one of my gtx480's died, burned up - question

[Jan3sobieski]

Hi all,

So I had a 3-way SLI set up on those gtx480's and yesterday I came into my office with the computer off. That's weird I thought... maybe a temporary power outage at night?

I leave my computer running 24/7 all the time. I run BOINC at night with Einstein@home running using the CPU and 3 GPU's separately. Had this running for over a year now. No problems.

Anyways, I go to turn the computer back on, I start smelling something burning, turn it off right away and go on to investigate. I'm thinking PSU and off I go setting up an RMA with Antec (I have the 1200W PSU). Took everything apart though to make sure, tested the PSU, hmm, works fine under load. I then start testing the GPU's separately. Low and behold one of them is dead. Took it apart and one of the voltage regulators is fried to a crisp.

Ordered a bunch of them from china and now have to wait to replace it, we'll see if that's the only thing that fried.

So my question is this because it's been bugging me for a while. If you have a SLI or a triple SLI setup, is it better to have the cards with reference design of the fan? (one fan blowing air out through the back) or one of those other 2 or 3 fan designs that just blow air everywhere in the case? My case is the Rosewill one Link, 2 fans in the front, one on the side blowing air in then one in the back and one on top blowing air out.

It seems to me that if I only have one card, it's ok to buy one of those non-reference fan design cards, but if running in SLI or 3-way SLI, the reference design would be superior?

 

[EvilJoker]

Well 480's put off alot of heat, So i would say the better cooling you have better of you are, What you could try, If you already havent done it already ,redo the TIM of the GPU, Ive noticed that stock TIM is crappy and more like play-dough or glue...

But the GPU's with multi fans on it is a better cooling solution that the stock, 3 way SLI is alot of heat, and thats even with weaker cards(Not Meaning Yours ), i have 2 570's(basically newer 480) and they put off alot of heat, What kind of fans is in that case? stock rosewill?

Might want to get some higher air flow fans for that kinda set up, just a thought

 

[GTXJackBauer]

Mid case with 3 Fermi's in it 24/7 for at least a year straight. Depending which Manufacturer they came from I would see if they are EVGAs since they have a limited lifetime warranty on them, you might get a replacement.

I know from experience as I have 2 of them that they used to overheat in my 800D. Once put in my Antec 1200 (Lots of air flow compared to the 800D) was a day n night different but still ran hot. 90c average temps I would get on both of them while gaming. Now they've been sitting in another case for almost 2 years. Eventually I will get rid of them soon.