4 days ago I got a notice from EVGA that I could purchase one of their RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra cards. I had pretty much given up on availability until next spring. I jumped on it and even paid premium postage to get it the next day.

I installed it with little trouble beyond redoing the 3 power cables from the PSU to the card. Good opportunity to give the case a good cleaning. Installed the latest driver and proceeded to try everything out. Over all, pretty impressive, as it should be for $1750. Not surprisingly, MSFS 2020 was not much different from my 1080ti SC, but I wasn't expecting it to be.

Anyway, on to my point:

So, 2 days in (yesterday, Dec. 24th). I'm playing Elite Dangerous (I have to unlock all the engineers, after all) and poof. The card dies. No warning. Just suddenly the fans go full speed and the video signal dies. The programs is still running (I can hear the beeps and spfffssss sounds. Space, afterall, does contain sounds). I do a forced shut down and restart. Nothing on the video card front.

I take a close look and swap cables around and check connection status. Still nothing, but did notice a single red LED above one of the power connectors. Check the internet for "EVGA red LED" and what do you know? This is a fairly common issue. The "Red LED of Death".

Being the holiday weekend, I'm hangered until monday, but I'll be getting a replacement in a week or 2 or who knows. That's OK. I thought I'd post my experience here for those who might be considering a card such as this one. I probably just got unlucky and early adopter risk and all that, but this problem does exist and I wanted you all to be aware.

You may be waiting a bit for a replacement.  From EVGA's support page:

RMA Service: RMA Services will be closed on 12/25/20 and reopen on 1/5/21

Wow...that stinks.  What are you using for a PSU?

I did a lot of reading on the RTX3090 before I bought one and I was left with the impression that the 3090 chipset does not sport a lot of overclocking headroom.  EVGA's 1800 MHz FTW3 cards are real power monsters, needing three aux power feeds vs the two feeds on the 1725 MHz and 1695 MHz XC3 boards.  I opted for one of the 1725 MHz boards rather than one of the 1800 MHz FTW versions as a result, and also taking into account my history of having to downclock a few of their earlier generation factory overclocked FTW and Hydrocopper boards as they aged and the fairly aggressive factory overclocks became unstable.

 

I'm using a EVGA 850 something or other. Pretty much top-end 850W version.

I'm thinking about just getting a refund; I'm not interested in having to repeat the RMA process more than 1x and reading their forums, some people claim to be on board number 3.

We'll see and I'll update here as things progress.

Merry Christmas

Bit of a bummer, but I presume you could just stick your old GPU back in and be no worse off than you were before, apart from being a bit lighter in the wallet but with a nice expensive paperweight.

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by Chock

10 hours ago, RichieFly said:

 The "Red LED of Death".

Being the holiday weekend, I'm hangered until monday, but I'll be getting a replacement in a week or 2 or who knows. That's OK. I thought I'd post my experience here for those who might be considering a card such as this one. I probably just got unlucky and early adopter risk and all that, but this problem does exist and I wanted you all to be aware.

 

I have the same card. From Scan UK. arrived last week. So thanks for posting.

I haven't investigated this red LED of death, but what was the capacitor arangement on the card. All POSCAPS or MLCC caps too? 3090 should have two MLCC arays. Probably not signifcant to this issue, but just out of interest.

For PSU, Nvidia recomend 750 watt minimum. For the FTW card I opted for 1000 watt. Seemed to make sense given the cards overclock and my chosen CPU.

Re the power cables, did you use any kind of adapter or splitter, or three separate PCIe cables?

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by martin-w

Sorry to hear your new RTX3090 has already died.  By the way, there is no way I am going to pay $1750 or anywhere near that for one graphics card.  I'll completely give up flight sims first.

11 hours ago, RichieFly said:

 

Anyway, on to my point:

So, 2 days in (yesterday, Dec. 24th). I'm playing Elite Dangerous (I have to unlock all the engineers, after all) and poof. The card dies. No warning. Just suddenly the fans go full speed and the video signal dies. The programs is still running (I can hear the beeps and spfffssss sounds. Space, afterall, does contain sounds). I do a forced shut down and restart. Nothing on the video card front.

I take a close look and swap cables around and check connection status. Still nothing, but did notice a single red LED above one of the power connectors. Check the internet for "EVGA red LED" and what do you know? This is a fairly common issue. The "Red LED of Death".

Being the holiday weekend, I'm hangered until monday, but I'll be getting a replacement in a week or 2 or who knows. That's OK. I thought I'd post my experience here for those who might be considering a card such as this one. I probably just got unlucky and early adopter risk and all that, but this problem does exist and I wanted you all to be aware.

 

 

Been reading about this, as you say, quite a few suffering from this issue.

What was your serial number? Some are speculating its those starting with 2014 that have issues. 

And my card does start with 2014. 

I will pay about $400 max for a graphics card, so obviously a 3000 series card isn’t in my future any time soon. Sorry to hear your 3090 died. That must be frustrating. 

16 minutes ago, RobJC said:

I will pay about $400 max for a graphics card, so obviously a 3000 series card isn’t in my future any time soon.

You can buy the Nvidia version of the 3060ti for $400.

Thanks for the replies.

Let's see here...

Serial number begins with 2014, so a Taiwan made version.

I did not use any splitters. I have a EVGA 850 gold or something. It's modular designed, so each power connector on the card had its own discrete power cable.

Yeah, don't buy this card for MSFS 2020 or any other flight sim, for that matter. I do a fair amount of rendering / transcoding, so the big memory and memory speed is appealing to me. Also, Elite Dangerous (j/k). The difference between this card and my 1080ti SC is minimal at 4K from a flight simulator point of view. 

And finally, I have gotten a reply from EVGA. So, I guess someone is tasked with support duty the day after Christmas.

All is well. Having me and my family survive the plague up till now is the best christmas present I could hope for. So, a broke-d__k video card is no biggie.

Oh okay. So each connector had its own cable. Was kind off hoping it was related to using a splitter or something, rather than a component on the board.

I'll cross my fingers and hope mine isn't affected.

14 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Oh okay. So each connector had its own cable. Was kind off hoping it was related to using a splitter or something, rather than a component on the board.

I'll cross my fingers and hope mine isn't affected.

From my reading of the EVGA forums, the problem seems to happen pretty soon; within a few days. So, if you've had yours for a few weeks it will probably be fine. Here's hoping so...

I suspect it is some surface mounted components related to power regulation that's failing. Some have reported hearing a pop at failure. I can't say if that's my case,

Finally, the arrangement of the power regulator chips on the visible portion of the card; they're a mixture. I hope you don't mind that I don't pull it out and examine the exact configuration.

Actually mine is still in its box. Won't be building for a while.

Hopefully those with issues are a small percentage of the total sold to date.

Is yours the old version with red lip detail or black. Mine's the revised black lip version. 

Edited December 26, 20205 yr by martin-w

Black lips. Yeah, I'm thinking this is a small portion of cards.

Update from EVGA: they're providing a free EAR use. Nice of them. The rep said since it happened so soon after getting the card they'd do this. Quite a nice gesture. This is why I always buy from these guys.