News Poor Soldering, Not Amazon, Killed 24 EVGA RTX 3090 GPUs

[Admin]

EVGA shares its report on how poor workmanship caused two dozens of its GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards to die prematurely.

Poor Soldering, Not Amazon, Killed 24 EVGA RTX 3090 GPUs : Read more

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

And Amazon probably paid EVGA 6+ figures to say it had nothing to do with Amazon but instead a faulty product that never should have passed QC and released to the public.

Will be interesting to see if anyone saved their dead 3090, or was a preorderer and has one of the same early batch, and can back up or debunk EVGA's explanation.

Theoretically couldn't the same circumstances be replicated using, say, Aquamark? That is, a program which isn't a power virus to trigger limiters, has no frame rate cap, and is graphically weak enough in 2021 for a card of the power of the 3090 to generate hundreds or thousands of FPS?

 

[Phaaze88]

The duck?

Come on, now. People expect these things to just work... with no caveats.
They already had the ACX/ICX(?) from older models that would burn up.
There's the fuse popping, followed by ded gpu from their recent FTW3s - might not have been exclusive to FTW3, I haven't really been keeping track.
Now this?
I expect to read/see comments from the other partners that they too, had soldering issues with their 30 series gpus...


"Although EVGA didn't reveal concrete numbers, the company affirmed that the affected batch is less than 1% of all the graphics cards that it has sold."
They sell more gpus than the other partners by far...

 

[escksu]

And Amazon probably paid EVGA 6+ figures to say it had nothing to do with Amazon but instead a faulty product that never should have passed QC and released to the public.

Will be interesting to see if anyone saved their dead 3090, or was a preorderer and has one of the same early batch, and can back up or debunk EVGA's explanation.

Theoretically couldn't the same circumstances be replicated using, say, Aquamark? That is, a program which isn't a power virus to trigger limiters, has no frame rate cap, and is graphically weak enough in 2021 for a card of the power of the 3090 to generate hundreds or thousands of FPS?

I don't see the need for amazon to do that. Properly designed and manufactured hardware should not fail even under full load. Furthermore, all the GPUs have proper monitoring sensors which ensure that parameters like temp, power etc.. do not go over specified limits. Unless you are telling me the game override these parameters, there is no way a software can cause a hardware to perform beyond its design limits (I wish it can, this means we can get 3070 to perform like 3080).

Although EVGA did not specifically say whats wrong with the soldering, its easy to guess. Repeated expansion/contraction (due to thermal cycling) causes fatigue to the solder, so it cracks after sometime.

 

[watzupken]

I feel product issues are not unexpected, but I think where EVGA done it right is to acknowledge that there is an issue and kick start the exchange. It is certainly not great when you are impacted and to know that you got a card with subpar quality, but at least it s getting replaced in a timely manner. Unlike some other brand selling exploding PSU and happily forcing it down consumers' throat by mandating that it be bundled with their GPUs.

 

[kjfatl]

It's amazing how reliable most electronic products are, and the hundreds of things that can go wrong.
We had a problem recently where our suppliers moved manufacturing to another facility. Months later one of the parts began failing. Analysis of the failing component indicated that the failure was due to beryllium contamination in the water used to clean the boards after soldering, not the component.

 

[lazyabum]

Well who ever said EVGA was the Gold standard of Video Cards.

 

[lazyabum]

And Amazon probably paid EVGA 6+ figures to say it had nothing to do with Amazon but instead a faulty product that never should have passed QC and released to the public.

Will be interesting to see if anyone saved their dead 3090, or was a preorderer and has one of the same early batch, and can back up or debunk EVGA's explanation.

Theoretically couldn't the same circumstances be replicated using, say, Aquamark? That is, a program which isn't a power virus to trigger limiters, has no frame rate cap, and is graphically weak enough in 2021 for a card of the power of the 3090 to generate hundreds or thousands of FPS?

Amazon received 100,000 of RTX 3090s (GA100s) that work just fine in their AWS Graviton System.

 

[cryoburner]

I don't see the need for amazon to do that. Properly designed and manufactured hardware should not fail even under full load. Furthermore, all the GPUs have proper monitoring sensors which ensure that parameters like temp, power etc.. do not go over specified limits. Unless you are telling me the game override these parameters, there is no way a software can cause a hardware to perform beyond its design limits (I wish it can, this means we can get 3070 to perform like 3080).

Although EVGA did not specifically say whats wrong with the soldering, its easy to guess. Repeated expansion/contraction (due to thermal cycling) causes fatigue to the solder, so it cracks after sometime.

Yep, Amazon likely had little to do with it. If their game managed to stress the card in ways that caused the hardware to fail over a short period, then there undoubtedly exists other games or software with the potential to do the same. People only noticed this because it happened all at once following a preview release of the game. It's actually probably a good thing it happened so close to the hardware's release, rather than a few years later when the hardware is out of warranty, and when it might be more likely for the trend to go unnoticed.

It probably wasn't a result of thermal cycling though, seeing as these cards should all be fairly new, and the failures tended to happen within minutes of first launching the game. There were suggestions that the cards might have been pulling power beyond their intended limits, and the weak solder joints may have just been not able to cope, rather than being something resulting from long-term repeated temperature changes. And if if the cards were actually drawing more power than they should have been, the solder itself might not have even been the root cause of the issue, but rather just the point of failure resulting from some other design issue.

