How could I save this GPU's life?

Hi Dear Sir/Madam,

I bought a Hydro-GFX-GTX-1080 Ti GPU card (https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/hydro-gfx-1080-ti) from this official website three years ago. This card has been running quite fluently in these years.

Now, things have changed, where I think the main cause is the breakdown of the liquid cooling system for this card.

When running with full load, the GPU temperature will be nearly 90C and the GPU Fan speed will be 99%, which produces a huge amount of noise.

Please have a look at the following picture:

where the GPU 1 is the card what I said. The GPU 0 is a GTX 1080 ti bought in the NVIDIA official site (the founder version).

At the first one or two years, the card 1 is very cooler than the card 0.

For example, the card 1 was always about 50C~70C, while the card 0 was about 60~80C.

But starting from the last year, the card 1 seemed be broken and the gpu fan was very loud and

I worried about that whether the card 1 was really broken.

But it seemed to be able to run with high temperature and high fan speed.

Could you please give some advice on how to fix this issue for this card?

I thought the main cause might lie in the liquid system.

Is there any way to change the liquid in the system? How could I achieve this?

Is it possible to change the liquid with water?

Thanks in advice!

You are going to need to contact Corsair Support to see what options are available. It's a bit of a unique product and I am not sure how they will handle it. The most likely scenario is you don't have adequate coolant flow in the loop, probably do to a blockage. The cooler is a closed loop system and not meant for maintenance. I would hope the plastic shell on the GPU can be easily removed with a hex screw driver and a new cooler mounted to the GPU chip, but I think few of us have ever seen the inside of one. There aren't that many of them and sometimes these things wind up with proprietary attachments that require specialized parts.

Hi, thanks a lot for your kind comments and suggestions!

Yeah, I also thought this card was probably broken in the cooling system.

In fact, I also bought a CORSAIR Hydro Series H100i v2 AIO Liquid CPU Cooler for the CPU cooling, this cooler is working fine.

If things are as you kindly pointed out, it would be great that we can replace the liquid cooling system with other new liquid cooling system.

But have a look at the card, it seems the liquid cooling part is fixed into the card and as a regular user, I'm not sure how to take it down and replace it.

The card is used for three years, so I think the Support Center might ignore my request.

What I am hoping is the plastic outer shell of the GPU splits into two pieces, like most Pascal models. Then there is a fairly standard AIO block/head bolted to the GPU. Bolting this on is pretty much like mounting a CPU AIO cooler, with the exception of some different mounting hardware. I don't know what the inside looks like for sure and there is likely to be some type of bracket, but it is very unlikely Corsair created a unique AIO just for that. There likely is a replacement for the AIO part of the hybrid card and that is more likely than an entire replacement of both components.

The product page doesn't specify a warranty period, however that is likely because there are two companies involved with the product and there could be two different warranties -- one for the GPU and one for the AIO. Corsair AIOs typically have a 5 year warranty. Rather lengthy compared to what you get on any GPU. I would contact them to see.

What I am hoping is the plastic outer shell of the GPU splits into two pieces, like most Pascal models. Then there is a fairly standard AIO block/head bolted to the GPU. Bolting this on is pretty much like mounting a CPU AIO cooler, with the exception of some different mounting hardware. I don't know what the inside looks like for sure and there is likely to be some type of bracket, but it is very unlikely Corsair created a unique AIO just for that. There likely is a replacement for the AIO part of the hybrid card and that is more likely than an entire replacement of both components.

 

The product page doesn't specify a warranty period, however that is likely because there are two companies involved with the product and there could be two different warranties -- one for the GPU and one for the AIO. Corsair AIOs typically have a 5 year warranty. Rather lengthy compared to what you get on any GPU. I would contact them to see.

Yeah, the CPU AIO cooler in my PC is working very well, but the graphics card described before seems broken.

I found the warranty policy in the official website:

https://help.corsair.com/hc/en-us/articles/360033067832-Corsair-Limited-Warranty, which says "All graphic cards have a 2-year warranty".

