Does ASUS makes good graphics cards ? Part 1

[@northwestrepair]

If you need a repair, please contact me using a link in the description.

[@stejonno2226]

thank you i have this same 1080ti i am now going to do the thermal pad upgrade to stop this form happening to me. shocking really i thought the asus card had good cooling too

[@adairjanney7109]

what do you feel is a good heat gun to get started, and yes I know you need much more, but the only heat gun I have is the very crappy but hey they do work 45 dollar ones on amazon

[@3isr3g3n]

An epilepsy warning would be adequate if you show certain memory test. Great video as always!

[@mahmood6482]

you didn't just fix it but also upgraded it to a better cooling design! nice job👍👍

[@northwestrepair]

Yes, thanks

[@derekdal5185]

I like that he points out that EVGA makes great cards. EVGA just announced they will stop making cards because of working with NVIDIA being such a painful and limiting process.

[@vespermoirai975]

Thing about different Manufacturers is. My 3080 TI FTW3 was RMAed 3 times. Each card they gave me a "Certified" refurbished card even though the card I bought was BRAND NEW. All 3 of them had issues. I eventually gave up and got a ROG card. It's a 3090 TI now though, For their ROG STRIX LC model. So it seems to be hit or miss. :\ My EVGA 2080 XC Ultra card is running very well in my wife's PC. Before that she has a 1080TI Seahawk from MSI. Meanwhile my 290X from MSI had issues. Got a ASUS STRIX 960 then to tie my over So... yeah...

[@Toutvids]

I've had nothing but junk from EVGA... 2 cards RMA'd and a brand new dead power supply within a week. You can have it.

[@adamtajhassam9188]

Frommy experience im sry but i ve had nothing but issues w Gigybyte cards and EVGA was just ok. Havent had any issues w Asus 3080 card even the cooling. This guy sounds like he got unlucky.

[@nikolakarovic5964]

EVGA good brand, not in EU. Trash

[@Diviance]

@@adamtajhassam9188 Could one not make the same argument that anyone just "got unlucky" when they get a bad sample? Kind of excuses the company there. Every generation of nVidia GPU I have had except the 1000 series has been EVGA. 2000 series, 3000 series, 900 series, 700 series... if I remember right, even my Geforce 6800 Ultra was EVGA. Not a single one had any issues. My 1070 was Gigabyte. It was fine.

[@viffer5]

Component level repair and diagnostic on surface mount components is an almost extinct art these days. It's mesmerizing to watch the minute detail almost microscopic work done in your videos. Great work, thanks for sharing your insight.

[@Morpheus-pt3wq]

If you consider the cost of such repair with cost of a new GPU, you get the answer, why is it extinct. It´s the same for most other electronics as well. BUT we should really return back to it. Otherwise the waste will only keep piling up.

[@siliconalleyelectronics187]

@@Morpheus-pt3wq The value in repairing GPUs is especially bad due to how expensive broken ones are. $250 for a faulty 1080Ti is insanity, they should be more like $100. I think the issue is there are enough people out there who believe they can stick it in their oven for an hour and pull out a fixed GPU for cheap(ish). I repair a lot of other electronics, and I want to fix GPUs as well but I just can't justify it unless someone sends one in for a repair order.

[@disinque6961]

U can look for some chinese channels, especially from mainland china, their second hand market is usually a lot cheaper thus people will buy malfunctioned card for a low price and try to fix it and earn profit, I can give u some links if ur interested

[@tarron3237]

You're absolutely right. Those were my thoughts, too. And it shows that repair would still be possible today, however noone has an interest in it. I hate the throwaway mentality, so I really love this video.

[@ncg8224]

Its extremely expensive service for a card that going to be worth junk. As he said its $250/repair.

[@Bodo69Boss]

It’s really crazy that Asus is a ,,premium” company and require you to pay a lot of money for their cards but scam you like this… Really nice video, convinced me to sub !

[@northwestrepair]

Well said

[@norb4707]

recently I feel like most Asus products are a scam 🤣

[@liliyaabdulina9740]

I had 3 different 3080s and none of them had coil whine , a week ago i got an asus rog stric 3080 ti and had to return because of the CRAZY coil whine , i just couldnt take it , it was so noticable that i can hear that with my speakers loud

[@chrisredfield9310]

that is the magic, people pay for brand not matter how much cost... apple, channel

[@raka9220]

Asus? Premium? Did you ever consider EVGA or Sapphire?

