Fried electronics are never fun. That’s especially the case for PC players, who rely on gaming rig upgrades to play the latest, demanding releases. Naturally, PC users gravitate towards companies with stable hardware, such as NVIDIA. But there’s been some controversy with one NVIDIA card manufacturer, EVGA, after some of their cards have reportedly caught fire and burned themselves out.
EVGA’s 1080, 1070 and 1060 lines feature some of the defective parts, with other cards not having this issue. But an overheated card is still dangerous, nonetheless, and should be dealt with immediately. Reddit user /u/Mydst was just one of several reporting the card’s problems. “Today I was just casually gaming, and suddenly a bright orange flame shot out about an inch high from the card,” Mydst wrote. “The display went black and I instantly turned off my PC. I was greeted by the sickening smell of burning electronics.”
After Tom’s Hardware began looking into the line’s temperatures during benchmarks, EVGA began offering free thermal pads on Oct 21st for owners “who want to have a lower temperature.” Then, on Nov 1st, EVGA realized “the thermal temperature of the PWM and memory, in extreme circumstances, was marginally within spec and needed to be addressed,” which led EVGA to offer “full warranty support” on the affected cards, alongside a VBIOS update that alters the fan curve to cool components. EVGA ACX 3.0 GeForce GTX 1080, 1070 and 1060 cards were affected by the burn out, with a specific listing of part numbers found on EVGA’s website.
While it’s important for hardware companies to provide quick feedback and responses when problems are announced, gaining the public’s trust after a hardware defect can be a tough battle. EVGA’s actions suggest that they’re taking the problem very seriously, but no user wants to deal with a burnt card.
“This whole thing just incredibly bums me out as these cards weren’t cheap and were actually a big expenditure for us,” Mydst said. “Even if they fix it I’ll end up getting a refurb as a replacement and I will be without my card for a couple weeks not to mention the shipping cost.”