So my card might not have their service.

at the very worse, this card is listed as using FE design. So it could be retroffited with a custom loop waterblock. but that's another kind of investment..

Hi, thanks a lot for your kind comment and suggestion!

If the card is completely not working, I plan to remove the liquid cooling part.

Currently the air-cooling system still works.

Hi, I've opened the GPU card and it seems like the follows:

It seems the thermal grease became solid. So I plan to replace with a new thermal grease. Hope this can help.

With regard to the liquid cooling system, it seems we can surely replace with a new liquid cooling or air cooling system.

grease

OK, that is about what I was expecting. There is unique square bracket around the cold plate. It is very similar (probably identical) to the EVGA unit I used on my Titan X (Pascal) hybrid. The only thing that makes it different from an off the shelf 120mm Astek AIO is that unique mounting plate - but it is essential. If you were to replace the AIO cooler on your own, you will need to transfer that plate to the new cooler. It would need to be an Asetek AIO (like a Corsair H50). If the cooler is the problem, I would strongly recommend you reach out to Corsair and see if they can provide a direct bolt on replacement. Taking off the cold plate on those coolers is a major headache. The screws often do not want to come out. It is high level of difficulty for most people.

I don't know if this is a contact issue or not. One sign that is that and not the cooler is if when you booted up the system after it had been off for some time, the GPU was instantly hot. If the cooler is the problem, it would boot up almost like normal, but you could watch the GPU temp tick up +1C every few seconds until it finally gets to that 70-90C range. You certainly can put on new TIM, bolt it back on, and see how it goes.

OK, that is about what I was expecting. There is unique square bracket around the cold plate. It is very similar (probably identical) to the EVGA unit I used on my Titan X (Pascal) hybrid. The only thing that makes it different from an off the shelf 120mm Astek AIO is that unique mounting plate - but it is essential. If you were to replace the AIO cooler on your own, you will need to transfer that plate to the new cooler. It would need to be an Asetek AIO (like a Corsair H50). If the cooler is the problem, I would strongly recommend you reach out to Corsair and see if they can provide a direct bolt on replacement. Taking off the cold plate on those coolers is a major headache. The screws often do not want to come out. It is high level of difficulty for most people.

 

I don't know if this is a contact issue or not. One sign that is that and not the cooler is if when you booted up the system after it had been off for some time, the GPU was instantly hot. If the cooler is the problem, it would boot up almost like normal, but you could watch the GPU temp tick up +1C every few seconds until it finally gets to that 70-90C range. You certainly can put on new TIM, bolt it back on, and see how it goes.

Hi, @c-attack, I've replaced the themal grease with a new one, for both the GTX 1080 Ti FE (card 0) and the Hydro-GFX-GTX-1080 Ti GPU (card 1).

Now the cooling for card 1 seems imporved. Please check the following two pictures:

where the first is at its idle time and the second is at its busy time.

The cooling for card 1 has significant improvement (~70C at busy), while

the cooling system for card 0 has no clear improvement (~88C at busy).

Now we can confirm that the liquid cooling from the Hydro-GFX (card 1) is still OK and has positive abilitiy.

Not sure why the cooling for card 0 has no improvement. I think maybe it is because of the themal grease.

I used the https://www.amazon.com/ARCTIC-MX-4-Compound-Micro-particles-Durability/dp/B0795DP124.

I bought the themal grease three years ago when I bought the CPU box.

Now I used this themal grease into the GPU card. Not sure if this is valid for the GPU card.

The following are some pictures when I replaced the thermal grease for them. Please check the attachments.

Ok, AIO cooler is likely fine. You would not be able to hold 29C at the idle for more than 5 minutes if f the cooler had a flow issue. Also, it would not cool down after load. It would stay at 50-70C for a long period of time after the the load and gpu voltage dropped. Looks like you are good to go.

Yeah, both cards seem work very well until now.

Greatly appreciated for your kind comments and suggestions!