Nvidia recently launched its new Ampere GPU in the flagship lineup, the RTX 3080. But the launch was plagued with a range of issues, since the RTX 3080 stocks were sold out immediately within few minutes at several retailers across the US, UK and Europe. Some Major e-tailers also experienced extremely high wave of traffic, and this brought their entire website down as well. Though, some customers managed to grab the GPU.
In the past few days there have been reports of several crashes/CTDs, and random black screen issues while Gaming, with factory-overclocked custom NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics cards. The issues were reported on several tech forums and also social media platforms. Users have been experiencing severe crashes during Gaming sessions.
According to posts made on various Forums, the card seems to crash to the desktop while gaming, which is commonly referred to as CTD. Some users have also reported black screen issues as well, where the GPU driver simply bugs out.
A “crash to desktop” is said to occur when a program such as a video game in this case, unexpectedly quits, abruptly taking the user back to the desktop. Usually, the term is applied only to crashes where no error is displayed; hence all the user sees as a result of the crash is the desktop. Many times there is no apparent action that causes a crash to desktop. During normal function, the program may freeze for a shorter period of time, and then close by itself. Also during normal function, the program may become a black screen and repeatedly play the last few seconds of sound (depending on the size of the data buffer) that was being played before it crashes to desktop.
Many users claimed that the crash occurs when the GPU tries to exceed a boost clock value of 2.0 GHz. The problem was widespread. Wccftech’s Tech Editor, @Keith May, also faced a similar issue with a custom GeForce RTX 3080 GPU from Colorful which had to be returned back.
Now to see how many people caught it was a joke. But the ah my iGame card is said to have this issue but it didn’t happen while I was running it, they’re sending a replacement even though it ran fine 🤷♂️
— May-Day🇺🇸 (@KeithPlaysPC) September 23, 2020
You can read the previous overview article as posted on ComputerBase. Apart from this, on LinusTechTips some forum users reported issues with the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3080 Trinity.
At Overclockers.co.uk owners of MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ventus 3X OC were experiencing similar issues. Even on ComputerBase’s own forums, you can find several threads on this same problem. Few other custom AIB card models are also exhibiting this same crash to desktop/black screen behavior. To get more info on this you should kindly check the following tech forum threads, NVIDIA, Tom’s Hardware, Tweakers, and Reddit.
“The card boosts significantly too high with default settings in games after only a few seconds with up to 2,040 MHz, which naturally causes a crash”, –R-47, a Community Member wrote.
At that time, ComputerBase was unable to reproduce this issue with at least three custom models, but they contacted the GPU manufacturers to rectify this issue. And now we have some official response from some of the custom board partners/AIBs.
On September 25th igor’s LAB published the first analysis of the problem, suggesting that the capacitors/CAPs used in the GPU are the main culprit. The capacitors can be seen at the back of the GPU, since most of these cards don’t have a backplate. The reference board PG132 design was used as base design by AIB partners to architecture their custom cards. But the issue here is that apparently NVIDIA’s BOM/ bill of materials left an open choice in terms of power cleanup and regulation in the mounted capacitors.
The Base Design actually features six mandatory capacitors for filtering high frequencies on the GPU voltage rails, NVVDD and MSVDD. There are a number of choices for capacitors to be installed here, with varying levels of capability. The better the filtering the less likely the GPU is to encounter any crash or instability issue at high GPU clock frequencies, including factory-overclocking.
POSCAPs (Conductive Polymer Tantalum Solid Capacitors) are generally worse than SP-CAPs (Conductive Polymer-Aluminium-Electrolytic-Capacitors), which are then replaced in quality by MLCCs (Multilayer Ceramic Chip Capacitor), which have to be deployed in groups.