[@kathrynck]

I have this exact card. it's 5 years old, and HEAVILY used, but still works great. Stock nvidia 1080 ti clock is 1582 mhz, this thing runs at just over 1700 out of the box with asus overclock. It's really pushing the silicon hard, and the binning process is imperfect. I noticed some stutter and the occasional crash or freeze, but only if the room was hot. I knocked it down to like 1683 mhz, dropped like 100 off the mem speed (like 11,100 to 11,000), dropped the voltage push a tad, and made the fan ramp up linearly to max fan at 75C. And moved the target temp from 85C to 83C. Flawless through 5 years of abuse after that. And I mean like 30,000 hours on, and probably 10,000 hours being pushed. It's still OC, just a hair less OC. Pads are helpful, usually. But any time you get an "OC" card, you're in a silicon lottery, and your lottery ticket may not have been validated carefully enough, and manufacturers sometimes push too hard on their OC. Also, when pushing OC to the limit, you need very 'clean' power. I buffer the wall power with a regulating UPS, and make sure to have a quality PSU which has a rated max output WAY over my system use. 1000 watts on a 630 watt TDP system currently. The power gets very dirty at max output, and your energy efficiency will pay for the better PSU in a year or two easy. Your caps will thank you. And happy caps tend to make for happy chips. On 'that' card... there's very good airflow to the secondary components. I'm not sure pads are hugely needed (that card in your video sure did better with them though, true). Anyway, I wouldn't exactly say the 1080ti Strix OC is a bad card. But mostly you're just paying for japanese caps, better fans & heat sink, and a binned gpu. A founders edition 1080ti would scream in agony at 1683 mhz. It would've been more ideal with more thought put to cooling secondary components though, yeah. But a lot of the heat buildup in secondary components is sourced from that silicon toaster in the middle of the card. Get that backed off it's breaking point just a tad, make sure your case ambient is cool, and everything in the card will have a lower ambient temp, which greatly mitigates a need for pads on secondary bits. You can have a GPU which is just a tad weaker in the binning, which will get hotter as a result, and it may not be the GPU which fails first, if it's making everything around it hot. I've heard of examples of this card running stable to over 1760 mhz. Mine's binned obviously, but not quite that lucky with the silicon lottery, and needed just a little finessing in settings vs. asus factory default. Personally I've run into problems and failures with EVERY brand (including EVGA). Some pampering makes it much less likely though.

[@uc9584]

thanks for sharing man. I just bought myself a 1070 Ti Strix. It's weird that i play game smoother when the card being undervolted, the temp cool af (around 53 degs C when full load)

[@buboybutoy1704]

it would be awesome if you make a video of brand tier list or failure rate and respective generations based on your experience repairing GPUs. It would help us consumers a lot in picking which brand to buy. keep up the informative videos.

[@IAmShot_1]

Imma be honest, I had no idea what was going on but it was somehow still entertaining! Keep up the great work man you deserve to have way more subs!

[@northwestrepair]

haha thanks !

[@KittyKite]

I was not expecting this video to be so good! You identified, clearly explained the problem, proved your point, and fixed it - absolute perfection. Subbed.

[@northwestrepair]

thanks !

[@asifalamgir5135]

@@northwestrepair YOu are a gem man !

[@JoshuaG]

@@northwestrepair its why i usually undervolt GPU's so all aspects of the card don't overheat/ overworked too much , i have a sketchy H.I.S branded RX 580, till now it breezes through, temps only 61 C.

[@killer01ws6]

I got a nice smile watching this Vid, I am long in the tooth now, but in my early days in the Air Force I was part of a Depot shop we did component level maintenance on wideband Tropo Microwave equipment... now days everything is black box or card swap not circuit level repair.. nice to see someone still doing the ole ways.

[@bartaltman2317]

This technician really knows what he is doing ! Amazing skills and knowledge. Thank you for posting all of these videos.

[@mindmazejoyed]

You make gpu soldering look so nice and easy on your vids man but speaking from personal experience any soldering work with miniature components even with spare part laying around is hard as F. Kudos to you and your natural skills mate!

[@leelovetv]

Excellent work, as an ex-repair tech I enjoy hearing how you approach a troubleshooting problem. And seeing you bring these boards back to life.

