totoro74
I also noticed discolouration after just few weeks. That on the clear mayhem coolant. Very disappointed. Got an email from EK and definitely not they fault. Even on this forum there are people that done blocks for years and had no issues. I'm pretty sure that there is a fault with block, backplate or pads but they will not admit it ( personal opinion). I will not be buying EK again.

It's probably oring oil. EK oils their orings and it leaches a brown/rust color. My EK distro has it too and yeah I wasn't too happy with that, but at least it's not known to cause any issue with performance. 

Question here is, does this happen only with the EKWB block? I have an Alphacool Eisblock Aurora and Im wondering if anyone had this issue with this block.

Someone had the problem after reinstalling thermal paste with the stock cooler and I think atleast one similar case with Alphacool block.

Is there a way to link PCpartpicker builds into here?  Would be easier to share my build specs that way.
 
Sry - New member and I know nothing.

rick5flag
I installed the EK block on a 3080 yesterday. Here's what I did and the results:
 
I started disassembly by loosing the screws, starting with the screws around the GPU die and working my way out. Using a hairdryer, I heated the back of the card at the die and started wiggling the pcb very slightly until the stock cooler started coming off. The card separated easily with almost no prying force used. The stock thermal pads actually stayed together for the most part, enough to the point that if I need to RMA I'll take the EK pads off. Did the clean up with a little plastic scrapper and some alcohol.

 
 
Cut the supplied EK thermal pads and applied as the directions specified. Used the spread method to apply the thermal grease (Kryonaut)

 
I installed the block, then uninstalled to check coverage of the pads & grease. Both looked great so I reinstalled and put it into a PC dry to see if it would boot. Booted into windows, no problems so far.
 
Next came the backplate. I have been suspecting for awhile that if this is a problem with EK that its the backplate causing problems. I applied the 3 different thermal pads as directed and installed the backplate. While installing, I realized that because the side with the power connectors don't have any thermal pads, as you start tightening the screws the backplate bows slightly. Looking between the pcb and the backplate, some of the components, especially the metal pins on the back of the card come extremely close to the backplate. I know very little on the tolerances for these kind of things, but having less then 1mm gap between metal parts seemed like a bad idea to me. I decided to use kapton tape to apply over any area I thought there might be a chance of touching. 
 
  
 
Put the backplate back on, and tested in the system and it booted into Windows just fine. Hooked up the water loop, leaktested for 12 hours and here we are. Card is fully functional, has been running a looped 3dmark test for 4 hours. 48C core, 58C memory junction.
 
I have no idea if the kapton tape did anything, however I would advice that people be very careful with disassembly and with the backplate install. Don't torque down the screws, especially the ones on the power connector side. I think placing some small thermal pad squares on the power side would help keep the backplate level, I elected to just not tighten those screws on that side very much. I will be vigorously testing the system, we'll see if it dies like some others have.
 
 Hope this helps! Its nice having the gpu clocks stay at max boost levels. Now I just want a fix for the power limit. Have the 450w XOC bios installed yet I can never pull more then 390w before the power limit kicks in. Was hoping the waterblock would fix it, but I guess it was never about temperatures.
 
 
 
 
 

Yeah I tightened up all the backplate screws snugly.....no issues with mine either.
As far as you having the XOC 450w BIOS installed and only reaching 390-400w Max power draw....same as mine and many....have a look at the power draw in GPU-Z....particualry PCI-E plugs #1, #2 and #3.....see if #3 draws about 1/2 of #1 and #2.....unbalanced power draw..been a number of threads on the issue...no fix from what I have found.
When I check mine max power draw close to 400w...PCI-E plus #1 & #2 drawing around 150w each, however #3 is never more than around 65-70W ......

Got my block for around 4-6 weeks. Was running very well. No crashes no issues never exceeded 55C while gaming at 3440x1440 all settings maxed. One day just out of the blue didn't boot. I don't think it will be an user error. Funny enough majority of complains relate to the same error. 
I got my card relatively early so it might be a early batch that had an issue. Waiting for the replacement.
 
Interesting: https://www.igorslab.de/e...heavy-investigative/2/

New Bykski block with active backplate for FTW3:


https://ezmodding.com/EVGA-FTW3-3080-3090-aktive-Backplate
 

Add me to the pile of bricked cards, rig nolonger posts whatsoever, really disappointed, especially upon reading the above post, may try and go for rma/refund and wait till i can find a card with block from the manufacturerer.

I had this issue on my FTW3 3090 this evening after waiting a couple months to have time to finish building out my loop (error code 97 on an asrock motherboard after installing the ekwb waterblock + backplate).
 
The suggestion to add kapton tape is what fixed it for me - I doubled up especially on the backs of the through-hole capacitors where there was the greatest chance to touching the board, but TBH was pretty liberal with the tape anywhere that didn't otherwise have a thermal pad, including around the power connectors.

I've been doing some measuring of the stand offs. Water block the stand offs are separate, screwed into the block or plastic, variations of .03-.05mm.
The back plate is a different story, the stand offs have variations of .5-.6mm because they are part of the backplate and machined into it.

rick5flag
I installed the EK block on a 3080 yesterday. Here's what I did and the results:
 
I started disassembly by loosing the screws, starting with the screws around the GPU die and working my way out. Using a hairdryer, I heated the back of the card at the die and started wiggling the pcb very slightly until the stock cooler started coming off. The card separated easily with almost no prying force used. The stock thermal pads actually stayed together for the most part, enough to the point that if I need to RMA I'll take the EK pads off. Did the clean up with a little plastic scrapper and some alcohol.