The problem was first reported when custom GPUs were reaching 2.0 GHz+ clock speeds during gaming, which resulted in frequent CTDs, black screen issues. So if suppose the voltage filtering is worse and the GPU clock speed is too high, then more likely users are going to encounter this problem. This whole issue is related to the choice of capacitor, at least for now. But we can’t rule out any Power Supply issue as well, since the power supply unit’s +12V RAIL will also come into play here (to some extent).
Here is the thing. The custom board partners have to follow certain guidelines outlined by NVIDIA to either use POSCAPs (Conductive Polymer Tantalum Solid Capacitors), which are marked red on the picture below, or MLCCs (Multilayer Ceramic Chip Capacitor), which are marked as green.
We can also use a combination of both the CAP types. It appears Nvidia’s guidelines were not very clear, and it was hard to do a proper testing ahead of the GPU launch date. ‘Actually Hardcore Overclocking’ YT channel claims that these are not POSCAPs, but instead they are called SP-Caps.
Now, the GPU brands that opted for more MLCCs instead of POSCAPs are seeing fewer reports on instability and CTD. A full list of all cards including their capacitor layouts was compiled by Nestledrink (NVIDIA Subreddit moderator). The MLCC is actually cheap and small, and they operate at current high ratings, voltages, and temperatures, but they are prone to cracking and ‘piezo’ effects, and they also have bad temperature characteristics.
The POSCAP on the other hand is slightly bigger having lower voltage ratings but is worse at high frequencies. But they are stronger and not prone to cracking unlike MLCC. They also have no piezo effects, and also operate better at higher temperatures. These are mechanically also very strong (no MLCC cracking), and there is no DC bias as well (very stable at different voltages).
An electrical engineer who specializes in PCB design @Mirrormaster85 has posted more info on these capacitors. At this time, NVIDIA has not responded back. But we have some statements from some AIBs.
COLORFUL:
The manufacturer was the first to report on a issue unofficially to the press. Review samples that were already sent out, were later recalled.
EVGA:
“Recently there has been some discussion about the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 series.
During our mass production QC testing we discovered a full 6 POSCAPs solution cannot pass the real world applications testing. It took almost a week of R&D effort to find the cause and reduce the POSCAPs to 4 and add 20 MLCC caps prior to shipping production boards, this is why the EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 series was delayed at launch. There were no 6 POSCAP production EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 FTW3 boards shipped.
But, due to the time crunch, some of the reviewers were sent a pre-production version with 6 POSCAP’s, we are working with those reviewers directly to replace their boards with production versions.
EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 XC3 series with 5 POSCAPs + 10 MLCC solution is matched with the XC3 spec without issues. Also note that we have updated the product pictures at EVGA.com to reflect the production components that shipped to gamers and enthusiasts since day 1 of product launch. Once you receive the card you can compare for yourself, EVGA stands behind its products! — Jacob Freeman, EVGA Forums.”
ASUS:
ASUS has changed the design in pre-production. No official statement was made.
MSI:
MSI acknowledged the issue during the MSI Insider Livestream, suggested it could be a driver issue.
ZOTAC:
GIGABYTE and other brands:
No official statement, at this time of writing. Check back again for any updates.
To take some of the PCB board examples, NVIDIA in their Founders’ Edition designs used a hybrid capacitor deployment, with four SP-CAPs and two MLCC groups of 10 individual capacitors each in the center. MSI used a single MLCC group in the central, with five SP-CAPs guaranteeing the rest of the cleanup duties. ZOTAC took the cheaper route with a six POSCAP design. ASUS, however, designed their TUF with six MLCC arrangements, and there were no savings done in this power circuitry area.
Stay tuned for more!
UPDATE:
ZOTAC, GALAX, GAINWARD and Inno3D have responded to the RTX3080 crash issues.
GALAX (machine translation from Chinese)
About the SP-CAP capacitors and MLCC capacitors of GALAXY RTX 3080/3090 products
Dear player friends:
Hello, everyone. Recently, many users have come to inquire about the specific usage of the capacitors on the back of the GALAXY RTX 3080/3090 series of graphics chips. After verification, about the RTX 3080/3090 released by GALAXY. The capacitors used on the back of the model chip are as follows:
1. GALAXY RTX 3080 Heijiang/Metal Master product, the number of SP-CAP capacitors on the back of the chip: 5, the number of MLCC capacitors: a set of 10. This version is currently on sale and is the original commercial version.
