arestavo
1.1V is what these GPUs are rated for. Whether or not the GPU will be able to hit that due to GPU boost's algorithm is a whole different story.

HeavyHemi

Rewire92
Hey all,

I have had the unfortunate displeasure of dealing with 2 broken 3090 FTW3 Ultras, and upon the issue happening yet again with my 3rd card, I decided to do some deep trouble shooting.  Let me lay out the experience for you.

I enjoy playing older titles, as well as the newer AAA titles from time to time as well.  My first 3090 did great in demanding games, but was netting me a subpar overclock (+75 Core/+500 Mem), I played 100+ hours in Cyberpunk 2077 and I really had a great time.  However, I was getting black screen high fan spinning usage when playing less demanding titles such as League or Halo MCC.  I had to hard reset my computer to get the card to turn back on, and I did so over the next few weeks whenever I played those games, until one day, it wouldn't turn back on at all.  I had no lights on the card, and a red light over one of the PCIE power pin slots.

I RMAed.  The new 3090 came, and I was happy.  50 more hours of Cyberpunk, and no issues.  But in League....more crashing.   6 more black screens later, the 2nd card was dead.  Red light over a PCIE pin power slot, but the card still lit up.  Not sure why about that.

My 3rd card came yesterday.  And I knew right where to look.  The reason that doctors press until it hurts is to find out where the problem is, because patients sometimes lie. 

I launched League and without 3 minutes going by in game, black screen, high fans, no output, and the card was running at stock speeds.   I called up EVGA, and I had a nice long chat with a rep while I tried to reproduce the issue.  They told me the symptoms I was experiencing were "Over-Current Protections" kicking in, and also that my first RMA card had failed because of a power related issue.  They suggested I switch out my power supply (an EVGA 1200W P2) with the gold power supply I had before (EVGA 1300W G2).  I played a full 16 minutes of league while on the phone with them, and experienced no crashing, but a minute after we hung up, it black screened, and crashed again.

Now, I dabble in overclocking quite a bit.  I'm aware of how voltages can cause instability in cards, and how too much current breaks transistors and traces inside CPUs.  I'd never had this issue with GPUs before, because I would always just do mild overclocks.  

So I started using GPU-Z to watch my voltages while gaming on League.  What did I see while playing League?  Well, the card would *usually* be at 1800 Mhz, using 0.8680 V while I was in game, but occasionally, the voltage would spike along with the clock speed, all the way up to 2025Mhz and 1.0810 V.  Now, I like I said, I don't do much "hardcore" overclocking for my GPUs, but I have used MSI Afterburner for literally 10 years.  I've never seen a video card go over 1.050 Vs.  I looked up the max safe voltage for the 3090, and wasn't able to find it using google, but I had another solution that I knew would work.

So, I booted up Cyberpunk, since I knew I could game on that for hours on end without crashing.  Max Voltage I saw in that game?  1.050V.  Played fine for an hour.  Then I thought to myself, let's try overclocking?  So I set my power limit to 107%, with a mild OC of +75 Core and +750 Mem.   1.075 V when the game started, and 1.068 V while in game.  Ok....Let's crank the overclock.  +150 Core and +1500 Mem.  Played fine for another hour, still max voltage in game?  1.068 V.

I then had a thought.  What if the voltage curve in lower power states is messed up somehow?  I set MSI Afterburner to "Force Constant Voltage" and booted up a League custom game.   I was able to play the game for 35 minutes before the game crashed, so I knew I was on the right track.  There were less voltage spikes, and less core Mhz spikes as well.  But it still crashed?  Why?  Well, when it finally did crash, it had gone up to 1.081 V again.
 
https://prnt.sc/yla8ib
 
 
The fix?  Voltage curves.

https://prnt.sc/ylaaor
 
As you can see here, the normal voltage curve stops ramping only when the card gets up to a whopping 1.118 V on the core.  Well, I'm crashing at well below that at using only 150 watts and the core at 1.081V, and I know the card is stable using 450 Watts at 1.068V so what can I do to fix this?


https://prnt.sc/ylahyd
 
I set the core Mhz to plummet after 1.068 V, and since I'm not getting anywhere near those higher voltage numbers without a higher power limit BIOS, I don't need to worry about them.

The result?  I just streamed and watched a movie on my 5 monitors while playing a 2 hour custom game of League by myself.  I'm going to need more testing, but I believe I've fixed the problem.

