Before you jump me, my 3080 was a ASUS ROG STRIX 3080, not the cheap gigabyte. It was also water cooled with one of the best blocks on the market…
Got a x570 with a 5950x and a 3080, everything is water cooled, custom loop. CPU is cooled > into 3 fan radiator out into a big bitspower water block on the GPU > back into a second 3 fan radiator. Bitspower Titan to be exact. I haven’t had a single issue with the computer the last two years. Loaded up d4 played for 1 day to be exact, got to level 23. Went to turn on my PC the next day white VGA light code 97. Looked up everything I could. Tried to change PCI slot, tried pulling ram, tried resetting bios/coms, everything. Nothing worked, wouldn’t post.
Frustrated I took the whole PC to a local Microcenter, slapped in a test 3070 and booted right up, posted no problem. So I bought another 3080 while I was there to bring home and swap out.
When I pulled the water block off my old card I figured nows a good time to clean the loop and pull the blocks apart and check for algae stuff like that. All was good in the CPU, but I kid you not, the block for the main chip in the GPU was actually discolored like it got extremely hot. It literally looked like overheated stainless steel. ( look up pictures of overheated stainless steel ) the metal is all discolored like it wasn’t being cooled at all, ever.
Sucks because what is to come of this? Are all of us on the line for a 1000+$ video card because this game is bricking them? By the way, swapped out the old bricked 3080 with the new one I bought and my PC fired right up. Im fortunate enough that I could buy another 3080 and get back up and running but others not so much.
Blizz gonna do anything about this? I have the whole timeline documented, from pre purchasing the game, playing it, and reciepts from microcenter. Sucks because nothing will probably come from this as, “its a beta we arent responsible” when clearly theres an issue here.
This is not overheated, this is corrosion. You most likely have different materials in your loop which form a galvanic element leading the less noble metal to corrode.
When building a loop make sure everything that comes in contact with water is the same material…
They will not gonna do anything. Software never can brick hardware, the software can only expose a fault that already had been inside the hardware before.
Software can brick your device - from BIOS updates not finishing correctly, to software that inhibits your HW from running in the set limitations, requiring higher running voltage to run a task that is not optimized (unlimited frame rates, for example, in a game, etc.).
Please, for future reference don’t offer advice or opinions if you are not sure of the statement.
A game is a piece of software - that should be optimized with guardrails set in place - this is to protect the HW from overheating because the software is making, for example, an infinite amount of requests, requiring extra computing power that requires more voltage leading to permanent hardware damage.
That software can sometimes bypass the limitation set by the manufacturer of said hardware, especially if not properly tested and optimized.
For the future, please do a bit of reading on the subject - I suggest to start with some books on software optimization, you can find them on Amazon.
To be precise, userspace software never can brick hardware. BIOS while technically software is part of the hardware.
Hardware should not allow Software to make it run out of it´s limitations.
The limits of the running voltage is set by the BIOS on the hardware, software can not set anything outside this limits, and the only piece of software that can set the voltage of the GPU is the GPU driver.
I should stop the discussion here. SW runs on HW, BIOS is SW.
To summarize - Software CAN brick your HW. which makes your statement up-top false.
I’m not saying it’s 100% D4 fault, but “early-access” or beta games can push your HW to the limits, like with unlimited FPS (happened with other titles also not just D4, and will surely happen in the future)
If the developers put the industry standard guardrails in place, situations like this should not happen - but then that would mean a product that is market ready, and we can’t have that.
Any Hardware must not break when pushed to the limits.
If it breaks when pushed to the limits it is faulty.
And Furmark stresses the GPU way more then any game in this world, if your GPU survives Furmark D4 (or any other game) can not be blamed for breaking it.
And the hardware has to be designed that it even survives furmark.
If it is the game that is causing the failures, then why are not all cards being damaged? If the cards work as intended in all other usages, then it the game’s fault for causing the damage.
If a person running said gpu has zero issues running any other game, then all of a sudden they run D4, & poof, we start seeing all the issues being reported, it is a software issue, i.e. D4 issue. It is D4, or a specific setting many of us are using in D4, that is causing this heat issue to creep up like it is, on many different cards, & card manufacturers. I’ve seen reports on 970GTX’s, on up to 4090’s, turning into space heaters. This is not a hardware issue, it’s a D4 issue.
If a software program causes a fault in the GPU’s firmware or hardware that leads to permanent damage, then it is ultimately the responsibility of the manufacturer of the GPU and its firmware to ensure that their products are designed and tested to withstand normal usage conditions.
In some cases, a manufacturer may release a firmware update or patch to address issues that have been discovered after a product has been released. Users should always ensure that their hardware and firmware are up to date with the latest patches and updates to minimize the risk of issues or vulnerabilities.
In summary, while a software program may trigger a fault in the GPU’s firmware or hardware, it is ultimately the responsibility of the manufacturer to ensure that their products are robust and resilient enough to withstand normal usage conditions.