2. GALAXY RTX 3090 General/Metal Master product, the number of SP-CAP capacitors on the back of the chip: 4, the number of MLCC capacitors: two groups of 20. This version is currently on sale and is the original commercial version.
3. GALAX RTX 3090 GAMER trial production samples, currently only 6 pieces are in the hands of the media and KOL. The first batch of this sample uses 6 SP-CAP capacitors. After confirmation, the GAMER products officially produced and sold will be used for capacitor materials. Make optimization improvements. Note: This product is not currently on sale.
I am very grateful to the players and friends for their support and love to GALAXY. GALAXY is also consistent in its pursuit of product quality. It is our glorious mission to provide you with better and stronger hardware. In addition, the current full range of GALAXY graphics card products support three-year warranty and personal warranty service. If you have other doubts or questions, please feel free to leave us a message to discuss, thank you!
GAINWARD (machine translation from Chinese)
Announcement on SP-CAP Capacitors and MLCC Capacitors of Gainsun 30 Series Graphics Card Products
Dear Gainward consumer players:
Thanks to the friends who bought and supported Gainward. Recently, we received the voice of market players’ inquiries. Many players are very concerned about our company’s just released 30 series products. Regarding the specific usage of the capacitors on the back of the chip, we hereby explain the situation:
All the RTX 3080 10GB graphics cards released by Gainward currently use 5 SP-CAP capacitors on the back of the chip and 10 MLCC capacitors. The versions currently on the market are all the original commercial versions.
All the RTX 3090 graphics cards released by Gainward currently use 4 SP-CAP capacitors on the back of the chip and 20 MLCC capacitors. The versions currently on the market are all the original commercial versions.
As a long-term AIC partner of Nvidia, Gainward has always been adhering to the product standard to design and produce completely according to Nvidia’s requirements. Therefore, currently players are concerned about the problem of capacitors and new product failures on the Internet. Currently Gainward has not generated such feedback.
In addition, all Gainward graphics card products support three-year warranty and personal warranty service. Thank you consumers and players for your support and love to Gainward.
INNO3D
UPDATE #2
MSI has changed the design of the RTX 3080 GAMING X TRIO PCB. The left image is the original design of the MSI RTX 3080 GPUs, whereas the right image is the new design.
Hello, my name is NICK Richardson. I’m an avid PC and tech fan since the good old days of RIVA TNT2, and 3DFX interactive “Voodoo” gaming cards. I love playing mostly First-person shooters, and I’m a die-hard fan of this FPS genre, since the good ‘old Doom and Wolfenstein days.
MUSIC has always been my passion/roots, but I started gaming “casually” when I was young on Nvidia’s GeForce3 series of cards. I’m by no means an avid or a hardcore gamer though, but I just love stuff related to the PC, Games, and technology in general. I’ve been involved with many indie Metal bands worldwide, and have helped them promote their albums in record labels. I’m a very broad-minded down to earth guy. MUSIC is my inner expression, and soul.
Contact: Email
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4531a4d446d91de56f8cd8534fd4c9605b2b27312467cf8a213df02633c49e9a.jpg
NVIDIA. The Way It’s Meant to be Played.
I can only see a blank Black image ?
Exactly. Black screen error. 🙂
Yes, perfect black image.
Kazimir Malevich would be proud of Nvidia.
More like, the way we are meant to be played 😛
Good one lol
Haha, Bub&Bob lives again. You in your truest form my friend 🙂 The ultimate roast.
I knew you’d enjoy that one, lol!
Bub&Bob always delivers ! 😀
Cheers! Props to you for updating the article twice now with news of the latest developments. I sense there’s more to come as the story unfolds.
