Really. I don't see evga claiming that this card is for LN2 only anywhere. Most reviewers are praising these cards as being really good.

You have got 2 users that have 980Tis frequently dying, then you got me who apparently has got another faulty 980Ti Hybrid. Honestly, this is getting ridiculous. The First hybrid was generating ridiculous amounts of heat and the 2nd one now has loud "coil whine" and I can hear water flushing through it.
What do you think we start to think? Bad cables? Bad Motherboard? Card designed for LN2? Yeah I get that you people don't have issues with your cards but really this is ridiculous.

We just want to enjoy playing games. I originally purchased my 980Ti hybrid a year ago and I am in the process of requesting the 2nd RMA now. This should not happen and this is not normal.
I think you can understand why people like us feel like it's not worth spending so much money on a card from EVGA anymore. This is a trust thing.
Just go on my profile if you're interested in my threads...

Scarlet-Tech
Sorry to hear you are going through a second RMA.  The gurgling you are hearing may be a stuck air bubble.  With proper radiator placement, that should stop.  If the hoses are on the bottom side of a mounted radiator, the air bubbles with move to the top side and not make it back into the loop, which would reduce the air noise.  All AIO's that can not be opened have air bubbles and have the possibility gurgling sounds if the hoses are set to where they can pull air back in.
 

I did already place the radiator outside the case in such a way that the hoses are facing down and let the radiator stay in that position for a while. At one point I even heard a really loud grinding noise coming from the GPU... Read my thread for more info.

Yeah but kingpin cards are being sold like normal and have air coolers on them. This means they are designed to be able to be used as normal GPUs. Them being designed for LN2 cooling is not an argument here. The cards should work without any problems under normal conditions.
http://www.evga.com/articles/00944/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-980-Ti-KINGPIN/ They even market the stock air cooler as a feature.

Scarlet-Tech
I will go take a look at your thread as soon as I can find it. Again, I am sorry you are having issues with it.

About the KPE, I know they advertise it for air as well, but I have disagreed with that for a few years now. I believe that air should be used only for testing with them, as they guaranteed the samsung vram and tighter timing which I am guessing can cause it to throw errors on air after a while.

So we agree on that..
https://forums.evga.com/Another-980Ti-Hybrid-issue-This-time-Coil-whine-m2630327.aspx Link in case people can't find it. Don't want to hijack this thread.

hey all,
yeah I have also been having issues with the KPE's. Had two replaced under warranty (both worked for a few months. one of them had actually started to burn) and the "new" ones they sent back were...well not great. The first one I tried plugging in came up with a code 43 issue and refused to work no matter what I tried. the second one, desktop would work, and that was about it. about 5-10 minutes into gaming, i'd get either a bright white screen or bright red screen. So far I've not been happy with these cards

ultimashadow1
One thing I will say is that EVGA customer service is very good and helpful. Both of my kingpins are now being exchanged for 1080 FTWs. Hopefully that will be the end of my problems

Damn this is some crazy bad luck it seems, at least they seem to be happy to replace the cards reliably.

KULBaracudda
I'll say this for the second card.. you should NEVER hear the liquid going through the system. If you are then the system has air in it. (not familiar with all water cooling systems but very familiar with water flow and what makes noise) A vacuum system should have no air in the lines. The only sound you should hear over the radiator fans MIGHT be the impeller motor but if you can hear anything in the lined or at the blocks while the pump is pushing then your system is allowing a non-cooling element (99.9% positive it's air) through your equipment that causes temperature fluctuations as well as possible oxidization within the system.
 
Non vacuum systems are designed to work with priming but ALWAYS have the system primed with the outflow lines at the bottom of the reservoir... I've seen issues in ag lines where it was assumed that the power of the pump would crate the seal but it is rarely true. That aside, your card was meant as a vacuum sealed (or completely filled) system not allowing for air pockets. If anyone can HEAR their liquid flowing to the parts then something is wrong with the vacuum and non-vacuum system.

If that is true then apparently most Hybrid owners have faulty cards. That's my 3rd 980Ti hybrid and I can sometimes hear the liquid.