EVGA needs to adjust their voltage curves for the standard BIOS, because I believe it's breaking Voltage limits in lower power states while still attempting to go to higher core clocks. Also, while my experience here is only anecdotal, it *has* fixed my League crashing problem, so I can only assume that the voltage curve *is* the issue.  The card attempts to go up to a voltage it shouldn't be at when the temperature is not low enough on the card to do so, breaking copper traces in the card with too much voltage at too high of a temperature.

While my experience here is a solitary thing, I would like to have some other people experiencing this issue chime in, and let me know if this fixes the issue.  Maybe I've fixed EVGA's RMA problem with these cards, an experience that I can only assume has reached a large dollar cost figure, with how many people I've seen having the same issues.

Good luck!

EDIT: While I fix my images.

You're under clocking the GPU, you could probably accomplish the same thing via using the Debug setting in the NVCP for testing sine your model is factory overclocked.  I'm not sure of the frequency of RMA's because basing it on complaints doesn't give you a percentage. Historically FTW cards have had a higher failure rate simply due to running a higher factory clocks.

HeavyHemi

Rewire92

HeavyHemi

Rewire92
Hey all,

I have had the unfortunate displeasure of dealing with 2 broken 3090 FTW3 Ultras, and upon the issue happening yet again with my 3rd card, I decided to do some deep trouble shooting.  Let me lay out the experience for you.

I enjoy playing older titles, as well as the newer AAA titles from time to time as well.  My first 3090 did great in demanding games, but was netting me a subpar overclock (+75 Core/+500 Mem), I played 100+ hours in Cyberpunk 2077 and I really had a great time.  However, I was getting black screen high fan spinning usage when playing less demanding titles such as League or Halo MCC.  I had to hard reset my computer to get the card to turn back on, and I did so over the next few weeks whenever I played those games, until one day, it wouldn't turn back on at all.  I had no lights on the card, and a red light over one of the PCIE power pin slots.

I RMAed.  The new 3090 came, and I was happy.  50 more hours of Cyberpunk, and no issues.  But in League....more crashing.   6 more black screens later, the 2nd card was dead.  Red light over a PCIE pin power slot, but the card still lit up.  Not sure why about that.

My 3rd card came yesterday.  And I knew right where to look.  The reason that doctors press until it hurts is to find out where the problem is, because patients sometimes lie. 

I launched League and without 3 minutes going by in game, black screen, high fans, no output, and the card was running at stock speeds.   I called up EVGA, and I had a nice long chat with a rep while I tried to reproduce the issue.  They told me the symptoms I was experiencing were "Over-Current Protections" kicking in, and also that my first RMA card had failed because of a power related issue.  They suggested I switch out my power supply (an EVGA 1200W P2) with the gold power supply I had before (EVGA 1300W G2).  I played a full 16 minutes of league while on the phone with them, and experienced no crashing, but a minute after we hung up, it black screened, and crashed again.

Now, I dabble in overclocking quite a bit.  I'm aware of how voltages can cause instability in cards, and how too much current breaks transistors and traces inside CPUs.  I'd never had this issue with GPUs before, because I would always just do mild overclocks.  

So I started using GPU-Z to watch my voltages while gaming on League.  What did I see while playing League?  Well, the card would *usually* be at 1800 Mhz, using 0.8680 V while I was in game, but occasionally, the voltage would spike along with the clock speed, all the way up to 2025Mhz and 1.0810 V.  Now, I like I said, I don't do much "hardcore" overclocking for my GPUs, but I have used MSI Afterburner for literally 10 years.  I've never seen a video card go over 1.050 Vs.  I looked up the max safe voltage for the 3090, and wasn't able to find it using google, but I had another solution that I knew would work.

So, I booted up Cyberpunk, since I knew I could game on that for hours on end without crashing.  Max Voltage I saw in that game?  1.050V.  Played fine for an hour.  Then I thought to myself, let's try overclocking?  So I set my power limit to 107%, with a mild OC of +75 Core and +750 Mem.   1.075 V when the game started, and 1.068 V while in game.  Ok....Let's crank the overclock.  +150 Core and +1500 Mem.  Played fine for another hour, still max voltage in game?  1.068 V.

