@@WasatchElectronics to answer your question, "... wondering if ASUS cooler are lighter or heavier than GB one..." Asus cooler are usualy much heavier and bigger than GB starting with TUF series (not talking about Dual series which are very entry lvl series from ASUS) and heavier with ROG Strix series (top of the lines). Which is the reason I started seriously recommanding people to use GPU support tools to avoid cracks, broken PCI-E slots, etc starting with AMD RX6xxx series / RTX 3xxx series ASUS and a few other brands went "nuts" about weight and size (for good reason too since we get very silent and cooled cards too) Anyway good job we need more ppl like you nowadays ;)
I may be one of these weird people, but I got a 4090 in recently. I heard of the "sagging" aspect, but not about the cracking stuff today. I felt the weight, the utter heft of the device, and thought "Yeah, this isn't good", so yes - the first thing i started thinking of was this damaging the PCB given how heavy and big the thing is. It helped the "anti sag" was also part of it all too. But I decided right from the start that I wasn't going to install this thing without some kinda brace. I tried the one it came with, and it was incredibly poorly designed. I bought a brace, and til it got here, I temporarily used a makeshfit brace. I do think gigabyte and other manufacturers really should disclose the idea that a branch is needed regardless, and include a better version than the one they did here. They make no mention of the idea of a brace needed.
You're kidding right... Even before the Nvidia 3000 series I was already wondering - if they keep increasing the size of GPU's this is going to be a problem. I actually even made my principles!!! 1 - NEVER buy a GPU that has more than 2 fans (this was already my concern for GPU's with 3 fans). 2 - NEVER buy a GPU that occupies more than 2 case slots... And these principles are actually not set in stone... They can still f up around those principles so yeah... WATCH OUT. Those are 2 good principles to have but... You never know. These industries just lost their minds! They have monkeys running those places now it's insane
Great video. AFAIK it's pretty standard practice to put any low speed signals right on the edge of the PCB so they don't get in the way of laying out more important stuff. EDIT: PWM_VID is Nvidia's protocol for setting the core voltage using a PWM signal that goes to the VRM controller.
It would be nice to see something like a slightly larger pcb (I know, we're already large enough... See MSI's 3090 vs Gigabyte's 3090, though) to allow for those signals to be further away, while also having room between those and the edge of the PCB. Even with that in mind though, it's probably better to look at fixing the issues that are causing these to crack in the first place. Thanks for the reminder about VID, I could have pulled up a schematic or googled it but I was smack in the middle of recording that clip haha
still, if its something as important as needing to be there to turn on the gpu, then it shouldn't be placed in an area where it can get the trace broken, they are doing this same thing with the 4090, thats the next version up, you would think they would of learnt something, the pcb is weaker, the pcie lock is longer in size than everyone else, making it yet again weaker, and bad placement of traces
@@WasatchElectronics the issue really comes down to the fact the PCIe slot was never really intended to support cards as large as we have today. If you make the card wider, you run into spacing issues with smaller towers, and you end up inducing a much longer moment arm on the weight of the sink. Add to that the increased notch effect from where the tab is located and the whole card may crack lengthwise near where the backplate stops supporting it. Make it longer, and you get increased bending strain due to the - again - longer moment arm of the sink protruding towards the front of the case in addition to the already existing transverse strain rom the weight alone. The only real way to make the cards sturdier is by adding physical supports to divert the forces inherent in the design and form factor in addition to what exists already.
The problem is these cards are getting way too bulky for a thin PCI-e slot and when in transit like you said many pre-built systems are not adequately protected from the potential damage. The problem will be how to shore these cards up as it's only going to get worse as they get bigger. For those who build their own it's not a huge issue as long as the clamps are in place and you have something to rest the back of the card on so there's at least a balance. Or you could just install it face up instead of sideways.
16:08 Note on the Reference Cards. The reason why not many are breaking is that the backside cooler suports the card really Well. And i think this is why this all happened in the first place, nvidia tried to make it good, but did forget to Tell the vendors 😅
The problem from what I gather is NVIDIA are not allowing the AIBs to make much profit so they are cutting corners on the cooler. As NVIDIA get the whole profit on the FE cards, they can spend more on it and still make a higher profit than an AIB would.
I mean pretty much every vendor has the IO slots support the heatsink..... not gigabyte they let the pcb support the entire heatsink weight. Crazy silly engineering.
Non of that damage is user error, a PC's moveable object, it must be designed to be able to. Rule nr.1 in pcb design is : Pcb's shall not bear mechanical loads. The gaca designers just pushed it way to far since the gtx10 series.
what we need is a complete redesign of the pcie slot. There should be additional clause to the PCIE standard on how the GPUS must be properly supported to ensure structural integrity.
The reason for Nvidia founder cards not cracking is the cooler itself. The silver X is one big piece that is secured very well on the 3-slot bracket. It carries most of the weight. Many other AIB cards have only a 2-slot bracket which is only screwed into the PCB. At least half of the total weight is then only on the small locking tab that cracks.
Very well done description of the immense amount of work needed to repair what can look like such an unassuming crack. Kudos to you & your deep well of patience to even consider undertaking these repairs. Whatever you charge it's probably not enough. Good luck and good fortune to you sir for your contribution the PC community! DT
Graphics cards became way to heavy to rely on slot and PCB for mounting. What is needed it the bracket like some cards used to have that is slotted into case on the opposite side to the ports. This would prevent PCB from being loaded by weight of the cooler. It used to be common practice on large cards before.
Jostle, yes. Slap in a box and ship across the country? No, I would say that is not intended use. Most of these cracked cards are coming from pre-builts that were obviously shipped with the GPU pre-installed or PCs that were moved a little too roughly. PCBs are fragile and need to be treated as such.
@@losslessthoughts Every single prebuilt computer needs to be shipped at least once in its life time. If you think my mom is interested in installing GPU once she receives her unit - you need to travel to her and try to explain what the GPU is.
Glad to see this type of GPU content coming out! I get a lot of inquiries for gpu repair that I either decline or refer to someone else and now can refer some here!
Thanks for watching Aaron! Please do, if you have anyone that comes to you needing a repair I would happily help them out. I wouldn't mind sending a little something your way either for the referral
The standing tower w/ atx motherboard formfactor was fine for 1-2 slot cards and do-able for 3 slot cards. But now that >3 slot cards are becoming more normal it's time to re-think and re-design. Not to mention almost all cards now need more than the 75watts the slot provides. We need a new design that can provide a more stable connection that provide a lot more power to the card without the extra cables. Perhaps up to 300watts with a connector for a single cable that can provide up 300 watts as well. Also atx layout was fine for thermals and airflow when it came out, but it's getting to be challenge, especially with things like memory at right angles to the typical airflow and standing straight up on the MB impacting flow and cooler placement, not mention not getting optimal cooling itself.
I agree, we're definitely hitting a few walls that need to be addressed in the graphics card world, or we're going to start having lots of issues (if we're not already there). The same can be seen with CPUs, they're beginning to use so much power and put off so much heat that it's hard to keep them cool, you essentially have to have a water cooling setup with a large radiator to do so, if you're picking up one of the newest CPUs. Graphics cards are running into the same issue, more heat = larger cooler = more weight on the pci-e slot. One of the graphics card manufacturers made a card and motherboard combo that has a second connector, like pci-e, for more power and a bit more stability. I still think the card needs more support even with that, but it might be something that's needed in the future to help provide more power to cards. I can't seem to find any info on it, but when I remember I'll come back through and give you the name so you can check it out!
Wow you must have the patience of a saint. I had no idea on most of the stuff you mentioned and seeing what you do to fix cards is incredible. I’m going to upgrade my PC soon but I’ve water cooled my GPU’s for almost 20 years (Danger Den blocks back in the day) and had no idea of just how heavy cards are getting as the 1st thing I do is strip it. Great video bud 👍.
Thank you! Fixing graphics cards definitely requires some resolve and a lot of patience, especially diagnostics and PCB repair. That's awesome! Definitely mount vertically or grab a support bracket at least, if you pick up a newer card :)
Fantastic! Now everyone can see that these do NOT break the PCIE data lanes, but a bunch of power signals. I think the roughly 45 degree angle from the screw hole to the locking tab is the main reason they crack. The PCB material seems a little softer, too. With the asus card, by having the screw hole just past the notch, it seems like it actually distributes the weight across the whole pcie slot, rather than putting all of the force right in the corner.