Thanks ! I think companies are now in Panic Mode…Check Videocardz’s homepage. ASUS caught as well….lol
Haha! I wonder which company will be first to do right by their customers by issuing a product recall notice.
I think EVGA imo
I’m not sure if the card manufacturers take the loss or pass it on to Nvidia but there seems to be a significant number of returns and there will probably be more.
I can only find one actually available to buy is on Amazon This scalper claims to have only 9 left and wants $1,050 for them. They are the Founders Edition. No telling how many he bought at $700 apiece until the Nvidia Store sold out.
EDIT: only 1 left now. This scalper sold eight 3080s in 2 hours.
Hello, sorry to say this, but your previous meme was quite offending to me.
I won’t mind though, but things went out of hand in that Windows XP OS thread. It was chaotic. Both of us also got a LOT of down-votes as well, which is very embarrassing tbh. Not sure who is correct, and who is wrong here. I didn’t expect a down-vote from @Kyrox though.
Hey, I haven’t trolled or offended you here in DSOG since day one though ! You know better than me.
I had to remove that previous meme post, including all the comments posted as well, since I just got a threat EMAIL from one member who claims to be from 4CHAN, and also saying they will hack my Disqus Account…Not sure if he was being serious, but this is kind of scary…I changed my password now, and other Account details.. I can’t trust people from 4Chan.
But hey, please if you want to correct any article’s contents, or bash me, just send me an email. But do let me know your disqus user-name though. I will gladly respond back over there. But in the open public it was quite disturbing. But I know you don’t have any bad intentions either.
Check this Black screen meme of yours. It’s a good one, quite original, and you have ZERO down-votes as well, as of now, LOL.. Not sure why in that XP comment section, people were downvoting me like anything. Quite frankly, I have never been to that 4Chan forum, but I heard a lot of weird and bad things about that place.
But this is the first time I’m seeing someone actually praise that Forum board. Maybe you guys have more knowledge and are correct as well, but 4Chan is not a very friendly place, at least in my opinion.
Sorry for all those TYPO errors in this post…**facepalm** Will edit it afterwards.
Hi,
I just saw your response to giygas in said other thread of “Hmmm…..I get your point now.” That’s great that you do because the point made in the cartoon pic he shared was ultimately what matters.
People enjoy DSOG for many reasons and one of the main reasons is the lack of editorialising from the writers who avoid injecting their own personal politics and beliefs into the articles. To that end it was unnecessary for you to have said anything about what 4chan is because we already have our own views on that and certainly don’t need to be told by a gaming website what it is based on the opinion of others.
The “u mad bro?” meme I posted was done so in good humour while making a serious underlying point. If people wish to be told what to think then they can visit the likes of Polygon, PC Gamer, Eurogamer and Kotaku but DSOG thankfully isn’t like those places.
For what it matters, I, too, don’t believe you wrote the sentence in question with any bad intentions. Hence the choice of meme being a light-hearted prod as opposed to giving you hell.
Sorry to hear of you having received an unpleasant email. Hopefully that will be the last of it. Probably best to not mention 4chan again because continuing to poke them with a stick isn’t conducive to a peaceful outcome.
Hey, thanks for the reply…No worries…I Sorted the issue, as comments are also restored back, except my own reply…I don’t want it to be visible though, lol. I hope I don’t get any of those 4Chan emails again.
Anyways, I get your point as well. Yes it’s better to avoid mentioning 4Chan anymore. At least I won’t touch this topic. Yeah man, DSOG is great, but these days I’m having more fun on Wccftech’s comment section.
Just for laughs and gags, and we do have a decent and mature discussion there as well…It’s a BIG community though, full of Trolls, but in the midst there are a lot of decent and knowledgeable guys as well.
We post a LOT of funny memes over there.. Btw, don’t you think DSOG’s comment section is a bit hostile and unfriendly though ?
