I would like to share the experience I have had with EVGAs products and their RMA department. I have owned quite a few of their products and it appears that there are some serious issues with their quality control.
My first EVGA GPU was a GTX 980 Ti SC+ with ACX 2.0 cooler. This one had the loud, howling sound issue at certain fan speeds, which a lot of people have complained about. There are even few videos on Youtube about it, for some reason I can't link one here. Apparently the noise is caused by loose cooler fins that resonate at certain fan speeds. The noise was so disturbing, that I ended up RMAing the card. The shipping costs were a bit under 30 euros, and I had to wait for a few weeks to get a replacement GPU.
The replacement card I received was a GTX 980 Ti FTW, which is a small upgrade to the one I had. This one appeared to work fine, even though it's temperatures were a bit higher than on my SC+, but this is possibly due to the higher clockrates. The higher temperatures caused the fans to spin quite a lot faster, which again made the GPU a bit noisier than my previous GPUs. I have an R5 case with 2x GP-14 fans in the front and one at the back, so the higher temperatures are not caused by my system. But the noise was only disturbing when playing Witcher 3 with unlocked framerate, which is quite demanding for the GPU. Therefore the temps and noise were acceptable.
Still, I ended up selling the card to my friend and bought an EVGA GTX 1080 FTW instead, just to get a bit cooler and quieter GPU.
But again, I was a bit unlucky. Even though the cooler on this one was very quiet and managed to keep the temperatures low, it still had the loudest coil whine I've ever experienced, starting at around 100fps. A few days after buying it I also heard about the ”self combusting” tendencies and VRM temperature problems of the EVGA Pascal GPUs with ACX 3.0 cooler. To solve this issue, there was a new bios to be installed, which increased the fanspeeds quite a lot and made the card again a lot louder than it originally was. I could have made a custom fan curve to lower the sound, but I didn't want to do that since I didn't know how it would affect the VRM temps, that the bios upgrade was supposed to fix.
At this point I made an error. Instead of returning the GPU to the company that sold it to me and taking some other manufacturers product instead, I ended up ordering the thermal pads for the GPU I had paid 760€ for, so I could repair it's defect by myself. After receiving the thermal pads I spent a few weeks wondering wether I should install them or not, since the coil whine was still quite disturbing, and by using the Cross-ship RMA instead I would receive a new card instead. Again, I could have tried to contact the seller for RMA, but I decided to go with the EVGA's cross-ship RMA instead, so I wouldn't have to be without a graphics card for a weeks again. Some people on a Finnish nerd forum claimed that they were able to get EVGA pay for the shipping with the VRM heat issue RMA. But when I asked EVGA about this they rejected. So I ended up paying 46€ this time, since I wanted to include the insurance also because I didn't want to push my luck any further. Of course, I would have avoided this cost if I would have returned the card to the company that sold it to me, but it could have taken a couple of weeks and I was too addicted to Witcher 3 then.
At first I thought all the problems would be solved by the replacement card that I received. But after a bit of testing the it appeared to be suffering from the same howling sound at certain fanspeeds that made me RMA my first EVGA GPU in the first place. I went through all the cooler fins, and there appear to be a few loose ones at the left side of the card. Now the howling noise is loudest at 30% and 62% fanspeeds. 62% happens to be the speed of the fans when I play Witcher 3. So back to square one I might say. I will probably solve it by myself this time, since I really don't want to spend another 46 euros for shipping, just to get this issue replaced with a new one. I also found out, that the coilwhine of the previous card may not have been caused by the GPU itself, since I get the exact same noise with this one. It is quite possible, that the coilwhine is caused by the PSU instead of the GPU. My PSU is EVGA G2 750... The coilwhine is only audible when the system draws alot of power, and the only way for me to do it is to play a game or use a GPU benchmark. Therefore it is quite difficult to say wether the sound is coming from the PSU or the GPU. To confirm it, I would have to buy another PSU for testing. I am not willing to do that at the moment, nor am I willing to spend anymore money to send either of the products to EVGA. I could return the PSU to the company that sold it to me, but it would be a risk, since I cannot be certain that it is the cause of the coilwhine. I could end up paying for the shipping and for false RMA, if the PSU is not faulty.
At this point I'm starting to feel a bit frustrated. No, not just frustrated. I feel like I have been scammed. I bought my first EVGA product, because I heard the quality should be top notch. After all these issues I've had with their products, and even after the ”Thermal pad-self combusting-overheating VRM-repair it by yourself”-gate EVGA had with their Pascal GPUs with ACX 3.0 coolers, it appears that there is something horribly wrong with their quality control. And every time these problems occur, it costs me quite a lot of money to ship the defective product back to EVGA.
Now, is it possible that I've been just extremely unlucky? Yes, I think so. If so many of their GPU coolers were actually as bad as the ones I've had, their products wouldn't be praised in the reviews in such way that they are. At least I hope that most of the people who have bought Evgas products, haven't had any problems with them. Even though the thermal pad issue appeared to be quite wide spread.