@@carlosxdlo2802 I would look at other options, but if Gigabyte is the best you can get - Grab a support bracket, and be a little careful when installing the card. Don't let it sag at all. If you're going to move the pc around a good amount or transport it, remove the graphics card ahead of time. Gigabyte's cards seem to be more prone to cracking, but they don't just crack from sitting there to be clear (unless maybe you have no extra support and are letting the card hang). If you can, do yourself another favor and just vertically mount the card, if you do that and support it well there's basically no chance of it cracking
I bought a Gigabyte 4070 Eagle without knowing about all this. Now looking at the PCB, from tear downs on the web, it looks like they actually learned their lesson and move the cooler mounting holes up and away from the usual cracking point. The card is only 800gr, but I still added a support for it.
shud i bought the 4070 ti super gigabyte gaming oc or Windforce/eagle one. rest msi and asus are expensive in india and i dont like inno 3d , zotacs , galax or colorful , im upgrading from Nvidia Rtx 3070 FE
Pulled my 3060ti and checked it, no visible cracks, thankfully. May have more to do with the case I use - cards are mounted vertically, with the I/O bracket coming out of the top of the case. Makes me glad I went this route.
3060Ti's are definitely smaller and lighter compared to the 3080/3090 as well, I don't think I've seen many or any 3060s cracking really. Definitely not a bad idea to keep it supported or mounted vertically though, then you don't have to worry at all!
Last year I installed 2 3070's in my machines and noticed sagging immediately. One was MSI and the other was EVGA. I didn't have any support brackets for the cards so I used a slot cover and bent it to support the end of the cards. To support the bottom of the slot covers I just put some double sided tape to keep them from moving. The cards are still level and working just fine.
It's hitting the point that PCIE GPU's need a rework, no one saw GPU's getting this big when the PCIE slot was designed. OEM PC's moved to AIO's to avoid damage from shipping with air coolers, using AIO's on GPU's may be the easy fix without a rework like extending the PCIE slot length to give better support.
With the size that high end graphics cards are getting. I'm surprised that this wasn't an issue earlier. The standard orientation for motherboards in cases is just asking for trouble with these giant cards without brackets for extra support.
That's my feeling too. I get the sense so many were thinking "how can the consumer know?" But when I got my 4090, which was recently (and before I read anything about cracking), the first thing that came to mind was the weight not being a good thing.
Main reason I think this problem started is because of PCIE Gen4. I think that required a higher layer count for signal integrity. The fiberglass dielectric layers are much thinner when the layer count is higher and each lamination causes more weakness. I'm sure a 4 or 6 layer PCB can hold up alot better than a 12 or 15 layer PCB. As much work goes into designing a 15 layer GPU PCB you would think they would have designed them better for mechanical stress when they know they are sticking a massive cooler on the thing.
I think it looks crazy because of the silkscreen with all of the designators, which most cards don't have nowadays. A good amount of the pads are unpopulated. Gigabyte cards aren't quite as wide as some other cards though, so they're definitely more dense typically!
@@WasatchElectronics got it, must be my phone then. I don't run high resolution UA-cam videos because of data usage... and if course eye sight isn't what it use to be either on small screens. Perhaps I need to change something here huh?... Lol.
Back in the day the full length card support bracket was standard, it came with the enclosure. There was usually a plastic piece which held dual duty, you could mount an 80mm fan into it, and you can clip your full length PCBs into it, such as CT3980, TBS Pinnacle. I had a CT3980 actually. ISA cards slotted into there directly with the PCB, while PCI cards had an offset bracket piece that looks like a weird handle, because ISA and PCI have different edge connector bracket offset - so ISA are component side up, while PCI are component side down.
My gigabyte 4080 came with a support bracket for the end of the pcb opposite the IO. The only problem is it does not fit my case. I purchased an adjustable vertical support rod from Amazon before installing the gpu in my case. It just made sense to me because of the size and weight of the gpu. I was in board repair for 30 plus years. Just retired. Arthritis is a bitch! Great video, take care.
Oh really? What brand was it? That's unfortunate that it didn't fit, but good choice on grabbing one that does. Those are heavy cards. That's much longer than I've been doing this. I only have maybe 3 years of microsoldering and board repair, although I've been soldering and fixing things for ~7.5 now. I definitely went head first though, now I specialize in burnt and damaged pcb's. I know what you mean, between repair / school / working on a computer all day, I can feel it taking a toll on my wrists. I've been trying to combat that best as I can, the last thing I want is to have to end my career or hobbies because of too much pain. Thank you, you as well!
@@WasatchElectronics, stay healthy, take care and god bless. if you need anything let me know. I have a ton of equipment, mostly entry-level when I taught PCB repair classes to disabled vets. mint condition just sitting on shelves. There's a big market in drone repair among other things. I just finished two of them. again, take care.
@@NotThatGuyJD I specialize in PCB repair, so this was right up my alley. I like doing the stuff that others don't like to touch haha. That said, I really don't like fixing these because they're prone to a lot of issues from the damage they've taken. The one that I ran all of the jumpers on still isn't fixed (Part of me is annoyed at that card so I just work on other stuff while it sits there...), and I have another that I'm not even attempting the repair. Just swapping the core and memory to another pcb.
Cracks occur from uneven forces from heat during production of pcb and soldering of various chips. When the graphics card is in use, those forces will be opened, and then contract when the graphics card is not in use. The small radius you see on gigabytes is a big contributing factor as it acts as a small spring for those forces. A larger radius distributes the forces over a much larger area on the Pcb like we have on the Asus card
After seeing a lot of cracked 4090 cards on youtube, I decided to add 2 more GPU support stand to my card, those smaller telescopic ones to help with the cooler master tempered glass gpu stand I used since day1.
How many Gigabyte owners use a support bracket to keep the GPU in place and prevent it from sagging/cracking? This is a step I am personally taking to keep my ASRock Phantom Gaming D Radeon RX 6600XT OC in a safe position once I install it and start using it.
I use one for my Aorus 4090. This will happen to all 4000 series cards over time without a bracket. The coolers are massive. I think a 5-30 dollar bracket is a wise investment.
This is a nightmare. Having a 4070 TI From Gigabyte and looking at those damage, I feel so bad for those that had such problems. When I did mount the GPU on my mobo (Aorus B550 Pro AC ) after 15/20 seconds the GPU was already bending. The bracket/support Gigabyte give with the GPU wasn't enough. So I did end up making one of my own and it seem to be fine but, I'm still worried. My 4070 TI have a backplate that's unecessary large and heavy and I think that's part of the problem too With such a large mass, the entire GPU is negatively affected by gravity, especially if mounted horizontally. However I'm not an expert, I can be wrong. Thanks for this content. Have a good day.
This was mostly beyond me but I think I learned a few things. One thing, though: you need to mark the difference between fitting a card upright - as in the original IBM PCs - with the outputs coming out of the back of the case and fitting a card vertically - as in the Silverstone FT02 and FT05 among other cases - with the outputs coming out the top or the bottom of the case.
I was a micro miniature ET for the Navy for many many years. I was an ET for the USPS and once in a while in an emergency I would fix a sorter card but mostly they just throw them away and buy a new one.. Today, the labor costs involved and the thickness of the cards vs the weight and the mass of them are just not worth fixing. Gotta be careful when you are installing them.
the fact that some humans are able to fix these cracks in those beyond tiny lanes and make a pretty much totalled card work again is absolutly mindblowing to me.. yt tried showing me the bigger youtubers vids over the past days and i never clicked. i am happy that it did not stop and finally won to inform me by showing me ur vid at 450 views.. thanks for sharing ur knowledge, i will sub and hope u get much more exposure, truly remarkable work!
Thanks for watching, I appreciate it! It's quite the repair, I wish I had some footage of me actually fixing one on hand - that would have made for a great addition to the video.