[@Timmy51m]

This is weirdly therapeutic, made me smile, and I can't explain why lol. I have a Strix 980 that I repasted earlier this year after having it since about 2014-15 I think, and I was a little surprised not to find any thermal pads anywhere, but this explains why. The fans don't kick in on these until 60c so I doubt that helps matters. I was thinking now that prices have started to come down a little I might look for a cheap used 2060 super or something, but your videos are steering me away from that idea, and towards thinkng abut buying EVGA seeing as I keep a card for such a long time. This is a great channel for what it's trying to show, thanks.

[@brandonparker1179]

I been buying Asus cards and never had issues, but very surprised to see what he had to do to make things work. Great job!!!

[@lnfinyx]

Yes, i also always only buy Asus, BEST BRAND EVER, never had any problems and their customer service is ON POINT!

[@mattc9598]

i too bought a new Asus TUF 3090 recently and have had zero issues whatsoever. I was surprised to see the guy in the video claim they have cooling issues, because mine is the opposite. Everyone said 3090's get really hot... mine barely breaks 70 degrees even with Cyberpunk 2077 at ultra settings + max ray tracing. VRAM gets to 80 degrees

[@GalaxyJonez]

yeah I've mostly had ASUS cards too. Just got another 4070 ti TUF from asus in my new build, which I'm very happy with. But on my previous one, a 2080 SUPER I actually had some god awful temperatures. And after 2-3 years of usage (when it would reach 84+ degrees and thermal throttle) I opened it up. I found the thermal paste being extremely dry, and that not all thermal pads were aligned very well. After changing thermal paste (using some ~3 year old thermal paste I had leftover from my previous build which wasn't very liquid.. lol) and moving some of the thermal pads I lowered temps from 84 to 70, and hotspot from ~103 to 85... Very happy about the results but a bit sad that you have to do that on such a premium GPU. edit, commented before watching Part 2 :D where he breaks open a 20x-series ASUS. Let's hope my 40XX-series will last longer ^^

[@godofredo0409]

lol.asus is overrated

[@ulrohermit1369]

@@lnfinyx maybe in your countries they distribute the best products but not everywhere

[@Mehecanogeesir]

One of the most important reasons I subscribe to these channels is to learn which brands are doing right, which brands are doing wrong, and which brands are putting effort into improving / customer service. Thanks for providing all of that on top of advanced repair!

[@HyadumHH]

Very interesting insight and very useful information! Not sure how you reached this level of technical expertise on video cards, but I haven't seen anyone else do this kind of repairs.

[@smokedog7730]

Subbed I just had my first ever GPU failure in my almost 20 years of PC gaming my old "Asus Strix GTX 980 OC" and after taking it apart it has what looks like decent heatsinks over the memory modules this card was in my wife rig, the card you feature in this video is my current card and now I'm thinking I need to do that mod you did, I came across your channel by chance but I have to say awesome content and keep up the good job. Think I will jump ship back over to EVGA on my Nvidia 40*0 purchase.

[@tydy5266]

...About that

[@danielkowalski7527]

Well its not going to happend ;-)

[@neuneru]

Sad news bro...

[@smokedog7730]

@@danielkowalski7527 Yup that news sums up my luck

[@hircine92h]

EVGA.. sry to break it to you, but ...

[@baltogames1501]

This kind of makes my heart sink a little because I bought an Asus tuf x570 motherboard and a tuf 3080 12gb to upgrade my pc. I had been using an Asus1080 turbo with no problems at all for many years, so I figured they were quality producers. I opened the 1080 up last year to re-paste and reapply thermal pads as normal maintenance. I even replaced the fan, although it wasn't necessary. I hope they are taking better care with their 3080 series cards.

[@victorflores429]

The newer ones are good, I have an Rx6800xt TUF. It it well put together with thermal pads

[@christopherdemo9884]

Understand how the company functions and you can avoid a lot of bad products. With ASUS you should always wait for their initial release of cards, check their sales and if the sales were good then that department will get better funding and liberty to make a better product. The better their sales the better their product typically becomes.

[@Johnad42]

Have the x570 tuf gaming wifi the onboard soundcard is horrendous ( my output and input would be so quiet i wouldnt be able to talk to anyone in calls etc) and had a couple issues with it :D

[@greenbow7888]

Those are the best soldering skills I have seen; it's meditative to watch.

[@GroundGame.]

This is really cool to watch, we'll edited and informative, hope to see more teardowns. Of other brand cards. 😉👍 514th sub.

