if you are willing to bet money on it i would take that bet, as this happened to me yesterday on my EVGA SC gtx 970, which is the only reason i exist in this thread as i was was trying to see if it happened to anyone else. while playing wow i noticed a glowing from my case and looked down to see the bottom gpu (the one that was not even running the game as there is no sli for that came) was on fire, and my computer quickly shut down after that. As EVGA's wonderful customer support asked I took pictures of it and emailed it to them, but for your viewing pleasure of the aftermath i uploaded them here ---->  . ass you can see the scorge marks on the PCB, but my entire card was not on fire, the flames were only coming from this spot which now has what appears to be some exposed metals.

pillowhead44
if you are willing to bet money on it i would take that bet, as this happened to me yesterday on my EVGA SC gtx 970, which is the only reason i exist in this thread as i was was trying to see if it happened to anyone else. while playing wow i noticed a glowing from my case and looked down to see the bottom gpu (the one that was not even running the game as there is no sli for that came) was on fire, and my computer quickly shut down after that. As EVGA's wonderful customer support asked I took pictures of it and emailed it to them, but for your viewing pleasure of the aftermath i uploaded them here ---->  . ass you can see the scorge marks on the PCB, but my entire card was not on fire, the flames were only coming from this spot which now has what appears to be some exposed metals.

Could I see a photo :)

I leave my PC on all night sometimes to Fold and that would be a bad day if I came back to that (trust me). I'm just curious what it looks like, and it seems you tried to upload a photo but it didn't work?

He can't posts links yet, as he is new to the forum. Add parentheses to your link www(.)evga(.)com or break it apart www. EVGA. Com.

mokkema
20 years of building PCs I've never heard of or seen first hand a GPU spontaneously catch fire. 
 
I don't trust your customer. Maybe I'm wrong...but I'd bet money I'm not. 

Looks like and could have been a piece of metal like a paper clip laid on the GPU.

There could have been a small piece of solder, during manufacturing, that made contact.

Since most overvoltage sections are at the power cable end of the card and the burnt section is at the SLI bridge area, I highly doubt it was a bios/overvoltage error immediately caused by the customer.

It is possible that he was installing something like a radiator, and dropped a screw, but has anyone actually looked at that part of the PCB? It's solid across the top and there aren't many components right where the fire/arc started.. Mostly just traces.. So I would account for a minor manufacturing defect in the traces, since there have been a few cards that have exhibited failures of this sort. It took us requesting one of the users to remove his shroud to find the spot that actually burnt, and EVGA even said they weren't sure what caused that one..


What I am getting at... Things (pre-post edit to avoid vulgar wording) happen... It isn't always the customers fault Pointing fingers isn't productive or helpful on the forum. None of us were there, so we will never know exactly what happened.

Years ago (2006) when "Oblivion" the game came out, I thought it would be funny to max out the graphics on a subpar system. I think the cpu was an AMD Athlon unlocked with the "led pencil" trick. And I had an ATI Radeon 9600xt AGP. All powered by a 350 watt power supply . I turned the game on as soon as I started to play it in all its glory at what I am sure was 1-2 frames per second. Smoke and a big electrical flame shot out of the back of the tower! PSU DEAD, GPU DEAD, Motherboard Chipset DEAD. And my friend and I laughing our asses off.
 
I will never forget when "Oblivion" fried one of my systems in 2006.

HeavyHemi
WoW has been known to cause GPU's to commit suicide.

Can't blame them.. O.o

donta1979
Wow I would expect something crazy to happen by the vregs/power connectors but not there.
 
Last game I remember causing destruction to PC's was Max Pain when it launched.

 
Max Pain.. In your wallet... when you replace your computer.. lol. Best Advertising scheme ever.

bcavnaugh

Kramps

direraptor22
The customer already got his replacement and it's working great now. I don't know what my store is going to do with the card though, most likely trash it. Thanks EVGA for the backup though! I haven't had any of my EVGA cards catch fire yet. I wanna assume the customer did something they shouldn't have done as well...... but can't put the blame on anybody without proof xD

Something stinks in Pleasantville....  EVGA is offering a replacement but a business doesn't want it?  From a QC standpoint EVGA "needs" the card back for investigative purposes. 

If a component almost "burned my house down" I would want a report from the manufacturer as to the probable cause. 

"burned my house down" I really thing this no so true, if it was the rubber SLI Cover would have melted.

It didn't burn his house down, no one said it did. But it could of maybe burned his house down depending on how bad it could of got.

I am surprised that a circuit breaker in the house didn't pop. That usually means when it caught fire it wasn't from a short or excessive voltage.
 
This is a very very rare incident and I've been working in digital electronics now for over 35 years

bsmegreg

bcavnaugh

Kramps

direraptor22
The customer already got his replacement and it's working great now. I don't know what my store is going to do with the card though, most likely trash it. Thanks EVGA for the backup though! I haven't had any of my EVGA cards catch fire yet. I wanna assume the customer did something they shouldn't have done as well...... but can't put the blame on anybody without proof xD

Something stinks in Pleasantville....  EVGA is offering a replacement but a business doesn't want it?  From a QC standpoint EVGA "needs" the card back for investigative purposes. 

If a component almost "burned my house down" I would want a report from the manufacturer as to the probable cause. 

"burned my house down" I really thing this no so true, if it was the rubber SLI Cover would have melted.