Thank you! There's not a lot of graphics card repair information out there unfortunately, although it's getting better. I'm a mix of self-taught and getting help from others that knew/know more than me. I've had to (and still have to) do a lot of discovery on my own, especially when new issues arise that no one has seen before. Graphics card repair is probably 80% diagnosis 10% soldering, with a few exceptions
I suspect 1 possibility that could be a contributing factor is the composition of the substrate that makes up the PCB, with all the green madness thats happened over the last 20 years, maybe its just more brittle as a result
Awesome awesome video. I wonder if the card is hanging, like in an upright ROG Z11 case, if the problem becomes null?, due to the weight not being stressed in that direction at all.
As owner of a lot of gigabyte gpus, is the first time i hear about cracking pcb... But is true too, some cards are pretty heavy but in the 40XX series Gigabyte provides a very sturdy antisag, those prevents gpu bending (i saw some systems, the cpu bends so badly, it was scary to see). I used ever the Lian Li antisag, no matter how long the gpu is for prevent the bending.
When shipping a PC it only makes sense to leave the GPU out, in a protected box. Those UPS/FedEx/USPS drivers will toss those boxes around. I have saw prebuilts that come with the GPU removed, I guess some may not be comfortable installing a GPU, but I bet they would be a lot more uncomfortable replacing their fairly new 3080.
I completely agree. I don't know why companies are shipping cards inside of pc's, it's not hard to install them - even for someone that doesn't really know what they're doing
Horizontal motherboard layout is superior anyways. It just makes more sense. You dont have a heavy CPU cooler and graphic card hanging off of the motherboard. I had a Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 3080 12gb and now the same model RTX 4070 which does appear to have a slightly thicker PCB if I'm not mistaken. No cracking. I think the vast majority of cracking cases are from PC that were either shipped (pre-builts) or moved around roughly.
shud i bought the 4070 ti super gigabyte gaming oc or Windforce/eagle one. rest msi and asus are expensive in india and i dont like inno 3d , zotacs , galax or colorful , im upgrading from Nvidia Rtx 3070 FE
I just bought a new system. i9 14900 with a Gigabyte 4090 and Gigabyte included an anti sag bracket set. One bracket L shapped connects to the motherboard and the other connects to the end of the 4090. Then you screw the 2 together. Is this not sufficient enough?
They must be only including anti sag bracket on select SKUs. I have both 3080 & 3090 Aorus Master sku's. They do not come with a anti sag bracket. Mind you aorus master /extreme sku's are their top tier range and their not cheap. For them to include a bracket shows that they are aware that their GPU'S are cracking. Really they should make the PCB more durable. Back in the day they always used to tout how great their PCBS were. They used to run a marketing campaign called Ultra durable PCB talking about how many layers of traces they had over their competitors. Tbh their competitors marketed similar campaigns too. To me it does sound like they have cheaped out on the material used in the graphics cards. I hope they do make a better durable revision next time
Poor design. The enginering choice of putting the coolers mounting hole close to and diagonal to a obvious and common, stress point was a shortsighted design choice. It will fail evertime for a varity of reasons from mishanding to material fatigue. Consumer products have to take into account that are not going to remain static for the duration of the products life cycle. PCI-e locking tabs are notoriously difficult to release, exacerbating the designs inherent weakness. The other cards shown from the different manufacturers avoided this issue by relocating the mounting hole.
How much do crack fixes prices run? Does it make sense to get a new GPU card? For example, a $500.00 card, how much would it cost to fix a crack or two?
With GPU prices coming back down from lets say 12 or 18 months ago, these are becoming less worth it to repair. I charge $40/hr for labor at the moment as an example, and I could spend upwards of 10 hours on a cracked card if it's badly damaged. So as a customer it's not worth it. I only do these if I can get them for the right price, and I know I don't have to repair 30+ traces. I really just avoid them in general though, even if I can make money off of it I don't enjoy working on the same card for 10+ hours.
Arguably the jumper method is going to be the best long term repair. Instead of relying on UV resin to strengthen the board. Also when a problem occurs this often, one has to start drawing a line between abuse and poor engineering. There is way too much of this going on at the moment.
I completely agree, I think the jumper method is going to make for a longer lasting card. I should have mentioned that if you're using uv resin to fill things in after repairing the traces (non-jumper method), you're not going to be properly reinforcing the card where it cracked before. To properly reinforce it, you need to use epoxy. Then you'll run in to some really bad issues if any of the traces get broken again, you're essentially going to have to redo your entire repair and possibly more. I agree, they should have already recognized that this is an issue and started to do something about it. I hope that internally they've done so, but all we can do is wait and see if it changes in future cards.
I got burned by gigabyte on a motherboard about 10 years ago. Board died 1 month after purchase. Did an RMA just to have them refuse to warranty it due to physical damage they caused to the board. I’ll pay $500 more just to avoid giving them a penny.
I made the mistake of buying an RTX 4080 Aero OC by Gigabyte because it was on sale and was a cheaper option than the 7900xtx that I was originally looking at... I have it well supported, but I cant say Im happy about this news, and if I'd known about this before the purchase I made months ago, I would have got a different brand
I don't understand why this is an issue. Working on workstations and server's many years ago, the cards were supported on the front end with an adapter to make the card longer and that adapter slide into a slot on the back of the front of the case. Hope at least what I said make sense.
I wonder if it's coincidence that Gigabyte includes support brackets for their 4000 series cards - at least for the Aorus & AERO models. I'm not sure if they included those from the beginning or if it's a more recent revision, but it was one reason I went with Gigabyte in my recent build (before these cracking cases came up) because I liked their solution a lot more than a lot of the third party offerings. Guess now time will tell if it helps.
So I bought a gaming oc recently and didn't know anything about this stuff till yesterday. It's so hard to keep up to date with all this stuff. So from what I am hearing it's the weight of the card that's causing this. Also it's on alot of 30 series cards and alot of those didn't come with support brackets..interesting to see if those cards did have after market one. Yes the new comes with the bracket and is also a very cool card...the 30 series weren't. Iv actually got a support bracket as well in my build since the latest information kind of spooked me a bit. I also live in Australia where anti consumers laws are really harsh on faulty manufacturing issues, which matters I hear gigabyte are pretty scummy to deal with. Time will tell but I feel like gigabyte anticipated this hence the additional support brackets..that can't be a coincidence. How's your card going btw? For me it's going really good but IV only had it for a little over a 10 days 😂
@@c523jw7 Well, it's only been a little over 2 months for me, so no problems here. As I wrote above: Time will tell. I'm not going to worry now and not check the socket daily or something. If something happens, I'll deal with it when/if that day comes. :)
The locking tabs were never a good design, but it's especially bad now when cards are so big (and heavy) they obscure access to the PCIE slot. A single through hole on the slot might be better, plus you can design the pin to sheer before there is enough force to break a card (it's cheaper to replace a toothpick than a GPU) . It could have been where the PCIE key is after the 11th pin, or where the key was on PCI since I'm now rewriting the spec lol. It's probably time for a standardized method of transferring force to a case. It could just be an agreed upon position for a mount point at the top of any pcie card. This allows different cases & prebuilts to tie in with a mechanism of their choosing. It would save a lot of $$ for shipping too.
This looks like damage from not releasing the PCI Express tab locking mechanism first before removing the card. So what does it look like when someone is pulling there card as it's locked to the slot before unlocking the tab? Also some damage from gpu sag?
I think the problem is that we're running into the issue of needing to pump more power into things to get more processing power, which means larger coolers. At some point (basically now) the world is going to have to figure out some alternative to the current construction or design of processors, or something that will allow for better power efficiency and less loss in the form of heat. Cards can't keep getting bigger and bigger. The same issue is being seen with processors.
I bought a 4090 gaming oc and the 4080 eagle knowing they have a support bracket included which mounts on the motherboard. They have support brackets included idk if they still crack tho i ordered a vertical mount to be safe tho lol
Cheapest basic metal support I've seen costs $4 retail. _Surely_ most GPU manufacturers can provide one of those in the box for their most expensive hunkin' tech-bricks? At the very least make _Pretty Damn Sure_ that every buyer of these chunkers is aware of the _need_ for additional support. One would think it would be in their own interest, preferable to reputation hits and RMA headaches.
is it impossible to make another attachment point to prevent this from happening? either the cardmakers or desktop makers needs to figure something out
Gigabyte's design is down right dumb I have seen many Graphics cards in the past that had that broke off completely and the GPU would would just be fine cause there was nothing there the fact they are putting traces all the way to such a flimsy part is just baffling and stupid at the same time.