[@northwestrepair]

Thanks for the sub!

[@kennethconnors5316]

did these type repairs until I retired .. you do nice work , this was a difficult repair

[@crastonmcsandwich3440]

This is extremely helpful. I just got a rog strix 1070ti off ebay and was looking into adding cooling solutions but couldn't find any data regarding the thermal pad sizes I would need. Thank you!

[@evilkid500]

Oh my gosh, Play-doh to measure thermal pad thickness!! Absolutely genius. Thank you for that tip! Also, love that your videos show all of your hot work. It's great to see the different techniques while working with SMD's.

[@Adromelk]

You're really talented at fixing these cards. I almost wish I could commission you to work on a 1080ti kingpin I bought some years ago. She no longer functions unfortunately and I use her as a decoration piece but man...to have her running again

[@Frightenerd]

This is very eye opening and useful, hope your channel keeps growing. Your content is really good

[@northwestrepair]

Am trying. I dont even think its that good to be honest. I really need to spend time improving but its very difficult with a full time job and cards coming from customers at same time.

[@poloez]

Hi, i have a question: which gpu brands do in your opinion the best working gpus(doesnt matter if its amd/nvidia), i know evga makes very good stuff, but id like to know who else is also worth mentioning, maybe sapphire?

[@Groaznic]

Sapphire seems to be the common consensus.

[@Dessoh]

This didnt affect me personally so dont worry, but you should put an epilepsy warning at the beginning of your videos if you plan on continuing to put memory tests in your videos. Loved the vid!!

[@Eminic112]

Extremely disappointing on ASUS's end. Truly "Genius" engineering. Makes you wonder if they simply did not make a good design, or decided to cut A LOT of costs in order to be more profitable. This is, however, a 6 - going on 7 year old card, so it would be really interesting to compare it with current gen ASUS models and see if they have improved their designs at all. Great video by the way! You are an insanely skilled person, and the content you make is very intriguing. For that, you deserve a sub!

[@Syncopia]

Expect it to have gotten worse.

[@LeadSkillets]

For the most part, the entire 30-series has been poorly engineered. The initial blame can go to nVidia for a bad reference design and putting AiBs in a tight spot with minimal profit margin. The rest of the blame goes to the AiBs for not fixing the blatant issues and profiteering when supply was low.

[@arugulatarsus]

Asus did make their first 486 motherboards WITHOUT a sample CPU and got it working while intel was unable to do so. They flew engineers out to Intel to fix the intel reference boards. Asus has always been engineering first. BUT they have had shady business practices and are cost driven too. This looks like a cost savings measure that is along the lines of "This will work for 5 years, most people keep the cards for 4 years, slap a 3 year warranty on it, and let's go for lunch, we're already making 3$ profit on a 1000$ card." Not excusing the behaviour in the slightest, giving a bit of context.

[@Deadinternetzero]

Exactly I can't judge a corp by cards that are nearly 3 gens old now... or by one sample size as well. Still very interesting indeed. RIP EVGA as well.

[@crazywall256]

@@Deadinternetzero EVGA cards will go down as one the best nivida cards I ever owned, they had best quality design on the 3000 series card in my opinion I loved the xc3 card design simple and slim did the job really good, and even the ftw 3 cards just amazing what they designed.

[@Groaznic]

Man this was incredible to watch.

[@Sn00ze]

Thank you for these videos, very informative! Since EVGA is leaving the market, what other brand(s) would you recommend for buying a graphics cards in the future?

[@Groaznic]

Sapphire Radeons.

[@gkhngvr]

Its not just a repair, its re-create, well done and keep it up, please share more video with us, thanks 👍🙏

[@chadofwar6554]

I'm curious about 2080, 3080, 3090. I have all 3 and haven't had any problems with them. I'm hoping asus fixed these issues since I have never had any heat or performance issues. 1080p with the 2080, 1440p with 3080, and 4k with 3090. Great video and really digging the music.

[@Mr__V]

I've got a 3090 that has memory heat issues. Under load there's 2 chips that will hit 100-110 easy. I've researched it and found that there's been a lot of 30 series strix cards that either have wrong size pads, missing pads or worse still have a plastic backing on one side of the pad so the heat isn't transferring at all. Jays2cents also said he was missing a thermal pad on his 3090 when he showed the water block install last year too I think.

[@mastervule1844]

Dude you are a godsend. Really love how much stuff can be actually learned trough these vids.

