Another dead GTX980m in AW17R1 ... Stock Clocks & Voltage

Hey everyone,

Today my GTX980m bought from Woodzstack about a year ago started artifacting like crazy and nothing from reinstalling drivers to reapplying thermal paste and cleaning the card and connectors and reseating could help fix the problem.

This card ran stock, perfectly cooled and was literally never OCed in its entire life.

Below is my screen atm. after completely uninstalling drivers in safemode to be able to boot properly.



Anyone with GTX980m please take care as with various failures happening it is a ticking time bomb.

 

Yeah man I'm seeing this a LOT lately. I've had both my 980m's replaced and I had long ago realized that the thermal solution I have is barely capable at stock clocks and voltage .

I think we are seeing 'end of life' syndrome. Since the 580m (end of core life) NV push a core over time until they are no longer reliable, long or even medium-term. The NV conspiracy theorists always say the NV are killing older cards with their drivers to increase sales. Nah. As new games increase the stress on older cards the failure rate increases. simple.

Remember also that NV gets all of it's GPU income up-front. To offer support many years into the future on an original purchase is expensive and unknown in any other hardware industry. Warranty expired? Tough, buy new or pay up is the norm.

They have kinda driven themselves into a corner where users that bought a card years ago demand and expect problems to be addressed.

Personally any computer hardware over two years old is liable to let me down and I just accept that. The downside of using premium hardware at it's limits...

 

With the crap we see everyday from Nvidia I didn't expect more than 2 years on a GPU treated like a baby; but seriously less than a year on a former flagship GPU? That's ludicrous.

 

It is, I totally agree. Luckily for me mine failed in warranty. I constantly monitor temps and even though the 'norm' for this machine when pushed is around 85c I am not comfortable with that at all. I will lower settings or, if the game does not support SLi, I will activate it. Usually this works fine. I don't get any performance increase but the load does get spread across both GPU's resulting in a dramatic temp drop .

If you recall the 580m/675m debacle those cards often failed in the first few months. I got a completely new model from dell after 6 months of pain and suffering. Even then I still got a 675m so I replaced that with the 680m in weeks of receiving it! Chalk and cheese in comparison. The 680m was the FIRST of the new core so was already under utilized ready for the 7xx and 8xx 'upgrades'. Seems the 10xx new generation is currently suffering software/driver problems, guess I was just unlucky?

I also go for two year warranty. After that any use is a bonus and I am ready to replace. I already tried a 1080 Sli laptop. Within a week one of the GPU's failed (no messing at all, honest) dead. I would be very p***** if I was using a 10xx GPU right now since between NV and MS they find it impossible to work together on solutions to their modifications (CU Update). As for longevity, I hope the lower temps I am seeing in posts bodes well...

 

Atm. I dunno if I want another GTX980m as a replacement ... I don't wanna pay 500 euros for a card that will fail in bloody 1 year ... It's really ridiculous

 

Yeah I'd feel exactly the same . Luckily I have my laptop fund and no way is that money getting invested in any machine I currently own. It dies, it goes into spares.

Feel for you man.

 

I would never charge that to replace a card that some how died so soon.

I've seen a few cases recently with issues, we always eventually find whats causing it, on AW17 there is one corner of the card that should be cooled, and it's not, and without any shielding underneath the card some of the components from the motherboard heat the card up overtime, some vreg sometimes even explodes or the components on the motherboard do..

Can you take the card out and show us clear pictures of it ?

Can you show us the heatsink and how the card was cooled as well ?

I've had maybe 4 cards of mine over the years have an issues, that were not explained and died, and they were all spread out, we try and come up with as many solutions as we can to prolong thier life as possible, and I try and be thorough as best I can.

 

What driver were you installing ?

Was this the latest one ?

Anything past 378.xx seems to be an issue lately.

 

Also the AW17 can use 1060N, 1070N, and even 1080N as tested. I have a friend who will be sharing the experience of trying to make a custom heatsink for the AW17 soon, guys gone all out and seems to be living the dream as far as having fun modding stuff is going
So, if you are not satisfied with a 980M, there are options available to you, but all are completely overkill for playing League of Legends on your 120Hz 1080p panel. @MahmoudDewy (but no shame in bragging what you got or that your future proof.... but heatsinks became an issue too, they need to be done right!)

for the last 2 years been telling people, you need the TEP modules we created to save your cards. It acts sort of like a shield and also sort of bleeds temps into the chassis, it creates a larger buffer before things break down basically - if something is prone to do it, not all will - got many who have had these cards running smoothly for 2-3 years now all day everyday.

 

381.89 and I have been running that for a long time.

 

For me the upgrade was for the fun of it that's all. I don't have even time to play anymore but I prefer to be future proof as you said.

 

well, couldn't be too long, those are not very old, think they came out this year. Until I can inspect the card, it remains a mystery why your card is dead to me.
You were sent one of my better cards, this was on purpose, though not like there is too much discrepancy between them, dying this soon is unheard of for my 980M's.

So yeah you can bet your butt I want to see it and figure this one out

 

well, it's a fun laptop... its so awesome we refuse to abandon them even, lol.
We will have an announcement later this week or next or such too about new AMD cards that fit it, but nothing is set in store yet.