@@WasatchElectronics it really shows between this and those exploding power supplies that Gigabyte's engineers are either young and inexperienced or is simply not doing their job properly and is just phoning it in as these looks like the first revision they got working and just decided that it was good enough to go to retail.
PCB is not meant as a mechanical support. Cards in the past were all vertically mounted, and weight was almost non existent. Over time, manufacturers have been taking liberties, and is why motherboard manufacturers been adding steel re enforced PCI slots. Totally not meant to do the job they are asking of it. They need to re assess the entire GPU / CPU structure and how computers are built.
So pretty much if you want to be safe from any potential damage don't ship a PC with gpu installed and ship it separately, and vertical mount the gpu, be nice if modern PC cases would just be designed with vertical gpu mount rather cos its overal better way to mount heavy card.
You got it. Don't ship with the card inside of a case, and mount vertically if you can. If you can't mount vertically, at least put in a support bracket
@@WasatchElectronics Yep PCB cant handle heavy weight of a cooler, a waterblock may be supported by the tubing hanging of the cpu cooler for example but even in such case use a support, the more the better modern case should have support, or the lian li gpu support bracket that is mounted on the motherboard should become the standard.
lately remove my gigabye 3070 iv noticed its getting preey hard to rem ove my gpu from the pcie! the latch on mobo would go all the way down easy useing my finger! could be nothing to do with gpu but thism video title defo spoke out me. be aware etc
I think you might be fine with that card, from what I remember this seems to happen less with the Aorus cards. You can really get any Gigabyte card though, so long as you either mount it vertically or have a support for it
mostly card flaws cause material super big heatsink, weight, long time use pressure fans with high rpm make cracking pcb possible after longtime used, best thing put gpu in mobo align with gravity its more safe, even antisag only keep gpu stand but their stress still exist and also gravity
I recently purchased a gigabyte 4090...... and found out about the cracking issue shortly after my return time window expired. It is side mounted. It came with a support bracket that bolts into the motherboard which I did on day one. Also I put 3 aftermarket magnetic gpu stabilizers on the top non braced side front, back and middle(in between the fans). I dont want to move it. Do you think my remedies are enough or do you think vertically mounting is still better? Great video and insight. Thankyou for your hard work!
I think vertically mounting is the best option, especially with something like a 4090, but it's hard to say without a photo of exactly what you're done. By the sound of it it's probably enough! Basically I would shoot for a setup where the card doesn't move at all after it's inserted and you're no longer holding it. If that's the case you should be golden :)
Cooler weight is part of it. Notice, how narrow and long Gigabyte GPUs are (also, how overpopulated are their PCBs). Most manufacturers increased width, which in turn allowed them to make the GPUs shorter. That ultra long PCB acts as a lever against the slot and the locking part is the weakest and most strained spot. This Gigabyte approach is extremely short-sighted. If you buy a GPU, it cracks in this spot by itself and then the manufacturer will deny your warranty, would you buy another GPU from the same manufacturer? Personally, after such experience, i´d avoid their products forever.
Yeah I wish I would have talked about this, if you compare the Gigabyte 3090 and the MSI 3090 for example, the MSI has a much wider PCB. This also means that they've been able to route traces on the "edge" of the board, without actually being on the edge, so a pci-e crack won't actually affect anything.
отличные карты у Гигабайт. Просто не надо возить компутер с установленной в него картой или заказывать готовый. любая современная видеокарта должна транспортироваться в отдельной коробке и тогда не будет проблем. службы доставки всегда швыряют и пинают посылки. поэтому комп надо покупать отдельными частями в отдельных коробках и после доставки собирать самому по месту жительства.
Really poor PCB design. Basically designed to fail. They could just move the traces further away from the edge, and also shape the PCB around the slot bracket with larger curve radius to make it much more robust. Shame on Gigabyte.
have you seen any gigabyte Radeon cards doing the same issue? disappointing, I've historically bought gigabyte and now I'm really doubting I will continue the trend.
That would be nice, but the cards being delivered in a separate package (for prebuilts) and with supports from factory (some cards have this now) would be enough to basically eliminate the issue
I think Gigabyte make those PCB's out of Cardboard and Cornflakes. Gigabyte used to mean something in terms of quality, it seems like those days are long gone!
In my mind gigabyte are 100% at fault, they have chosen to put the traces right next to a locking tab and use a PCB material that isn't as strong as other manufacturers, they made this choice, us the end user didn't, their choices are causing what we are seeing, so they should take responsibility for those choices, we the end user don't have information about what the board is made of or where these traces have been placed, only gigabyte has this information, there for at purchase we didn't have all the information we needed as consumers, gigabyte are responsible!
@@Irnwkr28 mine hasn't done it yet, I'm going to open a support ticket, take a picture of it, explain that if it randomly cracks after correctly installed then they will be sorting it out
Not as much, but it depends on the card. It's all really on the weight of the cooler and the PCB design. It doesn't seem to happen as much on the more expensive Gigabyte cards, for example
@@WasatchElectronics thanks for the insight! When I bought my Aorus 3070, I noticed a GPU sag right off the bat after installing, so I fixed it with a support bracket to alleviate the stress from the PCB. With hefty cards recently, I also think that the screw and PCIE slot isnt enough to support the entire weight. There has to be some kind of triangulation to properly distribute the gravity of a rectangular 3D object.
WOW, thanks im avoiding Gigabyte GPUs like the plague, But what about there monitors, i have an Aorus which is made by Gigabyte, should i be worried of it!!!
Just say NO to crack, kids.
Gigabyte is saying NO to honoring their warranties
If you are trying to kick crack, there's always the Rob Ford Center.
Who thought the first thing you need to look for in buying a GPU is possible stress fractures.
It's definitely something to look for nowadays, unfortunately
@@WasatchElectronics to answer your question, "... wondering if ASUS cooler are lighter or heavier than GB one..." Asus cooler are usualy much heavier and bigger than GB starting with TUF series (not talking about Dual series which are very entry lvl series from ASUS) and heavier with ROG Strix series (top of the lines).
Which is the reason I started seriously recommanding people to use GPU support tools to avoid cracks, broken PCI-E slots, etc
starting with AMD RX6xxx series / RTX 3xxx series ASUS and a few other brands went "nuts" about weight and size (for good reason too since we get very silent and cooled cards too)
Anyway good job we need more ppl like you nowadays ;)
I may be one of these weird people, but I got a 4090 in recently. I heard of the "sagging" aspect, but not about the cracking stuff today. I felt the weight, the utter heft of the device, and thought "Yeah, this isn't good", so yes - the first thing i started thinking of was this damaging the PCB given how heavy and big the thing is.
It helped the "anti sag" was also part of it all too. But I decided right from the start that I wasn't going to install this thing without some kinda brace. I tried the one it came with, and it was incredibly poorly designed. I bought a brace, and til it got here, I temporarily used a makeshfit brace.
I do think gigabyte and other manufacturers really should disclose the idea that a branch is needed regardless, and include a better version than the one they did here. They make no mention of the idea of a brace needed.
They're more concerned about having exposed cables, when they should be designing it with an integrated drop down support system.@@David-bz7pi
You're kidding right... Even before the Nvidia 3000 series I was already wondering - if they keep increasing the size of GPU's this is going to be a problem. I actually even made my principles!!! 1 - NEVER buy a GPU that has more than 2 fans (this was already my concern for GPU's with 3 fans). 2 - NEVER buy a GPU that occupies more than 2 case slots... And these principles are actually not set in stone... They can still f up around those principles so yeah... WATCH OUT. Those are 2 good principles to have but... You never know. These industries just lost their minds! They have monkeys running those places now it's insane
Great video.
AFAIK it's pretty standard practice to put any low speed signals right on the edge of the PCB so they don't get in the way of laying out more important stuff.
EDIT: PWM_VID is Nvidia's protocol for setting the core voltage using a PWM signal that goes to the VRM controller.
It would be nice to see something like a slightly larger pcb (I know, we're already large enough... See MSI's 3090 vs Gigabyte's 3090, though) to allow for those signals to be further away, while also having room between those and the edge of the PCB.
Even with that in mind though, it's probably better to look at fixing the issues that are causing these to crack in the first place.