[@Syncopia]

My EVGA 1080 had thermal pads on all the memory components. This isn't a mistake, ASUS had to have known and chose to cut corners.

[@byCDMC]

Yes, EVGA gave away thermal pads and even did card swaps if you can't or don't want to apply them your self cause cards were running hot and tech news outlets called them out. They also issued a BIOS update that increased fan RPM and put VRM temps from 110 to 95C. To bad EVGA doesn't make GPU's anymore. Their customer support and overall warranty was really top notch.

[@DarkPhychic]

@@byCDMC which is better brand according to you?? Looking to upgrade rtx 4000 series from my gtx 1060

[@byCDMC]

@@DarkPhychic hard to say, they are not out yet :)

[@DarkPhychic]

@@byCDMC i mean by previous gen,which brand makes better cooling cards..

[@byCDMC]

@@DarkPhychic hm, tough question actually. They can be all over the place. If you look at most cool running ones, Asus made a water cooled 3080Ti, that ran very cool, but that doesn't mean Asus is the brand to go. Cause one, its water cooled, second i had MSI cards with 2 fans run cooler and more silent than a Gigabyte windforce with 3 fans on it(same series of cards btw). So yea... You can make any card run cool and silent if you tweak it. It always depends on what you need. You need performance or running silent. You can always undervolt them and make them silent, or just crank it all to 11 and go full tilt with the fans and overclock for max performance and wind noise(unless you go custom water cooling) lol Pick any manufacture, they all made bad cards(as in, they all made bad product at least once), all of them. In the end the big 3 manufactures are Asus, Gigabyte and MSI. Evga made great cards too, but even they had problems with their 3090 cards dying when you were just playing a game, so yea... Wait for reviews if you gonna upgrade to 4000 series and see how they perform. EDIT: i just remember, again yes its Asus but hear me out, Asus and Noctua made a RTX3080, that is probably the best cooled card out there(for air cooled 3080 i mean), or one of the best to be more precise. Not an Asus fanboy, but have to say that Noctua colab was really cool, no pun intended :D Basically if [insert manufacture here] makes a colab with Noctua and makes a card, that will be your one of the most cool running cards out there. So to your question what brand makes most cooled cards, i say Noctua and who ever they are doing a colab with. In last gen case, that was Asus and Noctua.

[@tarron3237]

It was both helpful and interesting. Great video!

[@chrisryu4742]

ROG = Rip Off Gamers

[@MeetTK]

Awesome work bro. Thanks for the video

[@milanmestka416]

Ooooh boy, I have this exact card and after 5 years I started to experience sudden shutdowns and all sorts of errors in every game engine. Undervolting and lowering clockspeeds did solve my issues for the time being. But I'm afraid its only temporary solution and problems will reappear. I'm not confident enough to do this kind of soldering and work despite having all the tools required.

[@Toutvids]

After 5 years you need new thermal paste and pads. This is something people don't realize... the stuff doesn't last forever. I change my CPU paste every year or two at most. GPUs get even hotter.

[@milanmestka416]

@@Toutvids I'll repaste it and maybe try that mod n-wR did. Hopefully card wont die on table :D

[@milanmestka416]

@@Toutvids Sooo, operation was sucessfull :) changed both paste and pads. Changing paste on CPU is common practise, yet for some reason I was afraid to do it on GPU. Anyways thx for tip. GPU monitor is now showing 20 degrees lower temp on load and ~20% les power consumption.

[@Toutvids]

@@milanmestka416 awesome, now you've learned a new skill!

[@CommanderKeen.]

So I accidentally came about this video (was reading doom9 forum about MadVR), about an hour ago. By now I have watched several of your vids and have subscribed. I have only the most basic understanding of the things you do, but I am completely mesmerized by watching the process. I think what really did it for me is the soldering music... it's absolutely perfect for this

[@ministryoflies1344]

I recently bought my first EVGA card since building PCs 30 years ago. Based on people's support for the brand, I feel good about my choice.

[@jeen0351]

actually for the 30 series asus is on top. even the tuf has better components and cooling than evga ftw

[@ministryoflies1344]

@@jeen0351 I'm sure that's probably true...and it's cheaper too.. and I've had an Asus for years.. but I've seen a lot of good comments about EVGA and their customer support. Give them a chance I thought.

