Asus Gpu Tweak killed my gtx 780 ti matrix.

[Luumi]

Guys. I want to share my unfortunate event with you, so that you wont end up in so bad outcome as I just did today. First of all, the card I got 5 days ago was damn crazy, it did over 1400 on the core and 2000 mem on air with the stock cooler at maximum nvidia allowed voltages so 1.21/1.65. On water it obviously improved and got many good runs at 1462/2005, still same voltage.



You can even see a video I took of the card running those settings happily, with me showing all the settings, temperature, system and voltages via multimeter : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rji3G-11MAs

I was limited by nvidia on voltage, and the only way to get more was to short the two pads to enable LN2 mode. Everyone told me to do that, since there was no software mod for the card to apply over 1.21. The soldering was obviously easy and booted with ln2 bios into windows fine. This is where things go wrong.

I opened Gpu Tweak and saw all the possible options now for the card, with huge headroom on voltage and clocks. I decided to try how the settings would react with the new bios. I decided to put safe settings, most settings were about the same as in the video, although I only put like 1200mhz on the core with 1.22v and 2000 on memory with 1.65v. Other settings were the same as in the video. But once I hit apply screen went black immediately and crazy colourful pixels appeared everywhere, damn I got scared then.

I reset system immediately and still saw some, and this is what greeted me when booting into windows:


My 700 euro golden card will never more run. Gpu tweak most likely damaged atleast one memory chip on the card, as it was posted at kingpincooling forums, only due to a stupid bug with the gpu tweak software. I can't see any visible damage on the card. Guys please do not repeat my mistake and if you have a 780 ti matrix or you are getting one, do not even install GPU tweak if you are going to enable LN2 mode.

Luckily I got another matrix card here although not so good obviously. I'm still able to do proper benchmarking later on ln2 aswell with the OC tools akane sent me. I am not going to touch Gpu tweak unless asus confirms the problem and fixes it. So sad to lose a card like that to a stupid bug.

[meankeys]

so what your saying is gpu tweak applied a different voltage than what was set? or did I read that wrong. thanks

[Luumi]

Exactly, we will never know how much it put, maybe even 2.2v lol. But the card got damaged instantly when pressing apply. It can only occur with ln2 enabled and using gpu tweak. Gpu tweak is fine in normal mode, I use it even now aswell on my second matrix. There is a picture a guy at kingpin forums posted that shows to remove one resistor to possibly avoid gpu tweak damaging the card's memory. I haven't seen anyone confirming it though.

[meankeys]

Thanks Luumi

I wonder if Raja or someone in the know will confirm this before I pinch off that resister. I would hate to smoke one of my new Matrix cards. I may just have to wait for the OC tool and use that.

[X-ROG]

I've sent this to our RD dept. If you could link to others/other threads for additional evidence that would be great, thanks.

[meankeys]

MarshallR@ASUS wrote:
I've sent this to our RD dept. If you could link to others/other threads for additional evidence that would be great, thanks.

Thanks Marshall

[Nate152]

Hi Luumi,

To me it looks like you enabled LN2 mode with air cooling/water cooling. That's what killed your card not just gpu tweak itself.

Nvidia locked the voltage that is why you can't take it past 1.21v. They locked it to prevent damage to the cards and that will in turn slow down the RMA's.

I give you a HI-5 for trying it though.

[Luumi]

No Nate, the bios worked fine on water. The stock voltage in LN2 bios is 1.2v for gpu. I applied same settings I used in normal bios, 1.22v and 1.65v mem will not kill graphics card's memory. I have seen people running 1.45v on water so... The ln2 bios just unlocks more options, and the unlocked GPU tweak has some sort of bug that overvolts memory high and kills it instantly. 8 Pack benched 4 cards on ln2 and one of them died the same way, there are other reports about it at kingpin forums and hwbot.



Here: http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2637
Check this page: http://kingpincooling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2637&page=4

Nate152 wrote:
Hi Luumi,

To me it looks like you enabled LN2 mode with air cooling/water cooling. That's what killed your card not just gpu tweak itself.

Nvidia locked the voltage that is why you can't take it past 1.21v. They locked it to prevent damage to the cards and that will in turn slow down the RMA's.

I give you a HI-5 for trying it though.

[Nate152]

Oh sorry about that Luumi. I was under the impression that when you enabled liquid nitrogen mode it automatically sets a higher voltage. That was a nice card you had. Are you going to RMA it?

[Luumi]

No. LN2 modes have presets to help with cold bugs, turn of protections like over voltage protection or over current protection to prevent the card to shut down or crash when applying high levels of voltage needed when overclocking the card using extreme cooling methods. That is the general consumption though like you said, that is why common users are afraid to turn on LN2 modes, but I get it.