old and such a good overclocker. Dropped it right in the trash on top of spaghetti

There was no E recycling back then in my town..

 

[Shrek]

I baked it, it started working, and failed again a couple years later.

I have been wondering about baking; did you put a good amount of flux under the chip before baking? and did you leave the electrolytic capacitors in place?

I know this is off main topic, but I find it sometimes useful to let a thread meander a bit and not just rigidly maintain the same theme.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

I have been wondering about baking; did you put a good amount of flux under the chip before baking? and did you leave the electrolytic capacitors in place?

I know this is off main topic, but I find it sometimes useful to let a thread meander a bit and not just rigidly maintain the same theme.

That was a long time ago, but IIRC, only thing I did was remove the heatsink and clean off thermal paste from GPU, preheat the oven to 200', put the card in the over on a cookie sheet, GPU side up (so nothing fell off the card when the soldier softened), baked it for 10 minutes, then removed it from the oven and let it cool at room temperature. After the card was cool to the touch, reinstalled the heatsink with new paste and tested the card. It worked.

If you do try it, do your own research, this method works for fixing bad soldier points. If your card has a issue with an actual component, this will not help.

 

[Sithaer]

While I don't have too much of a sample size but my first dead GPU was a MSI 8800 GT that died on me afer 2 and half years, they gave me back a GTS 450 from warranty.

After that my next dead card was a Palit GTX 560 Ti, the single fan version.
Bought it used and tbh that card always had issues, learned my lesson there to not cheap out on cooler designs and rather buy slightly overkill cooler design cards eve if they cost somewhat more. 'Card was really loud and hot, died in less than 1 year after I bought it'

Since that non of my cards died luckily 'knocks on wood'.
Used a HD 7770 for 2+ years with no issues and now a RX 570 since 2018 september which I did buy used 'ex miner' but came with 2+ years retail warranty so it was fine.
Gave it new thermal pads and paste a few months ago when it ran out of warranty, just to feel safer in these times. 'I do not own any backup card atm so I can't really have this die on me'

Btw interesting thing that my bro's 8800 GTX and 2 of my friends 8800/9800 GTs also died the same way during those years.