Dude, there should be no hole on the back plate... When the card was first bought and installed, did nobody ask the question "why is the back plate broken with a hole in it?" Something made that hole. If it was a manufacturing accident (how on earth does that happen) then it stands to reason that small metal parts of the back plate got wedged into the PCB, and this might be why the card went up in flames. But seriously, you buy a graphics card with a hole in it and don't send it back? :3eyes:
What hole are you talking about? Picture above has no 'holes'. If you are talking about those square cut-outs then that is normal.
In the first picture you can see that the backplate has been bent downwards towards the PCB and it looks to be in the position where the fan sits. Could it be that the deformation has caused a short circuit between component and backplate because I'll bet the backplate isn't floating but directly attached to ground electrically? I take it the backplate is made from metal and conductive? It should look like:
looks like one of the 3 secondary VRMs said "bye bye" backplate has nothing to do with it. the holes are part of design. and even if there were no holes... you won't carve holes like that through 1mm aluminium or nickel backplates only with ICs blowing up in smoke... anyway i'd contact EVGA directly and refer maybe to this thread and their statements about the VRM issues they had in the past: https://forums.evga.com/Warning-There-is-a-VRM-PROBLEM-Protect-yourself-m2572175.aspx http://www.fudzilla.com/news/graphi...fficial-statement-on-gtx-1080-1070-ftw-issues ...knowing full well that it is the previous gen card, but the phenomenon seems to be quite similar (burnt backplate due to vrm chip going up in smoke, for whatever reason...) alternatively, give it to louis rossman https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos
Judging by the pictures back in the beginning, looks like the vrm's was totally covered by the cpu heatsink and fan, but then again the Vrm's in general can go well beyond 100c from my understandings, but in this case, wow, burnt vrm's??? I know when I had my ati 5970 watercooled(including the vrms), the damn vrm's was going well beyond 120c and the temps on the gpu was excellent and was still working fine then, so vrm's can get extremely hot and still working fine.
Wasn't covered. Was a nice big space but cannot be judged from the angle where the photo has been taken. It wasn't the issue at all. The VRM's wasn't even close to the heat sink area.
Good call, the backplate also looks like it is a bit bent, maybe that was the issue, some mechanical damage to the card (which could have messed with whatever part is it that went up in smoke). Cool, good to hear.
Hey yeah, good catch. There's a clearly visible dent on the bp. So looks likely the CPU fan pushed down on the bp, made it contact the pcb and short circuit. The dent is right next to the burn marks too. Yes the bp is conductive, made from aluminium. Anyhow good luck with RMA! Could be a good idea to verify the clearance between CPU cooler and graphics card with the replacement card though.
Geez after reading some of these posts... it appears it could be the VRM just took a crap or someone simply pushed the board too hard and caused the VRM to burn out... as noted the backplates are notched for a reason.. so unless someone fiddled with the backplate and it short circuit somehow, or power surge or problem with PSW... has to be 1 of those 3
Those, I believe, are 30 volt 3 amp fast switching diodes under the cutout rated at 125C. Each one could throughput up to 90 watts of power to another component(s). Most likely cause IMO, failed downstream gpu semiconductor. P.S. Damn you Superman, that was a good card!
Funny though, my old 980Ti which has been in my brother's PC for a while now just suffered a very similar burn today. Just casually playing R6 Siege and suddenly had a shutdown, booted up and a quite distinct electrical burn whiff started to float around the room. Shut down the PC immediately and took out the card, after taking the card fully apart I found out this upper R33 cap was all burnt to hell. Too bad as the card is still under warranty but I've made some cutting on it's cooler. I cut this AIRBOSS cooling extension out so I could fit an universal EK block on the card back when it was still under water.