Thanks for the reminder about VID, I could have pulled up a schematic or googled it but I was smack in the middle of recording that clip haha
It is also a very bad design practice.
still, if its something as important as needing to be there to turn on the gpu, then it shouldn't be placed in an area where it can get the trace broken, they are doing this same thing with the 4090, thats the next version up, you would think they would of learnt something, the pcb is weaker, the pcie lock is longer in size than everyone else, making it yet again weaker, and bad placement of traces
@@WasatchElectronics the issue really comes down to the fact the PCIe slot was never really intended to support cards as large as we have today. If you make the card wider, you run into spacing issues with smaller towers, and you end up inducing a much longer moment arm on the weight of the sink. Add to that the increased notch effect from where the tab is located and the whole card may crack lengthwise near where the backplate stops supporting it.
Make it longer, and you get increased bending strain due to the - again - longer moment arm of the sink protruding towards the front of the case in addition to the already existing transverse strain rom the weight alone.
The only real way to make the cards sturdier is by adding physical supports to divert the forces inherent in the design and form factor in addition to what exists already.
@@WasatchElectronics Just do 2 more layer xD
"Gigabyte" should change their brand name to "Moneybite" out of our wallets.
🤣🤣🤣
The best repair dude out there!
millibyte
I call them Garbagebyte
Gigacrack
The problem is these cards are getting way too bulky for a thin PCI-e slot and when in transit like you said many pre-built systems are not adequately protected from the potential damage. The problem will be how to shore these cards up as it's only going to get worse as they get bigger. For those who build their own it's not a huge issue as long as the clamps are in place and you have something to rest the back of the card on so there's at least a balance. Or you could just install it face up instead of sideways.
16:08 Note on the Reference Cards. The reason why not many are breaking is that the backside cooler suports the card really Well. And i think this is why this all happened in the first place, nvidia tried to make it good, but did forget to Tell the vendors 😅
The problem from what I gather is NVIDIA are not allowing the AIBs to make much profit so they are cutting corners on the cooler. As NVIDIA get the whole profit on the FE cards, they can spend more on it and still make a higher profit than an AIB would.
@@alexatkin that is true Yes, but the aib still dont care. Asus has no issue, msi has no issue, evga did have no issue.
didn't tell vendors on purpose, vendors look bad, more founders cards sell
I mean pretty much every vendor has the IO slots support the heatsink..... not gigabyte they let the pcb support the entire heatsink weight.
Crazy silly engineering.
Non of that damage is user error, a PC's moveable object, it must be designed to be able to. Rule nr.1 in pcb design is : Pcb's shall not bear mechanical loads. The gaca designers just pushed it way to far since the gtx10 series.
what we need is a complete redesign of the pcie slot. There should be additional clause to the PCIE standard on how the GPUS must be properly supported to ensure structural integrity.
The reason for Nvidia founder cards not cracking is the cooler itself. The silver X is one big piece that is secured very well on the 3-slot bracket. It carries most of the weight.
Many other AIB cards have only a 2-slot bracket which is only screwed into the PCB. At least half of the total weight is then only on the small locking tab that cracks.
and FE looks the coolest to me. Clean and Elegant
The mechanical, thermal design and subsequent rigidity of the FE cards this generation is impressive.
@@m.n.s.s2825 The FE looks elegant. Most of the named brands just look plastic.
@@Varangian_af_Scaniae agreed
Yeah, FE has a exoskeleton which supports it. They don't sag.
Very well done description of the immense amount of work needed to repair what can look like such an unassuming crack. Kudos to you & your deep well of patience to even consider undertaking these repairs. Whatever you charge it's probably not enough. Good luck and good fortune to you sir for your contribution the PC community!
DT
You should be able to jostle your system and components without worrying about catastrophic damage. This is on Gigabyte
Graphics cards became way to heavy to rely on slot and PCB for mounting. What is needed it the bracket like some cards used to have that is slotted into case on the opposite side to the ports. This would prevent PCB from being loaded by weight of the cooler. It used to be common practice on large cards before.
Jostle, yes. Slap in a box and ship across the country? No, I would say that is not intended use. Most of these cracked cards are coming from pre-builts that were obviously shipped with the GPU pre-installed or PCs that were moved a little too roughly. PCBs are fragile and need to be treated as such.
@@losslessthoughts Every single prebuilt computer needs to be shipped at least once in its life time. If you think my mom is interested in installing GPU once she receives her unit - you need to travel to her and try to explain what the GPU is.
No.
Glad to see this type of GPU content coming out! I get a lot of inquiries for gpu repair that I either decline or refer to someone else and now can refer some here!
Thanks for watching Aaron! Please do, if you have anyone that comes to you needing a repair I would happily help them out. I wouldn't mind sending a little something your way either for the referral
The standing tower w/ atx motherboard formfactor was fine for 1-2 slot cards and do-able for 3 slot cards. But now that >3 slot cards are becoming more normal it's time to re-think and re-design. Not to mention almost all cards now need more than the 75watts the slot provides. We need a new design that can provide a more stable connection that provide a lot more power to the card without the extra cables. Perhaps up to 300watts with a connector for a single cable that can provide up 300 watts as well. Also atx layout was fine for thermals and airflow when it came out, but it's getting to be challenge, especially with things like memory at right angles to the typical airflow and standing straight up on the MB impacting flow and cooler placement, not mention not getting optimal cooling itself.
I agree, we're definitely hitting a few walls that need to be addressed in the graphics card world, or we're going to start having lots of issues (if we're not already there). The same can be seen with CPUs, they're beginning to use so much power and put off so much heat that it's hard to keep them cool, you essentially have to have a water cooling setup with a large radiator to do so, if you're picking up one of the newest CPUs. Graphics cards are running into the same issue, more heat = larger cooler = more weight on the pci-e slot.
One of the graphics card manufacturers made a card and motherboard combo that has a second connector, like pci-e, for more power and a bit more stability. I still think the card needs more support even with that, but it might be something that's needed in the future to help provide more power to cards. I can't seem to find any info on it, but when I remember I'll come back through and give you the name so you can check it out!
I can't even believe you can repair some of this damage. Amazing skill. This was a great info source. Thanks!
Wow you must have the patience of a saint. I had no idea on most of the stuff you mentioned and seeing what you do to fix cards is incredible. I’m going to upgrade my PC soon but I’ve water cooled my GPU’s for almost 20 years (Danger Den blocks back in the day) and had no idea of just how heavy cards are getting as the 1st thing I do is strip it. Great video bud 👍.
Thank you! Fixing graphics cards definitely requires some resolve and a lot of patience, especially diagnostics and PCB repair. That's awesome! Definitely mount vertically or grab a support bracket at least, if you pick up a newer card :)
Fantastic!
Now everyone can see that these do NOT break the PCIE data lanes, but a bunch of power signals.
I think the roughly 45 degree angle from the screw hole to the locking tab is the main reason they crack. The PCB material seems a little softer, too.
With the asus card, by having the screw hole just past the notch, it seems like it actually distributes the weight across the whole pcie slot, rather than putting all of the force right in the corner.
yo i was going to get a Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 4080 16GB XTREME WATERFORCE but i am not sure anymore with the Cracking thing
@@Irnwkr28 in Gigabyte store ?
@@Irnwkr28 this one is the with the cooler and the radiator
@@carlosxdlo2802 I would look at other options, but if Gigabyte is the best you can get - Grab a support bracket, and be a little careful when installing the card. Don't let it sag at all. If you're going to move the pc around a good amount or transport it, remove the graphics card ahead of time. Gigabyte's cards seem to be more prone to cracking, but they don't just crack from sitting there to be clear (unless maybe you have no extra support and are letting the card hang). If you can, do yourself another favor and just vertically mount the card, if you do that and support it well there's basically no chance of it cracking
I bought a Gigabyte 4070 Eagle without knowing about all this. Now looking at the PCB, from tear downs on the web, it looks like they actually learned their lesson and move the cooler mounting holes up and away from the usual cracking point. The card is only 800gr, but I still added a support for it.
The windforce doesnt come with a support bracket I believe. The Eagle would be the way to go for sure.
shud i bought the 4070 ti super gigabyte gaming oc or Windforce/eagle one. rest msi and asus are expensive in india and i dont like inno 3d , zotacs , galax or colorful , im upgrading from Nvidia Rtx 3070 FE
Problem is, construction and MASS of it !!!!!!!!!!!!