[@jeen0351]

@@ministryoflies1344 personally i dropped evga after my 1070 needed thermal pads replacements due to poor design and 2 blown psus, g2 750 and 850, both refused repair

[@ministryoflies1344]

@@jeen0351 Unlucky. Well..if things go pair shaped I've got a warranty cos I bought it from a reputable supplier....and home insurance. ;-)

[@savifrank6323]

@@ministryoflies1344 EVGA just terminated their contract with Nvidia and will stop all GPU production by the end of the year, so you kinda fucked yourself lmao

[@JoxPL]

You are my BGA repair hero ! Absolute star, i would not change a single thing in your video. Im sure your fans will carry you far. Maybe more laptop repairs would push your publicity to next lvl.

[@camazotzmx]

So sad that Asus is going down the greedy path and taking advantage of consumers. In the past, I had ASUS PCs, laptops and graphics cards and they still run on annual maintenance, but now with new technology like graphics cards and other laptops/PC they don't check quality and the overheat issues or messy-rushed drivers.....at the end it brings more problems. Thanks for your videos, I can understand why these cards have these issues. Keep it up uploading content and greetings from Mexico

[@northwestrepair]

Asus makes good motherboards, nothing else. Intel makes good processors, nothing else. Every time big company tries to make something new just because its profitable, well.....we all know what happens.

[@tinleo333]

@@northwestrepair Who makes the best psu?

[@ibobeko4309]

@@tinleo333 I had a Bequit PSU, it run 11 hours per day for 11 years.

[@northwestrepair]

Dont know to be honest. Its not the "BEST" what you need but the protection. Not all PSU'a have current sensing protection. They detect short circuit and shutdown preventing burned components or fire. Ill look into what i have and let you know if i wont forget.

[@dula1020]

@@tinleo333 Cosair 80 plus gold

[@abder122001]

impressive repair! Well done!

[@northwestrepair]

thanks

[@hazardzme]

I would like your opinion on which AIB makes the best AMD graphics cards.

[@nexxusty]

There is no "Opinion" on this. The answer is Sapphire, unequivocally.

[@hazardzme]

@@nexxusty i thought so just needed someone to say that

[@nexxusty]

@@hazardzme Np brother. You were bang on.

[@lloydc5736]

Great video, detailed and info packed, I've had similar issues with older Asus video cards, always a shame to have to deal with , thanks for posting video!

[@peterpeter5666]

I have been using asus mobos and GPUs for the past 15 years and never had a failure my 1080 ti Poseidon is still running overclocked from day 1 the only time I had a failure was when I bought an evga 780 but they were excellent with rma and sent me a 970.

[@endless2239]

I have also been using asus for years, heck my old z68 died just recently after many, many years of abuse, however this is not the first engineering drama asus has faced on their cards as of lately, they also had that with the tuf rx5700xt that was so bad that they ended up *relaunching* the whole thing as the "EVO" to address the issue, even their strix line had issues. I think I will be more careful before recommending asus to anyone for the foreseeable future.

[@petruc3122]

YT recommended me this video. Loved it.

[@AlexC259]

Sadly EVGA is not going to make GPU’s anymore

[@DivineIkari]

Hope to see this channel grow to fix-it-all tech stuff.😁

[@doodskie999]

ASUS is like the "apple" of pc parts. They have been overpricing their lineup especially the ROG lineup. That's why I stopped buying from them.

[@xmeo30]

you deserve more sub. i hope your channel will make it big, so that you can do this stuff with newly released cards, so we will know what cards sucks and not

[@arigasanks]

Planned obsolence, shame on Asus.

[@darkl3ad3r]

And yet here I am almost 6 years later using my day one March 2017 strix 1080 Ti just fine. Only reason I'm replacing it is because I feel it is time to upgrade. So much for planned obsolescence.

[@teddp]

Excellent job at a tricky repair 👍

[@byCDMC]

1080Ti was released in 2017. If this card was mined on 24/7 and ran at 80+C, its not Asus fault those parts got degraded to the point of failure. Also putting such thick thermal pad on it and bending the fins off does more damage in the long run than just turning off zero fan mode and letting the fans always spin at 35-40%(as min rpm) all the time. It will have enough cooling and will last long. Good work on fixing the card, but putting 6mm thick pad is not good. So what you did is, isolated the components from direct airflow and bent the fins to even more restrict airflow from the fans. Turning off Zero fan mode would been much better option.