 
Cut the supplied EK thermal pads and applied as the directions specified. Used the spread method to apply the thermal grease (Kryonaut)

 
I installed the block, then uninstalled to check coverage of the pads & grease. Both looked great so I reinstalled and put it into a PC dry to see if it would boot. Booted into windows, no problems so far.
 
Next came the backplate. I have been suspecting for awhile that if this is a problem with EK that its the backplate causing problems. I applied the 3 different thermal pads as directed and installed the backplate. While installing, I realized that because the side with the power connectors don't have any thermal pads, as you start tightening the screws the backplate bows slightly. Looking between the pcb and the backplate, some of the components, especially the metal pins on the back of the card come extremely close to the backplate. I know very little on the tolerances for these kind of things, but having less then 1mm gap between metal parts seemed like a bad idea to me. I decided to use kapton tape to apply over any area I thought there might be a chance of touching. 
 
  
 
Put the backplate back on, and tested in the system and it booted into Windows just fine. Hooked up the water loop, leaktested for 12 hours and here we are. Card is fully functional, has been running a looped 3dmark test for 4 hours. 48C core, 58C memory junction.
 
I have no idea if the kapton tape did anything, however I would advice that people be very careful with disassembly and with the backplate install. Don't torque down the screws, especially the ones on the power connector side. I think placing some small thermal pad squares on the power side would help keep the backplate level, I elected to just not tighten those screws on that side very much. I will be vigorously testing the system, we'll see if it dies like some others have.
 
 Hope this helps! Its nice having the gpu clocks stay at max boost levels. Now I just want a fix for the power limit. Have the 450w XOC bios installed yet I can never pull more then 390w before the power limit kicks in. Was hoping the waterblock would fix it, but I guess it was never about temperatures.
 
 
 
 
 

Hello i finished my watercool loop tomorow and my card works fine at moment

I am just worried about the kapton tape i added Kapton tape like your Pictures

Does it isolate some parts from cooling or does it nothing do?

How much of a good idea would be to cover those power pins with a thin thermal pad. As long as is not conducive I’ll be ok right?

Ok guys, I will share my whole story of what happened to me.
I purchased the card BNIB from a guy on eBay $$$$, the card worked fine for about a week on the air stock cooler, gaming and mining with no issues other than high temps.
Decided to install a waterblock to fix that problem, so I purchased an EK Quantum Vector FTW3 and installed it according to the manual provided, this was not the first block I have installed so I know what I was doing, then I also installed the EK-Quantum Vector FTW3 RTX 3080/3090 Nickel Backplate by following the instructions and put it in the system, filled the loop and tested it for leaks.
The test came out fine, so now it was time to plug everything and boot up the machine, the 3090 was in the first PCIe slot and my old 2080 Ti was connected to the third PCIe slot, I plugged the power cables and pushed the button.
System booted up to the OS but no video signal was detected by the monitor, a series of three short beeps and a white LED on the motherboard indicated that no VGA was detected, after that I could hear the Windows startup sound through my headset, so the system was definitely booting up, I swapped the DP cable to my 2080 Ti and Voilà, there it was video, which means that the 3090 was not being detected by the computer at all. I logged in and opened GeForce experience to see if the card was detected but only the 2080 Ti was recognized. restarted and went into BIOS to tee if the card was detected there by the PCIe, but only the 2080 Ti was being detected.
I re seated the card into the PCIe slot and I double checked the power cables, I even used a different set to make sure the card was receiving power and I noticed that the red LEDs were not lighting up when I unplugged the cables, which means that the card was not receiving power, not even from the PCIe slot, at this point I thought the PCB was fried or possibly a small short was preventing the card from receiving power. so I decided to remove the backplate and try to boot up with no backplate installed.
I changed again the DP cable to the 3090 and started the machine, no beeps and no white LED this time, video was received by the monitor and POSTed successfully, then booted up to the OS, I checked the software and both cards were being detected, I ran a few time spy tests and everything was fine.
In my case i think the problem was the backplate, being metallic and was probably touching something on the board when it was screwed all the way in creating some kind of short that didn't allow the card to receive power, I had to remove the card from the loop and mount the backplate again, this time I used 1.5mm thermal pads instead of the 1mm recommended over the memory chips under the backplate and barely screwed it in enough to make contact in the GPU area. In the power pins area I didnt use any screws since there are not any thermal pads there to put pressure on, instead I directly screwed the PCB to the waterblock but not the backplate.
 
I hope this info helps someone out there and thanks for reading.
 
 
 
 
 
 

The stands for the back plates are way off. Some are measuring .6mm difference. They are part of the back plate, machined with it. The plate is moving or not being held down correctly during the machining process
All the stands for the water block measure within .03m and are screw in stands held to higher tolerances.

Jynxed16
This just happened to me. I was up and running for 10 minutes and it rebooted never came back. D7 vga errors. I know I did it right and was careful and it did work for a bit.

What’s the RMA process like? Also will evga let me try again what if it happens again?

I’m debating redeeming my protection plan and paying the 400 dollar difference for a strix and block that. It’s 700 more dollars total but I don’t want to keep buying thermal pads and rma until it works if it ever will. Seems daunting.

If I do RMA I’ll probably just use it on air :(


Also where is everyone getting more thermal pads? Doing it through ek is expensive and a pain in the ass.

Ftw 3 RIP.

I tried everything, tried no back plate, reseating block, back plate, tried it with nothing at all. I just get a red power led on the third power slot

if you get a red power led means that no power is going into that connector, check the cable is well plugged in in both ends, the card and the power supply, if you can try a different cable.