Since so many of the issues are just my complaints about loud noise made by the coolers or coil whine, is it possible that I just have over sensitive hearing or something? Yes it is possible also. But, everyone who has used my computer has noticed the exact same issues with the GPUs that I've had. Also my wife has to listen to them, and it disturbs her too even when she is not in the same room. I've also never had such problems with any other manufacturers cards, and I've tried quite many of them. She suggested that I sell this one and go back to MSI, which I had before, just so that she wouldn't have to listen to the howling sound when I'm playing.
But there's more. When you do a cross-ship RMA with EVGA, you're supposed to pay a collateral for the replacement card. Mine was 760 euros. They are supposed to return the sum to you, once they receive the defective product. Well apparently something went wrong and this didn't happen. I used my fathers credit card to pay for it, since they didn't accept debit cards. To our surprise, he received a bill for the 760 euros a month after EVGA received the GPU. I can not understand how this is even possible anymore. I sent them an email about this yesterday morning, and they still haven't solved the issue. My guess is that their transaction to the Paypal account we used for paying has somehow failed. I will update this post about this situation, once I get a proper answer from them. Paying 760 euros extra for my RMA doesn't sound too reasonable, but since I'm dealing with EVGA, I wouldn't be surprised if that would be the case in the end. Hopefully not.
All I wanted to do, is to play games on a PC built with high quality components. Apparently I just chose the wrong manufacturer. Now I just hope I get my money back so I can replace the faulty parts that EVGA has sold me.
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Edited 31.3.2017
So I received the refund for the collateral almost immediately after posting this. I also received an email apology for the delayed payment from an EVGA employee at the same time. My response to him was short and perhaps even a bit rude. The next day I emailed him again, being a bit more polite this time and apologizing for the rude tone of my first message to him. I directly asked him if he could help me with the issues I'm still having with the GPU they sent me as a replacement, and possibly with the PSU also. I still haven't received a response from him, and I assume that I should've sent that email to eu customer service instead. It is quite possible, that the person who sent me that message hasn't been at work since Tuesday. I will still wait for a few days and then perhaps send another email to supporteu instead, asking what should I do next with the replacement GPU that I received since it also appears to be defective.
I also captured the annoying howling noise to a video, and uploaded it on Youtube so people can judge if this is something they would RMA a GPU for. I know that the sound wouldn't even bother some people, but since I can clearly hear it even through my headphones and since my previous 1080 FTW didn't have that noise, I don't feel like I have received a proper replacement. There is always the possibility, that the sound is normal for ACX cooled EVGA GPUs, but since they so willingly replaced my GTX 980 Ti SC+ wich had the same sound, I assume that this isn't what they are supposed to sound like. Since so many people have complained about this exact same issue on the internet, and RMAd their cards because of it, I assume that it isn't supposed to sound like that. After all, my second 980 ti and my first 1080 FTW didn't have that annoying sound. I used my phone to capture the video and the sound, so the quality is quite bad. You can still hear it over all the other noises, because of it's high howling nature. It is even clearly audible to the next room when the door is open. Perhaps the solution would be just to place my case to another room and monitor/keyboard/mouse to another and close the door, since that seems to be the only way to avoid it. Perhaps it was meant to be used this way? I'll wait till Tuesday till I send them a new email asking for instructions. Hopefully they can help me with this, without me having to pay more money for sending it back to them. Of course I could solve the issue by creating custom fan curves that effectively avoid those rpms, but in my opinion I shouldn't have to do tricks like that with GPUs this expensive.
Still, all I want is to have a GPU that does what its supposed to, without the risk of setting on fire and without any extra noise caused by either bad design or bad quality control. And no, I don't want to pay any more money for it, since sending GPUs back and forth is getting quite expensive for me already. I even considered just selling this GPU as soon as possible, but if I would like to sell it, I would also have to tell the buyer about the sound that appears to be a defect. This would of course affect the resale value even if the buyer didn't care for it, but it would be unfair to sell it through internet without mentioning about it.
I will update this post again once I get a reply to the email I sent.
*Was unable to link the Youtube video on this post. It can be found from my Youtube channel "Jahonneksi"
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Conclusion added 7th of April 2017.
EVGA accepted the GPU they sent me as a RMA replacement to be sent back to them for RMA. Since I would have to pay for the shipping for third time within a year, I don't want to do it anymore. There appears to be a very high risk of receiving a faulty GPU from EVGA, and if the next replacement is faulty too, I assume I would have to pay for the shipping of it too. Owning EVGA products is too expensive for me. I will solve this by some other way.
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Update 26th of April
Bad conclusion apparently, since it didn't conclude anything. I tried it again. Cross-ship RMA. Received a new card. Here is a soundsample.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FfPKx3fEsg&feature=youtu.beFrustration grows. Don't know what to do anymore with this.
post edited by Jahonnes - 2017/04/25 14:38:52