Exidrial

KULBaracudda
...(not familiar with all water cooling systems but very familiar with water flow and what makes noise)....

If that is true then apparently most Hybrid owners have faulty cards. That's my 3rd 980Ti hybrid and I can sometimes hear the liquid.

Perhaps they are designed to work this way but that wouldn't be very efficient. I run a Corsair H105 on my CPU and have installed the same on a few other machines and not heard anything.. I've worked with items as small as the H105 and as large as 1000 gallon tanks... the latter needs more precision priming for the high flow volume so I've learned a LOT about pump priming and requirements for flow rate... the enclosed systems are NOT running at peak efficiency if there is anything but the cooling material in the lines... and trapped air can not conduct the heat from a processor. I assume they are banking on the 95% liquid in the system to do it, but at the temp possibility of the 1080 TI that margin of error can actually be defining. At that point it's just a manufacturing choice of paying more for a precision procedure to vacuum fill the systems or replace those that don't quite get enough liquid to keep a solid cooling on a variable temperature item.
 
Had any of the H105 items I've installed made a sound past the mini-pump in short tests before plugging in the fans I would have returned them. This makes me glad that I'm looking at a custom liquid cooling system on my new build instead of the enclosed manufacturers options.

Scarlet-Tech
Jimbo, hopefully EVGA gets you taken care of.. this next part isnt directed at you, judt a general statement


I really wish people wouldnt buy K|ngp|n cards if they are using Air or Water. Nothing against you guys, as I bought one batch of KPE cards, but they are not meant for anything above 0c, and they are tweaked to run under extreme cooling, which they do work well.

Basing your "I will never buy another extreme overclocking card meant for LN2 from evga and run it on air or water again" means very little. The copper cooler and rgb are marketing hypes.. ln2 users dont care about those features and never even pay attention to them. There is a built in heater on the 980ti KPE... HEATER... why would ever buy a card with a heater on it? Yes, you have to apply shorts and solders to get it to work, but it is a heater, meant to keep certain conponents warm... that should be a hint that you dont need it for air or water cooling. You can try your best to justify how it is the best card ever... but it isnt on air or water. Slightly better, sure... for $150-$300 more than the next model down.... no, its just a bad purchase decision at that point.

For those that dont know, i base my entire observation off the 980 K|ngp|n cards. Running one card in CS:GO at 1080p, 60c, the card would freak out and crash.. 60c, because it was tuned to run under exotic cooling. Get it to 40c, it was ok at best. Drop it down to 0c, and it overclocked like a champ.

Just because something is marketed as the best, does not make it the best for you. You need to base a purchase off of what will work best for you, not best for someone using extreme measures to get good results.

+1
 
That's (very) rational; But not everbody wants it that way, me too sometimes.

''I have several KingPin cards - stock, and concerned about longevity.  Its foolish to think those of us on air should HAVE to modify the EVGA coolers.''
 
I thought the air coolers on them card was just due to liability [ cant sell a card with out some kinda cooler on it  ] ?  them card were meant for extreme  clockers who would use exotic  cooling anyway ?   heck even standard  cards  like a sc  can heat up when pushed under a high overclock  on air  ?? 
 
Its foolish to think those of us on air should HAVE to modify the EVGA coolers..   seems to me with a kingpin and wanting  to push it to its max  your going to need a better then air cooler 
[opinion]
 
just sad with the 900 series they did not make a hybrid or  block for the aftermarket pcb cards as they are for the 10 series  , but you could  go to ek and grab something better then air for it from them
 
pretty sure at stock the kingpin air cooler will do the job 
 
http://forum.kingpincooling.com/showthread.php?t=3871
 
https://forums.evga.com/980-Ti-Kingpin-SLI-won39t-overclock-much-m2386367.aspx

I am on my second Kingpin and having the same problems.  Constantly running my 970GTX in its place as the Kingpin will only show the bootup, but goes black as soon as any bit of Windows starts to load.  The same Kingpin repeats this behavior in another system that also runs fine with my 970.  This is a repeat of my last Kingpins performance.  I have swapped RAM, Motherboards, and PSU's.  I'm at a total loss and am extremely frustrated at spending $850 on a card that I expected to be part of my daily Lightroom machine with very light gaming.