I mean don’t get me wrong, but in most of the Topics there is always some fight going on, and peeps cuss each other as well. We never had any funny or mature discussion till now, at least in my knowledge. The comment section is good as compared to PC gamer and other gaming sites, but I just wish DSOG could have been a little bit more friendlier in nature, at least in my opinion.
But if you guys like the current state of this site, then it’s okay..
Do you read all of the comments on Wccftech? The reason I ask is the article over there concerning this subject has generated 4,600 comments. Who has time to read all of that?
I like to use a site where I can read what people are saying and get accustomed to their likes and dislikes and let’s face it almost everyone has biases. It helps to know where a commenter is coming from in order to weigh their opinions.
The vote last year was by far for an unrestrained policy and will probably be similar this October:
69 voted for option #1
15 voted for option #2
11 voted for option #3
14 voted for option #4
1. Unrestrained Policy: Our readers can comment about
anything they want. They can leave political or racist comments, and they can insult other members (who can defend themselves via the Comment section. Moderators are not required to protect them and they can leave all users to fight each other)
Nope…I don’t read all comments…That’s impossible….Just the first 20- 30 comments till the time I’m active on that forum.
We just have fun there, and I find the community more friendly as well.
Most likely the guy that threatened you is just a flake but if he continues to threaten you then you can report him to the FBI. It is illegal to threaten people over the internet in the USA and there are people serving time for doing so. Once that happens it turns the felon’s life upside down. They can’t get a decent job or vote and can’t own a gun. It’s stupid on his part to be threatening anyone on the internet because even if they later delete their threat it doesn’t remove the comment from the server. Only the site owner can do that.
Read my previous reply below…
Good article ! Thanks for the heads-up…Glad I wasn’t an early adopter of these custom cards. What about Founders edition ?
Are these users going to get an RMA, since this is a hardware fault, and we can’t blame the customers…
People were never promised anything beyond 1710Mhz. That’s it, they will lower the clocks with a new firmware.
Yep they did that to the Titan X Maxwell as well. Nvidia is known for doing that. But no matter what they do or what you say, they will always be loved. One of the crumiest thing I saw NVIDIA Did was the Batman Arkham Knight debacle. Nvidia knew no card could run the game at a stable 60fps because it was so damn broken, Nvidia sped up their captured footage of the game, in order to presented itself at 60fps. Till this day you can find it on their YouTube channel promoting Gameworks in Batman Arkham Knight in all its glory. If you listen carefully the NPCs sounds like chipmunks that’s how we realized Nvidia was pulling a fast one.
Totally unnecessary at the time because it wasn’t Nvidia’s fault why the game was unstable and a trash port but Nvidia doubled down so they could continue to sell more cards because they were backing the game.
yes get a FE and enjoy the crazy temps, and crashes please.
Who thinks this whole Nvidia launch was a Mess ? Poor implementation, poor design, and rushed out product stack ?
Vote me, if you agree, or else down-vote is already expected from NV fanboys and girls !
It is obvious to anyone paying attention that Nvidia rushed out the 3080 before they should have in order to beat AMDs release. That’s exactly why we have the scalper situation.
here we go 2080 all over again
The 2080 Ti problem was that card manufacturers, including Nvidia, were using cheap Micron VRAM chips. This caused artifacting and eventually killed the cards. That was later rectified.
Exactly.
Lmao 5700 XT had black screen driver issues, and now Nvidia has black screen HARDWARE issues? 😀 funny https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30c073f90de42f88910ed898bc7495bf3d2475618730ca13cb7b1663e3d245ec.png
FE cards are also having the crashing problem. is not just
“MLCCs instead of POSCAPs” NVIDIA pushed the TDP WAY to far ant thast it. but nobody cares or talks about that FACT.
Nvidia GPU Crash 2.0 Technology ®
Early adopters=beta testers
Why is this true in everything now ? New car models, gpus, tvs.