I then had a thought.  What if the voltage curve in lower power states is messed up somehow?  I set MSI Afterburner to "Force Constant Voltage" and booted up a League custom game.   I was able to play the game for 35 minutes before the game crashed, so I knew I was on the right track.  There were less voltage spikes, and less core Mhz spikes as well.  But it still crashed?  Why?  Well, when it finally did crash, it had gone up to 1.081 V again.
 
https://prnt.sc/yla8ib
 
 
The fix?  Voltage curves.

https://prnt.sc/ylaaor
 
As you can see here, the normal voltage curve stops ramping only when the card gets up to a whopping 1.118 V on the core.  Well, I'm crashing at well below that at using only 150 watts and the core at 1.081V, and I know the card is stable using 450 Watts at 1.068V so what can I do to fix this?


https://prnt.sc/ylahyd
 
I set the core Mhz to plummet after 1.068 V, and since I'm not getting anywhere near those higher voltage numbers without a higher power limit BIOS, I don't need to worry about them.

The result?  I just streamed and watched a movie on my 5 monitors while playing a 2 hour custom game of League by myself.  I'm going to need more testing, but I believe I've fixed the problem.

EVGA needs to adjust their voltage curves for the standard BIOS, because I believe it's breaking Voltage limits in lower power states while still attempting to go to higher core clocks. Also, while my experience here is only anecdotal, it *has* fixed my League crashing problem, so I can only assume that the voltage curve *is* the issue.  The card attempts to go up to a voltage it shouldn't be at when the temperature is not low enough on the card to do so, breaking copper traces in the card with too much voltage at too high of a temperature.

While my experience here is a solitary thing, I would like to have some other people experiencing this issue chime in, and let me know if this fixes the issue.  Maybe I've fixed EVGA's RMA problem with these cards, an experience that I can only assume has reached a large dollar cost figure, with how many people I've seen having the same issues.

Good luck!

EDIT: While I fix my images.

You're under clocking the GPU, you could probably accomplish the same thing via using the Debug setting in the NVCP for testing sine your model is factory overclocked.  I'm not sure of the frequency of RMA's because basing it on complaints doesn't give you a percentage. Historically FTW cards have had a higher failure rate simply due to running a higher factory clocks.

Not underclocking the GPU.

My clocks in game are at 2100/11252.  It's undervolting.

I set the core Mhz to plummet after 1.068. 
 
I can only go by what you posted and your description.
Undervolting would be setting the GPU to run the same or higher clocks at a lower voltage that what GPU Boost sets it at. You're not doing that. You're capping your frequency at a fixed voltage.
Secondarily, I'm not sure how disabling GPU Boost 3.0 with a fixed frequency/voltage would be a fix. 

Rewire92
Hey all,

I have had the unfortunate displeasure of dealing with 2 broken 3090 FTW3 Ultras, and upon the issue happening yet again with my 3rd card, I decided to do some deep trouble shooting.  Let me lay out the experience for you.

I enjoy playing older titles, as well as the newer AAA titles from time to time as well.  My first 3090 did great in demanding games, but was netting me a subpar overclock (+75 Core/+500 Mem), I played 100+ hours in Cyberpunk 2077 and I really had a great time.  However, I was getting black screen high fan spinning usage when playing less demanding titles such as League or Halo MCC.  I had to hard reset my computer to get the card to turn back on, and I did so over the next few weeks whenever I played those games, until one day, it wouldn't turn back on at all.  I had no lights on the card, and a red light over one of the PCIE power pin slots.

I RMAed.  The new 3090 came, and I was happy.  50 more hours of Cyberpunk, and no issues.  But in League....more crashing.   6 more black screens later, the 2nd card was dead.  Red light over a PCIE pin power slot, but the card still lit up.  Not sure why about that.

My 3rd card came yesterday.  And I knew right where to look.  The reason that doctors press until it hurts is to find out where the problem is, because patients sometimes lie. 

I launched League and without 3 minutes going by in game, black screen, high fans, no output, and the card was running at stock speeds.   I called up EVGA, and I had a nice long chat with a rep while I tried to reproduce the issue.  They told me the symptoms I was experiencing were "Over-Current Protections" kicking in, and also that my first RMA card had failed because of a power related issue.  They suggested I switch out my power supply (an EVGA 1200W P2) with the gold power supply I had before (EVGA 1300W G2).  I played a full 16 minutes of league while on the phone with them, and experienced no crashing, but a minute after we hung up, it black screened, and crashed again.

Now, I dabble in overclocking quite a bit.  I'm aware of how voltages can cause instability in cards, and how too much current breaks transistors and traces inside CPUs.  I'd never had this issue with GPUs before, because I would always just do mild overclocks.  

