Hi guys, first post on the forum, as I just recently switched to EVGA: story time!

So I had a trusty ol' Strix 1080 for 3 years before it gave up on me one month ago. I decided to look for something cheap on the used market to hold me over until the next gen of Nvidia cards launches in September or so. And I was lucky to find a REALLY good deal for a used 1080Ti FTW3 - or so I thought.
Out with the old, in with the new:

So what happened? Looking for a replacement for my 1080 I saw the afforementioned 1080Ti offering a week ago, hit the seller up, went to the dude's place the next day as he was living nearby and tried out the card on his PC to make sure it works. I loaded up some games, ran some benchmarks and the card was performing admirably, especially for the price the guy was asking. I was a bit sceptical, however, as to why he would sell such a great card at such a low price. He told me that he didn't have the receipt and the packaging, because it was a gift and he threw the latter away. Also, the card was (and still is, as I didn't get around to cleaning it yet) quite dirty and looked quite used, which he said impacted the price he was asking for. I was fine with that explanation and went right ahead and bought it, as the card itself was doing a decent job and everything seemed fine.

Well, turns out: nothing's fine. I installed the card in my PC the same day (last weekend), did some set-up work and adjusted the fan curve and just enjoyed having this card in my PC for the rest of the day by browsing the web and playing some games. Didn't have any time to play after that day though, as I was busy at work, and when I turned the PC on this weekend and tried to play some games, it crashed. As the only thing that recently changed about my PC was the GPU, I checked for that one first. I opened up the PC and the GPU was really [Removed] hot, like holding your hands over a bonfire to warm them levels of hot. So I opened up Precision X1 and I couldn't believe my eyes: with nothing else open, the card was suddenly idling at 91 degrees. As soon as I would hit it with a load, it would spike up even higher, thermal throttle and eventually the pc would just shut down. I tried a few things, but nothing worked. Therefore, I decided to take a closer look at the card and see what's actually going on: I yoinked it out of my PC (after waiting for it to cool down), checked it from the outside and everything looked fine, just like when I bought it. The card was intact, serial number stick was fine, but scratched up, the warranty sticker on the bottom (which you break by unscrewing the backplate was still there) and absolutely nothing seemed off.

Precision X1:

As I got the card for cheap, didn't have the packaging or the receipt and the seller wouldn't answer my messages (of[Removed] course), I decided to take matters into my own hands and opened up the card to investigate the matter. I got the backplate off, disconnected the wires connecting the LEDs and the cooler to the PCB and lifted the cooler to see this:

Well, looks like the coldplate, which should be attached to the cooler (right?) is now attached to the gpu itself, yay! The thermal paste was also really dried up, but everything else seemed alright (thermal pad placement and so on). I re-pasted the card put the coldplate back in its place and tried to see if the paste was the problem, which to noone's supprise wasn't the case. So I guess the problem is the coldplate? I suppose it doesnt make proper contact anymore? I'm somewhat tech savvy, but I'm hitting my limits here. Can someone help me out? What can I do to fix this mess?

And if nothing else works, can this card be RMA'd still? I ended up checking for warranty and apparently there's still some 200 days left, but I'm not sure if this is a proper warranty claim. The card does fall under EVGA's old warranty, so I wouldn't even need the packaging or the old receipt, but is this something that I should reach out to the guys at EVGA for? The card didn't look like it had been tampered with before (well, until I opened it up, duh). Is this a known flaw or what's going on here?

(Somewhat) intact sticker and Backplate before opening the card up:

Maybe someone from EVGA can have a look at the pictures in this thread and guide me in the right direction? Because otherwise I might just flip the card, cut my losses and sell it as defective. Someone please be my saviour and get me out of this mess! Looking forward to your replies!
Cheers guys,
Yaoki


 
 
 
Edit Out the Original  -->  Repeating the post several times & [Removed Language]  By:  Cool GTX

Unlocked after I edited out the Post mistake -- text was repeated 5+ times ?