God damnit why is everyone making sht so fast that they make mistakes and have unforeseen consequences. Long gone are the days of buying a product and having it go through it’s entire usable life without problems.
lol thank god they sold out and I couldn’t get one.
now i’m glad i couldn’t get one, i’ll wait for 3080ti or whatever.
very good article. man this product launch is disastrous.
Now RTX 2080Ti owners have the last laugh
Who buys a graphics card from a company called iGame??
Another brand like any other…
You mean the “Colorful” GPU brand ? iGame is their signature lineup series. IF yes, these are mostly popular in the ASIAN market.
In ASIA the demand for this brand is highly sought after. Most of the cyber cafes buy these cards in bulk as well.
Some of their top high-end GPU models have also won International awards for the build quality as well. But these cards are not very popular outside of ASIA. Many are not even aware of the Colorful Brand.
https://colorful.cn/
Interesting. I wasn’t aware.
They aren’t bad or anything so why not?
The only brand you can buy from aliexpress, that would be awsome if the cards were actually cheaper then other brands but they’re not 🙁
I guess with a name as generic as igame and having never heard of it before, it seemed like perhaps a generic knock off. I guess not.
A huge thanks to all the bots and scalpers saving trouble and bad gpu’s from humble gamers.
Thank you.
F
To all my Pascal enemies out there, it’s now safe to upgrade.
Thank you Metal Messiah! Great article. I knew it was coming since the waves it’s been making on reddit but your article make’s it easy to understand with all the information unscattered 🙂 Cheers!
Thanks. Btw, are you getting any of these Flagship Ampere cards ? I think you have a TITAN or the 2080 ti GPU I suppose.
Hey! i have a 2080ftw3 from evga. I got burned initially by the memory problem so i thought i’d wait a little for the 3080 and it seems i’ve made the good choice! I’m still waiting for all this poscap mlcc drama so settle. you ?
Oh, okay. Yup some of those RTX Turing cards have a defective VRAM issue, That sucks tbh.
It’s better to wait and buy the next BATCH of custom Ampere chips which won’t be having this capacitor/hardware issue, but we never know what’s going to happen though.
Nah, I’m not upgrading right now. My RX 480 card is still okay for my current needs, 1080p/60 hz gaming, but I’m planning to get a new 1440p Monitor.
Also waiting for AMD’s Big navi card. If it offers much better price/performance ration than Ampere, then I will consider buying it.
Else, I will see how other AMPERE RTX cards are priced, mostly the Ti and SUPER variants.
Thanks to all those who bought the nvidia Ampere cards quickly, thanks to you, we can still wait for the nvidia cards to be optimal, while waiting for my RTX 2070 to do the job without any worries, a real pleasure 😉
I realize especially that the customs cards give us cheap stuff to earn money, “By playing cheap, you lose in exchange! let this be a lesson to you “
https://b2.crackwatch.com/file/crackwatch-temp/8i2uhk2ln.jpg .
Thanks !
Currently Gainward has not generated such feedback.
Will wait for the company’s confirmation then
The company have already commented on this issue.
Check the updated part of this article again, under the GAINWARD (machine translation from Chinese) section/para.
Thanks for the update..much thanks. so gainward brand cards are free from this issue ?
I think it would be wise to wait for the fresh batch of cards to hit retails shelves….
I think Nvidia knew all along that demand would be very high because they were saying that it was a good bit faster than the 2080 Ti and much better at RTRT and $500 less than the MSRP for the 2080 Ti.
They should have waited until they had more GPUs available to sell and how in the world could they not know what people were doing buying 10 or 20 Founders Edition at a time? Mining isn’t really a thing right now and there could only be only one reason that an individual would buy so many 3080s. Because they planned to scalp them on sites like Amazon and Ebay.
They should have put a limit on how many could be ordered to begin with and not after they ran out of stock.
Nvidia claims they are ramping up production but that could mean anything. I would like to see some figures on how much the production has increased.