It didn't burn his house down, no one said it did. But it could of maybe burned his house down depending on how bad it could of got.

direraptor22
I work as a parts salesman and sold an EVGA 970 SSC to one of my customers the other day, he brought it back the next day saying that it was great, ran all of his games smoothly until it went SNAP CRACKLE POP, then smoke and flames everywhere! Almost burnt down his house! Thankfully his first instinct was to unplug the PC and that put the fire out (whew). We swapped his card out with a Gigabyte G1 Gaming 970... and his replacement has been working great so far. AFAIK, the card was installed properly and even had a nice RM850 power supply running it. The rest of the system was not damaged, fortunately.
Image Removed 
Has YOUR graphics card caught fire before? And if so, was it an EVGA card?

I just bought a brand new EVA Geforce GTX 970 SSC card a few days ago because my roughly 3 year old AMD/ATI card literally burned up and if I had left it plugged in, might have burned up the some of the computer, and then caught my house on fire.  (If I had not been in the room to unplug the computer, who knows.).  I was playing a game, not even pushing it too much.  Suddenly the computer shuts down (a thermal reboot).  Then it starts up again on its own, that's when the fire, smoke and smell hit me.  I pull that cord quick, luckily - and it goes out.  A few days later, I took the whole computer to best buy.  I told them what happened, but they plugged it in anyway and nearly instantly the fire shot out when they turned it on.  And the smell is bad.  I can't believe that companies manufacture stuff so dangerous  (Anyone heard of UL listing / fuses, temp sensors, etc?).  Best buy did not tell me they saw water damage or some metal short, just that the card had burned up - probably due to dust or overheating.  I did not over clock.  Did not spill water on it.  Did have lots of dust though, but who does not have dust?  How often do you open up your computer and vacuum out the dust?  Even if the fan jams, won't a thermal shutdown on the card keep it from burning up?  Well the card I had failed that test.

I don't leave computers (with higher end graphics cards) running anymore without me being around, because of my personal experience and reading forums like this one, and the amount of dust that builds up in my house.  For those who do not believe, good luck.  I regret buying this card if it can burn up too, like ATI did - hopefully it won't.  I switched to an NVidia based card into that same computer, because I liked them, but now I am going to have watch it like a hawk.
 
 

rickzrickz
I just bought a brand new EVA Geforce GTX 970 SSC card a few days ago because my roughly 3 year old AMD/ATI card literally burned up and if I had left it plugged in, might have burned up the some of the computer, and then caught my house on fire.  (If I had not been in the room to unplug the computer, who knows.).  I was playing a game, not even pushing it too much.  Suddenly the computer shuts down (a thermal reboot).  Then it starts up again on its own, that's when the fire, smoke and smell hit me.  I pull that cord quick, luckily - and it goes out.  A few days later, I took the whole computer to best buy.  I told them what happened, but they plugged it in anyway and nearly instantly the fire shot out when they turned it on.  And the smell is bad.  I can't believe that companies manufacture stuff so dangerous  (Anyone heard of UL listing / fuses, temp sensors, etc?).  Best buy did not tell me they saw water damage or some metal short, just that the card had burned up - probably due to dust or overheating.  I did not over clock.  Did not spill water on it.  Did have lots of dust though, but who does not have dust?  How often do you open up your computer and vacuum out the dust?  Even if the fan jams, won't a thermal shutdown on the card keep it from burning up?  Well the card I had failed that test.

I don't leave computers (with higher end graphics cards) running anymore without me being around, because of my personal experience and reading forums like this one, and the amount of dust that builds up in my house.  For those who do not believe, good luck.  I regret buying this card if it can burn up too, like ATI did - hopefully it won't.  I switched to an NVidia based card into that same computer, because I liked them, but now I am going to have watch it like a hawk.
 
 

I thoroughly clean my system every two weeks. If you looked at any mods rigs or pictures of peoples systems on just about any forum, they are nearly spotless. Electronics do not like dust and dirt. Spend the 30 minutes every two weeks or so and clean out your system. It will last longer and perform better.

escannihilator
I do the same thing, but every week I do the dusting duty..

Why do you use RAID 0?

I'm currently in the process of RMAing a EVGA GTX 970 SC ACX 1.0. This was a replacement card for my GTX 670 SC that pretty well survived its 3 year warranty well. It just started to have heating problems under intense/demanding gaming just as its warranty was coming to a close.
 
The replacement 970 sc card was in my possession for just 5 days and it seemed to be working flawlessly. 
It ran like 20 degrees cooler on average compared to my 670, as well as performed much better than that older card... no hiccups.
 
All of a sudden when I go to open Battlefield Hardline for the first time with this card, I see a bright orange light, then a flame from inside the computer case. The PC rebooted itself, stopping the fire... as I went to go unplug it. The system appears unharmed apart from the card, the damage appears to be near SLI fingers similar to the photo from OP.
 
When I contacted EVGA I was told the damage looked like abnormal physical damage, not usually covered by Warranty, but they would go ahead and do RMA because it was a fresh RMA. My powersupply is a Corsair HX1050 that has served me well it would seem, I don't really think the PSU, or anything of my doing was the cause. Based on reading multiple reports of people's 970s catching fire. My 670 never had any power issues, no other components have been damaged. I simply received the card, grounded myself before putting it in, fired the system up with it and enjoyed 5 great days of an awesome video card.
 
Photo of the damage near SLI fingers: