I guess it depends on how easy/time consuming it's to check. I know many companies that compensate their customers by default even though they could check for fraud just because it's more trouble to go through every rma than to actually pay the people that complain.

iloveav

Poland1478 Posts

September 29 2011 12:29 GMT

#44

Assuming you are ok with computers:

Unmount the PC, get the PSu out of the case. Google how to jump start a psu. See if it works this way.

That will tell you right there if the psu its dead, or not.

Assuming PSU works, plgu everything back togheter and start testing each area.

You could have actually fried any part if the PSU had problems managing the voltages.
I assume you CPU was already overclocked when you did this. Do you have many extra parts like Hdds, fans, leds, cathodes, frontal panels, liquid cooling pump, HDDS, etc, etc?

But the best bet is PSU could not handle the 12v rail.

Womwomwom

5930 Posts

September 29 2011 13:00 GMT

#45

I have no idea why you guys think he fried his GPU core. The first things to go are the VRMs or memory; if he really did pump 1.1V into that card, I'm not surprised it fried itself since that's pretty much the enthusiast consensus (which means the actual "safe" is well below this) for maximum "safe" limit. I shouldn't need to mention all of those GTX570s on Hardforum/Overclocks that blew their VRMs with 1.1V. That has nothing to do with companies being cheap, its just someone putting too much voltage into hardware that would never typically see that much voltage ever.

Moral of the story: overclock well below whatever their definition of "safe" limits.

About rebadging cards: AMD's HD6770 refresh is a re-badge for OEMs that threw in HDMI 1.4 instead of 1.3 on the HD5000 series of cards. Its not really "being cheap", the amount of money thrown into the design, manufacturing, tooling, and contracting are ridiculously expensive especially if yields are not good*. If a card is still worth selling and the process is mature enough to pump lots of them out at a time, why completely ditch it?

If you got a mid-range card that performs decently, consumes low enough power, has room for improvements (here its HDMI 1.4), and has been in production long enough to have good yields, why wouldn't you keep producing it under a different name? AMD isn't even trying to cheat users, I mean they've been extremely honest by saying the HD6770 is "based on the same hardware as the ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series".

*If AMD didn't somehow get a fucking awesome contract where they only pay for good Llano/Bulldozer chips, they'd probably be in dire straits right now since yields for these chips seem to be extremely terrible.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

September 29 2011 13:25 GMT

#46

I can't believe how many people are acting like attempting to RMA it is somehow so bad. If he sends it in, they'll check for physical damage. Meaning, the only way the RMA will work is if the thing was actually defective to begin with, since, as Wom is pointing out, the odds are good it blew something besides the actual core. No harm in not mentioning the exact circumstances until he finds out who's actually at fault for it dying.

HydraLF

Hong Kong626 Posts

September 29 2011 13:58 GMT

#47

Just did some googling around, I think this thread basically explained what happened.

http://forums.gametrailers.com/thread/switching-from-gtx460-hawk-to-/1173147

VRM = Voltage Regulator Module, they're the components that control and convert the current/voltage being delivered to various parts of the card (namely the RAM and GPU). Obviously you can't just throw 12v at a microprocessor, so VRM's take the 12v power coming from your PSU and alter it to so that it can be used by the graphics core and the memory.

Besides the GPU core itself, VRM's are the hottest component in a video card. They can easily get up to 100C (or higher in some cases) without proper cooling.

Now, according to Bit Tech, the MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II is using the same PCB as the HAWK:

[image loading]

Pictured above is a GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II from MSI minus the cooler. It has a 7 1 power phase design, meaning it has 7 VRM's for the core and 1 for memory. Under normal usage and overclocking not having VRM heatsinks isn't really an issue. I mean, it's still generally better to cool the VRM's to preserve the longevity of the card but it's not huge deal.

Once you start pumping extra volts into the GPU core in order to overclock further, however, VRM's start to get hotter and hotter. At 200mV the VRM's on MSI's Twin Frozr II design for GTX 460 HAWK is pushed to the limit. A lot of people have killed their cards at just over 200mV almost instantly as one or more VRM modules popped. This is the primary reason why MSI changed the HAWK and MSI Afterburner to allow a maximum of 100mV instead.

Now, if you're not going to try intense overclocking, don't worry about it. I would assuming that 100mV is relatively safe for the design MSI has. If you were going to run 100mV 24/7 though and care about the longevity of your card I would suggest getting some heatsinks on those modules.

And this: http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/929152-have-you-killed-570-no-recent.html

clusen

Germany8702 Posts

September 29 2011 14:52 GMT

#48

It was already mentioned that you killed your vrm by being careless, you don't fry a properly cooled GPU by adding a little voltage and starting Furmark for 10 seconds.

I'm quite sure you will get a new card tho, it wouldn't add to their image that a card with "military class components" advertised for overclocking died while overclocking

Doesn't change the fact that you killed your card and I'm quite sure the warranty agreement does not cover overvolting. If you care is up to you tho.

@Jinglehell
Some people care about morals in such a case, some won't, such is life. Why do you act so defensive about this?

lqd

United States108 Posts

September 30 2011 01:12 GMT

#49

On September 29 2011 23:52 clusen wrote:
It was already mentioned that you killed your vrm by being careless, you don't fry a properly cooled GPU by adding a little voltage and starting Furmark for 10 seconds.

I'm quite sure you will get a new card tho, it wouldn't add to their image that a card with "military class components" advertised for overclocking died while overclocking

It's not just about morals. Breaking something and pretending it wasn't your fault so that you can get a new one is fraud. OP is lucky that it's just a video card. At worst, his RMA will get denied. If the object in question was a car and he attempted the same thing, he wouldn't be so lucky.

Belial88

United States5217 Posts

November 02 2012 08:24 GMT

#50

MSi allows overvolting and overclocking through afterburner, it's covered under warranty.

The top end limit for increased voltage in afterburner is quite low, if a card breaks out because you are .15v higher than stock, that's on the developer. With all the stuff about overclocking and 'military grade electronics', I know a lot of gpu warranties are covered under software overclocks.

I know for sure both galaxy and msi have no problem with software overclocking. Msi has explicitly said you are covered under afterburner/etc... i mean it's their program, come on. Generally, they will say the warranty is void if there is physical defects, and sometimes they may reject it if you changed the bios.

But you should be able to rma this card. You don't even need to commit fraud.