[@northwestrepair]

Fins were bend to promote surface contact are for the pads. Cooling VRM is apparently a bad thing according to you and everyone who liked this comment.

[@byCDMC]

​@@northwestrepair I understand why the fins were bent, i watched the video and heard you. But you don't understand what i mean apparently. Have you did proper temperature testing with thermal couples? Do you know how a thick thermal pad affects cooling performance and heat transfer compared to a thin one? From reading your comment i guess you have no idea and just assume you know. I'm only talking about the 6mm double stacked pad. Years ago i argued with a person who does thermal testing like i mention above on regular basis. In the end, to thick of a thermal pad is bad and in your case, bending those fins doesn't do much cause you already put a to thick of a pad in the first place. In your case you should have left the fins straight and let the fans blow air over them directly for optimal cooling. What you did, is first, put to fat double stacked pad that was 6mm, then bent the fins to make even bigger gap, so the pad is maybe like 7mm thick. The thinner the pad, the more heat transfer there is and you even put two of them on top of each other, which is even worse. VRMs can run at high temperatures, over 100C without any problems. This card from the looks of it was a mining card, that was probably ran 24/7 at very high temps, probably stacked in a mining rig with other cards. They where never designed to be mining cards running 24/7 at 80+C full tilt for years. Blaming Asus cause the card was used not by design and out of spec for who knows how long is not a good look for you. Also i'm guessing people who liked my original comment understood what i meant by it, unlike you... and then saying they don't know any better is really crappy thing to do. But hey, you're already blaming Asus, why not blame the people who doesn't agree with you too, eh?

[@HX_]

@@byCDMC didn't steve from gamers nexus said with that whole evga thermal thing that even on thiner pads bending the fins doesnt matter for better heat transfer when evga released thermal pads for customers who were concered about high temperatures? so to me bending the fins just ruined the heatsink and nothing else lol!

[@Random_Fella]

@@HX_ that was like in 2016 or something holy shit time fly, i still think its 2020

[@darkl3ad3r]

I agree with you. My strix 1080 Ti is running fine to this day. I manually adjusted the fan curve since I got the card back in March 2017 and never let the fans shut off during operation. I believe that helped a lot.

[@Rendraco79]

Is so good to know, that still are crazy ocd perfectionist people in the world. Great video!!!

[@donaldsmith881]

love that I found this channel learning a ton of awesome info

[@rppdfire]

Very satisfying video, old electronic tech here, nice to watch a pro.

[@ТомаКутев]

That was awesome! Thank you so much for this video! I like the idea with the heatsink for the thermal pads.

[@jimmiereese193]

This guy is amazing!!! Dang!!! Great job !!!

[@trog69]

Fascinating watching you work. It's like some kind of magic!

[@blinkanddie3397]

love these videos man

[@makun16]

Appreciate the video! Good work. Makes me want to take my Asus GTX 1080 ROG 8gb card apart to check for missed thermal pads and replace them all with fresh ones. My old Gigabyte GTX 760 is still running strong from 2013.

[@rdoc]

For me, your videos are better then reading a good mystery novel. Really enjoy your work, learning a lot, thanks.

[@supermanfan3805]

Enjoyed every bit of the video....good work!!

[@northwestrepair]

Awesome, thank you!

[@naikz187war4]

I Absolutely need more of these videos in my life......I just found your channel, You have my sub !!!!!

[@maxmaxxxie]

Liked n subsbcribed , ur videos are jst gr8. You sir deserve more n more subscribers , specially now that miners are selling upper Mid end and high end cards as cheap as hell, .... specially in India,actually not that cheap tbh , where miners don't look after or maintain their cards and mining rooms at all !!!

[@matte_luna]

awesome content and quality!

[@patrickdulfo7792]

bro Im a huge fan, your videos are great and youre really underrated

[@killsight]

very cool to see the steps you have to go through to diagnose a faulty GPU ^w^

[@eddiejamisola7942]

I would pay to learn this. I love what you are doing. Subscribed.

[@hansoncrack]

I am just here for the soldering. I like what you do sir. Its very interesting to observe

[@syedfiazshah8821]

Don't you love when you can't figure out what's wrong with your code and it still works most of the time. Love the humor on this guy.

[@Tigermania]

Giving healthy part readings for techy people.... nice, but pointing out the bad practice by different brands super useful for the ordinary dude.