Asus Maximus Formula VIII
Intel i7 6700K
Kingston Technology HyperX Predator 32 GB RAM Kit, 4 x 8 GB 3000MHz DDR4 Non-ECC CL15 DIMM XMP PC4-19200 HX430C15PBK4/32
Samsung 950Pro 512GB m.2
Samsung 850evo 2TBx4
Corsair HX1000i
Windows 10 64b
Battery Backup, of course.

4 is far too high to just be coincidence. I think you are either pushing them way to hard, or you have a bad powersupply that is somehow killing them.

Jbj5000
4 is far too high to just be coincidence. I think you are either pushing them way to hard, or you have a bad powersupply that is somehow killing them.

Did you even care to read some of my comments and everything i have done in order to solve this issue ?  If you do not care to read all these pages then why would you post something so obvious and make yourself look silly ? :))
 
Anyways.
 
Obviously i have checked everything my card was being replaced constantly (it also never had a single oc on it) so that i had to use my old 780 Classified longer than any other Kingpin i had. I didn't experience any issue with my old 780 Classy.
 
In the end even if it wasn't necessary Corsair wanted to replace my psu, Asus replaced my motherboard and even after that i had to replace my 5th Kingpin due to same problem.
 
Evga has serial numbers of all my cards and i even sent an email and talked to Tech support later on to learn what was wrong about my card, what killed them but they didn't answer my question yet. I feel like something went wrong on their latest batches and it became a chronic issue for this card.
 
I switched to 1080 Classified and i didn't face a single problem since then. 
 
A friendly suggestion for people who is planning to buy new Kingpin series. That card is going to be designed for LN2 no matter how beautiful cooler it has on it in the long term they die. PCB heat system should not work unless you turn it on and i don't think thats what killed the cards but maybe something wrong with it or due to being hand picked for max oc maybe they weren't really solid for long term usage.....
 
Evga still needs to reply under my thread. They do have my serials and i can provide them again if it is needed. I am curious about their findings and after spending so much money on shipments (that money is close to purchase a new card so you can imagine my frustration...) i deserve to know this.
 
Thanks.

 
Wait you will never touch ANY Ti model.
Only high segment without Ti, GTX980, GTX1080, GTX2080,... never GTX2080Ti?
WHY? You don't need to scare whole market use them without any complain that something is not right with NVIDIA premium chip, except they are crippled and that's disgusting.
I love Ti, I want Ti. I mean GTX1080Ti.
 
 

No, that was not the issue Hoggle. It is recently built (2 years ago) and everything including wiring is new in my house. A part from my Kingpins nothing had a single faulty since i moved here, not even a single light bulb. And more importantly i ran my old card pretty much the whole time due to constantly replacing Kingpins and i switched to 1080 Classified and it is rock solid for months.
 
As i said before EVGA has all of my defective Kingpins, they do have their serials and i am sure they also made an investigation on this but i didn't get a reply from them about it. I hope they can share the results with us aswell.
 
About PCB heater i am gonna quote TIN.
 
It should not be on unless something went wrong during production of the latest batches.
 

980 Ti K|NGP|N cards to use dedicated design feature that keeps PCB layers always above negative temperatures. It also keeps the memory IC's from bugging out due to cold. While Samsung is the least buggy of GDDR5, it still runs best when it is not frozen solid. This PCB heating feature is needed only for hard-core LN2 overclocking, so we fully de-activated it by default in stock condition. 

 

 

It's a hardware-based solution, which means it will be automatically on when activated. To enable the KP PCB heating element, you will need to put 5 shorting points at top PCB surface as marked and shown on photo below:

That's it. Now card will automatically pre-heat PCB when GPU reach a specific temperature. You don't need to do anything else, it is a "smart" heater . The heat load will be adjusted automatically depending on your GPU load, PCB temperature, ambient temperature, and PWM power loading. All you need to worry about is to have enough supply on PSU side.
PCB Heater may take up to 150W. A fully overclocked 2000 MHz card with -120 °C usually will draw around 1000W power from +12V, so if you use heater make sure your PSU is at least 1200-1300W to have some safe margin.