Question EVGA XC Ultra 3 RTX 3080 Serious Issues, Please Help Me

[solar axis]

all parts were purchased last year except for the graphics card which was purchased two weeks ago. it worked out of the box but the first day of use produced a BSOD while playing Final Fantasy 14, of all games. The last BSOD's error code read "buffer stack exceeded driver" and upon reboot I was stuck at the BIOS splash screen. I thought it was the motherboard but after I removed the card and ran an HDMI to my CPU's integrated GPU, it was business as usual..

When it crashed last there were no overclocks set, I was playing the VR game Blade and Sorcery then got the BSOD mention earlier. It booted to the Aorus splash screen and when I mashed the bios button nothing happened, I am still not sure if the processes were completing or not during the frozen screen. I experienced instability on the card out of the box, so during use I generally capped the voltage at 1000mv and didn't let it clock past 1995Mhz. Prior to me noticing the card was suffering there was a point where, for seemingly no reason, one or all of the fans ramped to %100, and there have been black screens or frozen screens. My card is the Taiwan version, its serial starting with 2014 and I was powering the two 8 pin plugs on their own individual rails. What can/should I do here? Did I break my card?

i9 9900k
aorus z390
corsair 750w platinum psu
32 gb's gskillz ram
samsung nvme m.2

 

[sizzling]

Sounds like a defective card. I would start a warranty claim with EVGA and/or contact the retailer encase they can replace assuming you didn’t buy from a scalper.

 

[solar axis]

Sounds like a defective card. I would start a warranty claim with EVGA and/or contact the retailer encase they can replace assuming you didn’t buy from a scalper.

No scalper, I purchased legitimately through a small retailer.

 

[sizzling]

No scalper, I purchased legitimately through a small retailer.

Contact the retailer. Depending on country your consumer rights will differ. If the retailer cannot help then start an EVGA claim.

 

[dorsai]

I agree...it sounds like a defective card and should be RMA'd for replacement.

 

[solar axis]

The email has been sent. I sold my 3070 to get this card so I'll be pretty sore if I end up with neither due to this.

 

[solar axis]

I agree...it sounds like a defective card and should be RMA'd for replacement.

so I did a clean install of the card and rivers and changed the pci.e slot to the sdecond one and its running normally again. im confused

 

[dorsai]

so I did a clean install of the card and rivers and changed the pci.e slot to the sdecond one and its running normally again. im confused

Try moving it back to slot 1...pay attention to how well the GPU is seated into the pci-e slot...it may not have been properly slotted into motherboard when you ran into the problems.

 

[solar axis]

The screen was freezing when it was in the x16 slot. I thought it was the motherboard (aorus z390 pro) initially and made a ticket with the manufacturer. I then removed the 3080 and plugged in my screen to the HDMI input on the board itself which streamed the video from my CPU's internal graphics flawlessly, which led me to believe the culprit was the EVGA graphics card. I did so more research and with a last ditch effort installed the EVGA card into the second PCI.E slot of the motherboard it booted properly. This confirmed to me that the issue was either a display issue meaning there were processes happening off screen, or the more unlikely situation of the PCI.E x16 slot having been somehow cooked. During the extended use period leading to the cards failure I was using MSI afterburner to cap the voltage at 1000 mv with a max clock of 2000, and everything was functioning as OOB default until that point.During the first day of use I experienced a BSOD during gameplay of a low-demand title (Final Fantasy 14) while using a clock I had thought was stable, so I reduced everything till I got to the point of never letting it exceed 1000mv. I spoke with somebody who suggested I uninstall and reinstall the drivers for the card now that it's working again, and then reseating it in the x16 slot. Once plugged back into the slot and powered with 2 8 pin adapters on individual PSU rails, I booted it up at it was business as usual. Games feel more choppy now. I still haven't identified the problem.