Just put sideway and use Riser...
Pulled my 3060ti and checked it, no visible cracks, thankfully. May have more to do with the case I use - cards are mounted vertically, with the I/O bracket coming out of the top of the case. Makes me glad I went this route.
3060Ti's are definitely smaller and lighter compared to the 3080/3090 as well, I don't think I've seen many or any 3060s cracking really. Definitely not a bad idea to keep it supported or mounted vertically though, then you don't have to worry at all!
How many fans your 3060 has?
Last year I installed 2 3070's in my machines and noticed sagging immediately. One was MSI and the other was EVGA. I didn't have any support brackets for the cards so I used a slot cover and bent it to support the end of the cards. To support the bottom of the slot covers I just put some double sided tape to keep them from moving. The cards are still level and working just fine.
DIY solutions are great as well, as long as the card is supported that's all that matters!
i water cooled my 3070 it's lighter with out the heavy gpu cooler
The content of your channel is amazing, please keep bringing videos like this, your small community supports you😁😁
It's hitting the point that PCIE GPU's need a rework, no one saw GPU's getting this big when the PCIE slot was designed.
OEM PC's moved to AIO's to avoid damage from shipping with air coolers, using AIO's on GPU's may be the easy fix without a rework like extending the PCIE slot length to give better support.
With the size that high end graphics cards are getting. I'm surprised that this wasn't an issue earlier. The standard orientation for motherboards in cases is just asking for trouble with these giant cards without brackets for extra support.
That's my feeling too. I get the sense so many were thinking "how can the consumer know?" But when I got my 4090, which was recently (and before I read anything about cracking), the first thing that came to mind was the weight not being a good thing.
Main reason I think this problem started is because of PCIE Gen4. I think that required a higher layer count for signal integrity. The fiberglass dielectric layers are much thinner when the layer count is higher and each lamination causes more weakness. I'm sure a 4 or 6 layer PCB can hold up alot better than a 12 or 15 layer PCB. As much work goes into designing a 15 layer GPU PCB you would think they would have designed them better for mechanical stress when they know they are sticking a massive cooler on the thing.
The back of that card at 11:01 has an insane amount of SMD parts... wow.
I think it looks crazy because of the silkscreen with all of the designators, which most cards don't have nowadays. A good amount of the pads are unpopulated. Gigabyte cards aren't quite as wide as some other cards though, so they're definitely more dense typically!
@@WasatchElectronics got it, must be my phone then. I don't run high resolution UA-cam videos because of data usage... and if course eye sight isn't what it use to be either on small screens. Perhaps I need to change something here huh?... Lol.
Back in the day the full length card support bracket was standard, it came with the enclosure. There was usually a plastic piece which held dual duty, you could mount an 80mm fan into it, and you can clip your full length PCBs into it, such as CT3980, TBS Pinnacle. I had a CT3980 actually. ISA cards slotted into there directly with the PCB, while PCI cards had an offset bracket piece that looks like a weird handle, because ISA and PCI have different edge connector bracket offset - so ISA are component side up, while PCI are component side down.
My gigabyte 4080 came with a support bracket for the end of the pcb opposite the IO. The only problem is it does not fit my case. I purchased an adjustable vertical support rod from Amazon before installing the gpu in my case. It just made sense to me because of the size and weight of the gpu. I was in board repair for 30 plus years. Just retired. Arthritis is a bitch! Great video, take care.
Oh really? What brand was it? That's unfortunate that it didn't fit, but good choice on grabbing one that does. Those are heavy cards.
That's much longer than I've been doing this. I only have maybe 3 years of microsoldering and board repair, although I've been soldering and fixing things for ~7.5 now. I definitely went head first though, now I specialize in burnt and damaged pcb's. I know what you mean, between repair / school / working on a computer all day, I can feel it taking a toll on my wrists. I've been trying to combat that best as I can, the last thing I want is to have to end my career or hobbies because of too much pain. Thank you, you as well!
@@WasatchElectronics, stay healthy, take care and god bless. if you need anything let me know. I have a ton of equipment, mostly entry-level when I taught PCB repair classes to disabled vets. mint condition just sitting on shelves. There's a big market in drone repair among other things. I just finished two of them. again, take care.
Great video man. Didn't know the cracks could bust through the screw hole though so that was an interesting one to see.
Oh yeah, they can definitely crack at the screw hole. And as you saw in the video, when it happens it's bad...
@@WasatchElectronics yeah that was a crazy one. Well done for even attempting a repair on that. I'd have called it a parts board immediately.
@@NotThatGuyJD I specialize in PCB repair, so this was right up my alley. I like doing the stuff that others don't like to touch haha.
That said, I really don't like fixing these because they're prone to a lot of issues from the damage they've taken. The one that I ran all of the jumpers on still isn't fixed (Part of me is annoyed at that card so I just work on other stuff while it sits there...), and I have another that I'm not even attempting the repair. Just swapping the core and memory to another pcb.
Cracks occur from uneven forces from heat during production of pcb and soldering of various chips. When the graphics card is in use, those forces will be opened, and then contract when the graphics card is not in use. The small radius you see on gigabytes is a big contributing factor as it acts as a small spring for those forces. A larger radius distributes the forces over a much larger area on the Pcb like we have on the Asus card
It AIN'T just Gigabit cards dude.... Just keepin it reals.
After seeing a lot of cracked 4090 cards on youtube, I decided to add 2 more GPU support stand to my card, those smaller telescopic ones to help with the cooler master tempered glass gpu stand I used since day1.
How many Gigabyte owners use a support bracket to keep the GPU in place and prevent it from sagging/cracking? This is a step I am personally taking to keep my ASRock Phantom Gaming D Radeon RX 6600XT OC in a safe position once I install it and start using it.
I use one for my Aorus 4090. This will happen to all 4000 series cards over time without a bracket. The coolers are massive. I think a 5-30 dollar bracket is a wise investment.
using one for my 3080TI, never had a problem. If user dont use a support bracket its their own fault. its pretty obvious those heavy cards need them.
wow this is insane work on repair for these cards
really enlightening, def some things to consider when considering these cards. thanks for your video.
This is a nightmare. Having a 4070 TI From Gigabyte and looking at those damage, I feel so bad for those that had such problems. When I did mount the GPU on my mobo (Aorus B550 Pro AC ) after 15/20 seconds the GPU was already bending. The bracket/support Gigabyte give with the GPU wasn't enough. So I did end up making one of my own and it seem to be fine but, I'm still worried. My 4070 TI have a backplate that's unecessary large and heavy and I think that's part of the problem too With such a large mass, the entire GPU is negatively affected by gravity, especially if mounted horizontally. However I'm not an expert, I can be wrong. Thanks for this content. Have a good day.
This was mostly beyond me but I think I learned a few things. One thing, though: you need to mark the difference between fitting a card upright - as in the original IBM PCs - with the outputs coming out of the back of the case and fitting a card vertically - as in the Silverstone FT02 and FT05 among other cases - with the outputs coming out the top or the bottom of the case.
I was a micro miniature ET for the Navy for many many years. I was an ET for the USPS and once in a while in an emergency I would fix a sorter card but mostly they just throw them away and buy a new one.. Today, the labor costs involved and the thickness of the cards vs the weight and the mass of them are just not worth fixing. Gotta be careful when you are installing them.
the fact that some humans are able to fix these cracks in those beyond tiny lanes and make a pretty much totalled card work again is absolutly mindblowing to me..
yt tried showing me the bigger youtubers vids over the past days and i never clicked. i am happy that it did not stop and finally won to inform me by showing me ur vid at 450 views.. thanks for sharing ur knowledge, i will sub and hope u get much more exposure, truly remarkable work!
Thanks for watching, I appreciate it! It's quite the repair, I wish I had some footage of me actually fixing one on hand - that would have made for a great addition to the video.
I was so close to buying a gigabyte 40 series glad I seen all of this first.
Great video, very informative, thank you! I'm subbed. Did you teach yourself everything or were there courses or larger educational programs involved?