So I started using GPU-Z to watch my voltages while gaming on League.  What did I see while playing League?  Well, the card would *usually* be at 1800 Mhz, using 0.8680 V while I was in game, but occasionally, the voltage would spike along with the clock speed, all the way up to 2025Mhz and 1.0810 V.  Now, I like I said, I don't do much "hardcore" overclocking for my GPUs, but I have used MSI Afterburner for literally 10 years.  I've never seen a video card go over 1.050 Vs.  I looked up the max safe voltage for the 3090, and wasn't able to find it using google, but I had another solution that I knew would work.

So, I booted up Cyberpunk, since I knew I could game on that for hours on end without crashing.  Max Voltage I saw in that game?  1.050V.  Played fine for an hour.  Then I thought to myself, let's try overclocking?  So I set my power limit to 107%, with a mild OC of +75 Core and +750 Mem.   1.075 V when the game started, and 1.068 V while in game.  Ok....Let's crank the overclock.  +150 Core and +1500 Mem.  Played fine for another hour, still max voltage in game?  1.068 V.

I then had a thought.  What if the voltage curve in lower power states is messed up somehow?  I set MSI Afterburner to "Force Constant Voltage" and booted up a League custom game.   I was able to play the game for 35 minutes before the game crashed, so I knew I was on the right track.  There were less voltage spikes, and less core Mhz spikes as well.  But it still crashed?  Why?  Well, when it finally did crash, it had gone up to 1.081 V again.
 
https://prnt.sc/yla8ib
 
 
The fix?  Voltage curves.

https://prnt.sc/ylaaor
 
As you can see here, the normal voltage curve stops ramping only when the card gets up to a whopping 1.118 V on the core.  Well, I'm crashing at well below that at using only 150 watts and the core at 1.081V, and I know the card is stable using 450 Watts at 1.068V so what can I do to fix this?


https://prnt.sc/ylahyd
 
I set the core Mhz to plummet after 1.068 V, and since I'm not getting anywhere near those higher voltage numbers without a higher power limit BIOS, I don't need to worry about them.

The result?  I just streamed and watched a movie on my 5 monitors while playing a 2 hour custom game of League by myself.  I'm going to need more testing, but I believe I've fixed the problem.

EVGA needs to adjust their voltage curves for the standard BIOS, because I believe it's breaking Voltage limits in lower power states while still attempting to go to higher core clocks. Also, while my experience here is only anecdotal, it *has* fixed my League crashing problem, so I can only assume that the voltage curve *is* the issue.  The card attempts to go up to a voltage it shouldn't be at when the temperature is not low enough on the card to do so, breaking copper traces in the card with too much voltage at too high of a temperature.

While my experience here is a solitary thing, I would like to have some other people experiencing this issue chime in, and let me know if this fixes the issue.  Maybe I've fixed EVGA's RMA problem with these cards, an experience that I can only assume has reached a large dollar cost figure, with how many people I've seen having the same issues.

Good luck!

EDIT: While I fix my images.

mricypaw1
Do you have any updates? Has it been stable now?

timmyboy04

glocked89
Had my card since launch. For older titles I've been undervolting, 1800mhz 0.850v. I'll only load up my oc profile for cp2077.

Could you not just set a global fps limit to achieve less draw/ load on the card?

timmyboy04

glocked89
Had my card since launch. For older titles I've been undervolting, 1800mhz 0.850v. I'll only load up my oc profile for cp2077.

Could you not just set a global fps limit to achieve less draw/ load on the card?

mricypaw1

Rewire92

timmyboy04

glocked89
Had my card since launch. For older titles I've been undervolting, 1800mhz 0.850v. I'll only load up my oc profile for cp2077.

Could you not just set a global fps limit to achieve less draw/ load on the card?

The problem isn't the power draw, the problem is it's spiking voltages up to max-rating at clocks and usage numbers it shouldn't be at.  Likely, this means certain components that aren't supposed to "see" this sort of voltage are rapidly degrading on the card, because too much voltage is being shoved through them unexpectedly.

After another day of gaming I'm 100% confident this is the issues with these cards.

To mitigate the issue, I've set the card to run at STOCK clocks above 1.062V, and boost below that.  That means I still get OC available clocks as long as the card is cool enough, without worrying about having to change profiles for different games.

A firmware update should be able to resolve this.

Can you elaborate on this I don't really understand what you mean. Do you have a photo of the voltage curve?

Rewire92

A firmware update should be able to resolve this.