 

[ThatMouse]

EVGA used to have a lifetime warranty. Now it's 90 days to 3 years max. It looks like you can buy an extended warranty...

https://www.evga.com/warranty/extended/

 

[jonathan1683]

MSI has better quality cards. I think evga is still a good company, but they need better QC

 

[dwn2brasstacks]

Dear Karens saying EVGA has poor qc...they are the top supplier for graphics cards, and every manufacturer that ever was has made mistakes. It is absurd to criticize how they handled this. They stepped up and backed their product, they owned up to the mistake and they corrected it. Truly goes to show no matter what there will always be people complaining.

They are the best company for customer support and have been for as long as I can remember. I have had at least one card of theirs from every generation since the geforce 400 series...and not a single one has malfunctioned. I also have used precision tuner for all of my cards and I love that it had such powerful and easy to use features.

They also have handled this GPU shortage better than anyone else with their que lines putting more graphics cards in the hands of actual customers. Do people still sell them? Well sure, but you only get to sell 1 you don't get to buy 10-1000 as a scalping scum bag with a bot freezing everyone else out of a card. I went to every sales outlet available, (even completed transactions with newegg and best buy which then turned back the order to say they sold out.) EVGA was the only one I actually successfully was able to purchase.

They also have the step-up program which is above and beyond, not to mention an optional warranty programs which includes cross-shipping product, something very few businesses do.

I have very few brands that I go to first for anything in particular, but EVGA is on my short list. Not only are they the best in so many categories but they also compete very well from a value basis. They have high end cards that are ridiculous also but their mainstream cards consistently are among the best values out there.

 

[Flayed]

I thought the soldering was all done by machine these days on automated production lines?

 

[watzupken]

Well who ever said EVGA was the Gold standard of Video Cards.

This is correct. I generally feel that their cards are not as attractive as some of the other manufacturers in terms of build quality. But I think where EVGA tend to do well, is with their after sales service. Again, nowhere near perfect, but I feel it is better than some.

 

[watzupken]

I thought the soldering was all done by machine these days on automated production lines?

Maybe mis-calibrated machine. That's why they say the population is about 1%. 1% for a card like the RTX 3090 should not be anywhere as high as say a RTX 3070 since it is a pricey halo product.

 

[jasonkaler]

You can't blame a game's lack of frame rate limiting as the reason the cards died.
If there is a condition where over working the card can kill it, that should be handled by the drivers or the hardware.

Making each software title responsible for your hardware's safety is just opening the door for hardware killing viruses.

 

[jasonkaler]

I thought the soldering was all done by machine these days on automated production lines?

Even if it is done by machine, the engineers choose the solder type, quantity, soldering temperatures etc.
If these are slightly out, when the component heats up it will de-solder itself from the board

 

[spongiemaster]

I feel product issues are not unexpected, but I think where EVGA done it right is to acknowledge that there is an issue and kick start the exchange. It is certainly not great when you are impacted and to know that you got a card with subpar quality, but at least it s getting replaced in a timely manner. Unlike some other brand selling exploding PSU and happily forcing it down consumers' throat by mandating that it be bundled with their GPUs.

Any normal person would expect better customer support for a $2000 product than for one that costs $100. If my $100 PSU exploded, I wouldn't even want it replaced. I'd buy a new one from a different company and take the loss.

 

[Sluggotg]

EVGA found an issue that caused the failures. They said it was their fault. They cleared Amazon, (and the vast majority of us found it hard to believe running a game could destroy a video card like that). Manufacturing robots are not perfect. They can drift out of Spec during use. I am sure EVGA will do more Cal checks on the assembly line. EVGA is one of the best for Video Cards and Power Supplies. This soldering issue does not mean "Everything they make Sucks, Buy Brand XXX instead". We are blessed with lots and lots of great Computer parts manufacturers.

 

[helper800]

Well who ever said EVGA was the Gold standard of Video Cards.

Everyone that I know that has had to deal with getting a lemon comes out saying that EVGA is the gold standard, at least in my experience.

 

[helper800]

You can't blame a game's lack of frame rate limiting as the reason the cards died.
If there is a condition where over working the card can kill it, that should be handled by the drivers or the hardware.

Making each software title responsible for your hardware's safety is just opening the door for hardware killing viruses.

Hardware-killing viruses have existed since modern hardware has been produced. A lot of it was also unintentional by the developer of the cards themselves.

 

[helper800]

Any normal person would expect better customer support for a $2000 product than for one that costs $100. If my $100 PSU exploded, I wouldn't even want it replaced. I'd buy a new one from a different company and take the loss.

Your argument is specious because different people value money differently. Considering EVGA's response and overall customer support you are getting what you pay for at 2000 dollars and even more. Just because you spend a lot of money on a product does not make it less prone to breakage or defect. All products are the same regardless of price, sometimes things are made badly. This can happen to a 5 million dollar car or a 5 cent plastic toy, your expectation of quality is what the is problem. All of this is obviously my opinion, if you do not agree, let discus it more.

 

[amulder87]

If it was just a hardware issue, how was New World's menu implicated at all? Rendering high frame rates at a menu doesn't seem like it'd be any more likely to drive a frail card so hard it broke than other things like stress testing or running any graphics intense game that maxes out a card. Is there something different about the load in that specific situation that caused more power draw than games themselves or things like FurMark?

 

[Friesiansam]

A lot of moaning here but, EVGA have handled this well. Many companies would have kept quiet or, denied there is a problem. Evga have offered replacements or refunds promptly and, have now told us the reason for the problem.

 

[Friesiansam]

All products are the same regardless of price, sometimes things are made badly. This can happen to a 5 million dollar car or a 5 cent plastic toy,

This is a good analogy, even the manufacturer of the most reliable cars, Toyota and it's Lexus sub brand, still have to issue product recalls for new models, because of problems only discovered once cars are in the hands of customers. The measure of a company is how problems are dealt with, Evga have handled this well.