Thank you! There's not a lot of graphics card repair information out there unfortunately, although it's getting better. I'm a mix of self-taught and getting help from others that knew/know more than me. I've had to (and still have to) do a lot of discovery on my own, especially when new issues arise that no one has seen before. Graphics card repair is probably 80% diagnosis 10% soldering, with a few exceptions
I suspect 1 possibility that could be a contributing factor is the composition of the substrate that makes up the PCB, with all the green madness thats happened over the last 20 years, maybe its just more brittle as a result
Awesome awesome video. I wonder if the card is hanging, like in an upright ROG Z11 case, if the problem becomes null?, due to the weight not being stressed in that direction at all.
Yes, should be a non-issue if the card is mounted vertically in any way
2:38 makes it very obvious, the screw hole above at the left side of the pci-e creates a weak point, prone to making a crack.
Design flaw.
thank you for this material, I wish I had this knowledge before
As owner of a lot of gigabyte gpus, is the first time i hear about cracking pcb... But is true too, some cards are pretty heavy but in the 40XX series Gigabyte provides a very sturdy antisag, those prevents gpu bending (i saw some systems, the cpu bends so badly, it was scary to see). I used ever the Lian Li antisag, no matter how long the gpu is for prevent the bending.
gigabyte anti sag solution is not compatible with many mainboards
Very enlightening. Thank you for doing this.
Thank you for watching, and of course!
".. and by we I mean it's just me". Same here.
When shipping a PC it only makes sense to leave the GPU out, in a protected box. Those UPS/FedEx/USPS drivers will toss those boxes around. I have saw prebuilts that come with the GPU removed, I guess some may not be comfortable installing a GPU, but I bet they would be a lot more uncomfortable replacing their fairly new 3080.
I completely agree. I don't know why companies are shipping cards inside of pc's, it's not hard to install them - even for someone that doesn't really know what they're doing
Horizontal motherboard layout is superior anyways. It just makes more sense. You dont have a heavy CPU cooler and graphic card hanging off of the motherboard. I had a Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 3080 12gb and now the same model RTX 4070 which does appear to have a slightly thicker PCB if I'm not mistaken. No cracking. I think the vast majority of cracking cases are from PC that were either shipped (pre-builts) or moved around roughly.
shud i bought the 4070 ti super gigabyte gaming oc or Windforce/eagle one. rest msi and asus are expensive in india and i dont like inno 3d , zotacs , galax or colorful , im upgrading from Nvidia Rtx 3070 FE
I just bought a new system. i9 14900 with a Gigabyte 4090 and Gigabyte included an anti sag bracket set. One bracket L shapped connects to the motherboard and the other connects to the end of the 4090. Then you screw the 2 together. Is this not sufficient enough?
They must be only including anti sag bracket on select SKUs. I have both 3080 & 3090 Aorus Master sku's. They do not come with a anti sag bracket. Mind you aorus master /extreme sku's are their top tier range and their not cheap. For them to include a bracket shows that they are aware that their GPU'S are cracking. Really they should make the PCB more durable. Back in the day they always used to tout how great their PCBS were. They used to run a marketing campaign called Ultra durable PCB talking about how many layers of traces they had over their competitors. Tbh their competitors marketed similar campaigns too. To me it does sound like they have cheaped out on the material used in the graphics cards. I hope they do make a better durable revision next time
Poor design. The enginering choice of putting the coolers mounting hole close to and diagonal to a obvious and common, stress point was a shortsighted design choice. It will fail evertime for a varity of reasons from mishanding to material fatigue. Consumer products have to take into account that are not going to remain static for the duration of the products life cycle. PCI-e locking tabs are notoriously difficult to release, exacerbating the designs inherent weakness. The other cards shown from the different manufacturers avoided this issue by relocating the mounting hole.
How much do crack fixes prices run? Does it make sense to get a new GPU card? For example, a $500.00 card, how much would it cost to fix a crack or two?
With GPU prices coming back down from lets say 12 or 18 months ago, these are becoming less worth it to repair. I charge $40/hr for labor at the moment as an example, and I could spend upwards of 10 hours on a cracked card if it's badly damaged. So as a customer it's not worth it. I only do these if I can get them for the right price, and I know I don't have to repair 30+ traces. I really just avoid them in general though, even if I can make money off of it I don't enjoy working on the same card for 10+ hours.
Arguably the jumper method is going to be the best long term repair. Instead of relying on UV resin to strengthen the board.
Also when a problem occurs this often, one has to start drawing a line between abuse and poor engineering. There is way too much of this going on at the moment.
I completely agree, I think the jumper method is going to make for a longer lasting card. I should have mentioned that if you're using uv resin to fill things in after repairing the traces (non-jumper method), you're not going to be properly reinforcing the card where it cracked before.
To properly reinforce it, you need to use epoxy. Then you'll run in to some really bad issues if any of the traces get broken again, you're essentially going to have to redo your entire repair and possibly more.
I agree, they should have already recognized that this is an issue and started to do something about it. I hope that internally they've done so, but all we can do is wait and see if it changes in future cards.
I tip my hat to your knowledge and expertise.
I got burned by gigabyte on a motherboard about 10 years ago. Board died 1 month after purchase. Did an RMA just to have them refuse to warranty it due to physical damage they caused to the board.
I’ll pay $500 more just to avoid giving them a penny.
If not mounting vertically what about a GPU support bracket? I can find numerous types on amazon for 10-20$
I made the mistake of buying an RTX 4080 Aero OC by Gigabyte because it was on sale and was a cheaper option than the 7900xtx that I was originally looking at... I have it well supported, but I cant say Im happy about this news, and if I'd known about this before the purchase I made months ago, I would have got a different brand
I felt a great disturbance in the force.
As if a million double-entendres cried out and were suddenly silenced.
I don't understand why this is an issue. Working on workstations and server's many years ago, the cards were supported on the front end with an adapter to make the card longer and that adapter slide into a slot on the back of the front of the case. Hope at least what I said make sense.
Its simple the pcb is not strong enough for the giant size of the cooler.
I wonder if it's coincidence that Gigabyte includes support brackets for their 4000 series cards - at least for the Aorus & AERO models. I'm not sure if they included those from the beginning or if it's a more recent revision, but it was one reason I went with Gigabyte in my recent build (before these cracking cases came up) because I liked their solution a lot more than a lot of the third party offerings. Guess now time will tell if it helps.
So I bought a gaming oc recently and didn't know anything about this stuff till yesterday. It's so hard to keep up to date with all this stuff. So from what I am hearing it's the weight of the card that's causing this. Also it's on alot of 30 series cards and alot of those didn't come with support brackets..interesting to see if those cards did have after market one. Yes the new comes with the bracket and is also a very cool card...the 30 series weren't. Iv actually got a support bracket as well in my build since the latest information kind of spooked me a bit. I also live in Australia where anti consumers laws are really harsh on faulty manufacturing issues, which matters I hear gigabyte are pretty scummy to deal with. Time will tell but I feel like gigabyte anticipated this hence the additional support brackets..that can't be a coincidence.
How's your card going btw? For me it's going really good but IV only had it for a little over a 10 days 😂
@@c523jw7 Well, it's only been a little over 2 months for me, so no problems here. As I wrote above: Time will tell. I'm not going to worry now and not check the socket daily or something. If something happens, I'll deal with it when/if that day comes. :)
The locking tabs were never a good design, but it's especially bad now when cards are so big (and heavy) they obscure access to the PCIE slot. A single through hole on the slot might be better, plus you can design the pin to sheer before there is enough force to break a card (it's cheaper to replace a toothpick than a GPU) . It could have been where the PCIE key is after the 11th pin, or where the key was on PCI since I'm now rewriting the spec lol.
It's probably time for a standardized method of transferring force to a case. It could just be an agreed upon position for a mount point at the top of any pcie card. This allows different cases & prebuilts to tie in with a mechanism of their choosing.
It would save a lot of $$ for shipping too.
This looks like damage from not releasing the PCI Express tab locking mechanism first before removing the card. So what does it look like when someone is pulling there card as it's locked to the slot before unlocking the tab? Also some damage from gpu sag?
The ATX standard needs a rework perhaps.
I think the problem is that we're running into the issue of needing to pump more power into things to get more processing power, which means larger coolers. At some point (basically now) the world is going to have to figure out some alternative to the current construction or design of processors, or something that will allow for better power efficiency and less loss in the form of heat. Cards can't keep getting bigger and bigger. The same issue is being seen with processors.
I bought a 4090 gaming oc and the 4080 eagle knowing they have a support bracket included which mounts on the motherboard. They have support brackets included idk if they still crack tho i ordered a vertical mount to be safe tho lol
Cheapest basic metal support I've seen costs $4 retail. _Surely_ most GPU manufacturers can provide one of those in the box for their most expensive hunkin' tech-bricks?
At the very least make _Pretty Damn Sure_ that every buyer of these chunkers is aware of the _need_ for additional support.
One would think it would be in their own interest, preferable to reputation hits and RMA headaches.
is it impossible to make another attachment point to prevent this from happening? either the cardmakers or desktop makers needs to figure something out
Gigabyte's design is down right dumb I have seen many Graphics cards in the past that had that broke off completely and the GPU would would just be fine cause there was nothing there the fact they are putting traces all the way to such a flimsy part is just baffling and stupid at the same time.
Yup, that card I showed with the locking tab missing was only two traces, and it was only because the tab broke off higher up
@@WasatchElectronics it really shows between this and those exploding power supplies that Gigabyte's engineers are either young and inexperienced or is simply not doing their job properly and is just phoning it in as these looks like the first revision they got working and just decided that it was good enough to go to retail.
So this shouldn't be a problem with smaller cards, like 3060 and 4060 with two fans, yes?
Let's talk about corporate incompetence. Seen too often in the software and hardware fields.
Can they be sued for this?
PCB is not meant as a mechanical support. Cards in the past were all vertically mounted, and weight was almost non existent. Over time, manufacturers have been taking liberties, and is why motherboard manufacturers been adding steel re enforced PCI slots. Totally not meant to do the job they are asking of it. They need to re assess the entire GPU / CPU structure and how computers are built.
Holy Smokes, that 2080ti looks so busy and populated it gives me anxiety just by looking at it! o_o
So pretty much if you want to be safe from any potential damage don't ship a PC with gpu installed and ship it separately, and vertical mount the gpu, be nice if modern PC cases would just be designed with vertical gpu mount rather cos its overal better way to mount heavy card.
You got it. Don't ship with the card inside of a case, and mount vertically if you can. If you can't mount vertically, at least put in a support bracket
@@WasatchElectronics Yep PCB cant handle heavy weight of a cooler, a waterblock may be supported by the tubing hanging of the cpu cooler for example but even in such case use a support, the more the better modern case should have support, or the lian li gpu support bracket that is mounted on the motherboard should become the standard.
lately remove my gigabye 3070 iv noticed its getting preey hard to rem ove my gpu from the pcie! the latch on mobo would go all the way down easy useing my finger! could be nothing to do with gpu but thism video title defo spoke out me. be aware etc
The RTX 3080 Aorus Master has a big locking tab, but the screw hole is far away; so will it be safe to purchase it?
I think you might be fine with that card, from what I remember this seems to happen less with the Aorus cards. You can really get any Gigabyte card though, so long as you either mount it vertically or have a support for it
Yet another reason to ALWAYS VERTICAL MOUNT. Since the coolers continue to get more massive every generation, this problem will only accelerate.
mostly card flaws cause material super big heatsink, weight, long time use pressure fans with high rpm make cracking pcb possible after longtime used, best thing put gpu in mobo align with gravity its more safe, even antisag only keep gpu stand but their stress still exist and also gravity
you deserve to have many more suscribers
11:30 deam the 20xx are soo messy at the back compare to today 40xx
So, how should i reach out to you for a graphics card repair?
I recently purchased a gigabyte 4090...... and found out about the cracking issue shortly after my return time window expired. It is side mounted. It came with a support bracket that bolts into the motherboard which I did on day one. Also I put 3 aftermarket magnetic gpu stabilizers on the top non braced side front, back and middle(in between the fans). I dont want to move it. Do you think my remedies are enough or do you think vertically mounting is still better? Great video and insight. Thankyou for your hard work!
I think vertically mounting is the best option, especially with something like a 4090, but it's hard to say without a photo of exactly what you're done. By the sound of it it's probably enough! Basically I would shoot for a setup where the card doesn't move at all after it's inserted and you're no longer holding it. If that's the case you should be golden :)
I wonder how many of these were from someone grabbing there tower seat belt strapping it into their car and going to a buddies house.
Probably a decent chunk unfortunately
Where he can get that shematic or board view? Thanks
How do you get access to board traces like that?
I think you need to make your voice / microphone louder, i have to crank up very high my volume just to listen you talk. Good details by the way.
Thanks for the feedback, it sounds okay on my end but someone else told me the same thing. I'll make sure to boost the volume in future videos!
@@WasatchElectronics Volume is def low...
Jesus freaking christ, this video is like the autopsy of a chainsaw masacer in pre school. Absolutly horrifying pictures...
I specialize in PCB repair, so I've got a lot more where these came from lol
Cooler weight is part of it. Notice, how narrow and long Gigabyte GPUs are (also, how overpopulated are their PCBs). Most manufacturers increased width, which in turn allowed them to make the GPUs shorter. That ultra long PCB acts as a lever against the slot and the locking part is the weakest and most strained spot.
This Gigabyte approach is extremely short-sighted. If you buy a GPU, it cracks in this spot by itself and then the manufacturer will deny your warranty, would you buy another GPU from the same manufacturer? Personally, after such experience, i´d avoid their products forever.
Yeah I wish I would have talked about this, if you compare the Gigabyte 3090 and the MSI 3090 for example, the MSI has a much wider PCB. This also means that they've been able to route traces on the "edge" of the board, without actually being on the edge, so a pci-e crack won't actually affect anything.
отличные карты у Гигабайт. Просто не надо возить компутер с установленной в него картой или заказывать готовый. любая современная видеокарта должна транспортироваться в отдельной коробке и тогда не будет проблем. службы доставки всегда швыряют и пинают посылки.
поэтому комп надо покупать отдельными частями в отдельных коробках и после доставки собирать самому по месту жительства.
but the asus is $200 more expensive than gigabyte in my area, unfortunate, hope there is evga still around.
Really poor PCB design. Basically designed to fail. They could just move the traces further away from the edge, and also shape the PCB around the slot bracket with larger curve radius to make it much more robust. Shame on Gigabyte.
have you seen any gigabyte Radeon cards doing the same issue? disappointing, I've historically bought gigabyte and now I'm really doubting I will continue the trend.
In other words, the GPUs should be delivered with riser cables, to remove the risk of this happening again.
That would be nice, but the cards being delivered in a separate package (for prebuilts) and with supports from factory (some cards have this now) would be enough to basically eliminate the issue
I think Gigabyte make those PCB's out of Cardboard and Cornflakes. Gigabyte used to mean something in terms of quality, it seems like those days are long gone!
In my mind gigabyte are 100% at fault, they have chosen to put the traces right next to a locking tab and use a PCB material that isn't as strong as other manufacturers, they made this choice, us the end user didn't, their choices are causing what we are seeing, so they should take responsibility for those choices, we the end user don't have information about what the board is made of or where these traces have been placed, only gigabyte has this information, there for at purchase we didn't have all the information we needed as consumers, gigabyte are responsible!
@@Irnwkr28 mine hasn't done it yet, I'm going to open a support ticket, take a picture of it, explain that if it randomly cracks after correctly installed then they will be sorting it out
Does this issue also affects lower tier cards like 3060ti/3070? Appreciate your analysis.
Not as much, but it depends on the card. It's all really on the weight of the cooler and the PCB design. It doesn't seem to happen as much on the more expensive Gigabyte cards, for example
@@WasatchElectronics thanks for the insight! When I bought my Aorus 3070, I noticed a GPU sag right off the bat after installing, so I fixed it with a support bracket to alleviate the stress from the PCB. With hefty cards recently, I also think that the screw and PCIE slot isnt enough to support the entire weight. There has to be some kind of triangulation to properly distribute the gravity of a rectangular 3D object.
Great video, very informative! Some feedback: it's like I'm watching Buildzoid, repeating the same thing for 5 times. Try to be more concise :)
WOW, thanks im avoiding Gigabyte GPUs like the plague, But what about there monitors, i have an Aorus which is made by Gigabyte, should i be worried of it!!!
User error, no sag support. Asus cards brake to, so does the MSI ones ...
like a week ago i boght my rtx 4060 eagle and learned this today :)