[@TechBytes2day]

As a repair and diy enthusiast, you earned my sub

[@northwestrepair]

Thanks

[@warrax111]

as someone, who doesn't know even desolder cylindric cap, you've earned my like.

[@scalz420]

wow.. Subscribed. I friggen love this dude. Finally some real world professional showing facts not just theories

[@vaiosmastroyiannis]

Nice !! I didn't have any idea of that. Thank you !!!

[@johnniewalker9737]

Fantastic to watch. Even if i didn't really comprehend what you were doing. But wow! You fixed it. Well done.

[@northwestrepair]

The more you watch it, the more "AHA" moments you get. Eventually you will not only understand, but maybe even do it your self.

[@BattleGroundElite]

WAY past my skill level and 80% off the time I had no clue what in the world you where doing. But enjoyed watching. So a good video. :) Thumbs up

[@syedarman4720]

Your videos are enjoyable. Even though I don't have any idea about repairing I still keep watching

[@northwestrepair]

I appreciate that!

[@mustafaalhorani5967]

love your video and the details about them and thanks a lot for showing where do manufacture do wrong so we can make a good purchase next time

[@aleksdeveloper698]

Wow man, I learned so much from the video. Thank you! :D

[@AlsoKnownAsUzi]

keep up the great content! subbed.

[@Burix1337]

Just found your Channel, very impressive and interesting content!

[@Helifax19]

Interesting... and people say watercooling is "not required or dumb". This shows precisely why people decide to put waterblocks on these GPUs. (To actually cool the components and "fix" a design that was made to fail). Great video!!!

[@TahirGluttony]

soothing voice and delivery

[@rattlehead999]

Great channel. I see it's relatively new. Keep it up.

[@nine0ten771]

You are a wizard. A very skilled wizard.

[@IndigoSun-hz6cq]

Watching you work is like watching an artist create beauty. Hats off to you.

[@ajeethkumaryadavy6375]

How genius can you be my friend. Full knowledge on Circuit Diagrams and everything. You are a genius and I envy that if I had someone like you to learn from. Love your work and intelligence. Don't let this knowledge vanish with you. Please teach about this in family and friends if possible.

[@mrlocorio4291]

These videos are great, you're like a surgeon

[@mariusfrost640]

This is fascinating. I wasn't aware it was possible to repair modern PCB circuits like this without a factory engineered program. I want to learn how to do this, just so I understand what's going on. I have a light background in electrical technology, but this seems like something an engineering degree is needed for. Thanks for posting this, at the very least, it helps de-mystify electronics.

[@קוביקדוש-ל7פ]

you are very creative with your test methods and solution. LIKE :)

[@tegmahgob5477]

bro thanks so much, you actually made soft soft easy to understand

[@northwestrepair]

what is "soft soft" ?

[@mrkemblegilstrap]

Hi!!! I forgot to mention how awesome your thumbnail was! ahahha! i have certainly crossed asus from my shopping list. thank you. Im going EVGA. i was hoping to get a EVGA 2080 ti. i dont think that my budget is gonna be ok with that. So, then im looking at (used of course), EVGA 1080 ti. yes i agree with you the manufacturer is using lower quality materials. i was a plumber for 23 years(6 years ago), when i first started, i was replacing 30-40 years old water heaters. when i retired, the heaters were only 10-12 years old. i love the doggie too!

[@MrLuGr]

impressive skills mate 🤯

[@northwestrepair]

Thanks 😁

[@Simon-bu4kc]

idk about electrical details but my Asus Strix 1060 was 6+ years in use, no service, no nothing, cleaned it from the outside once I think and I was amazed when I took it apart 2 days ago: perfect alignment and no visible dmg or aging of the thermal pads, the thermal paste was still soft and really well applied compared to other brands. I was also able to pull the cooler off with zero force and overall the "accessories" like cooler, backplate and fans seem really high quality to me. it's also one of the consistently silent and "cool" cards I ever had. did the same thing with a gigabyte 1080 ti beforehand which was only used for 2 years and it was a nightmare: cooler almost welded to the card, thermal paste everywhere exept where it's needed, thermal pads ripped and thrown around everythere from opening the card, really fragile plastic on the fans and housing, wires tied up with some electrical tape. so while Asus might not be the "king of GPU's" they want to be they are certainly up there in the higher league of aftermarket options in my opinion sad to see the 1080 didn't get the same dedication but it still seems to perform on the level of the other "high tier" 1080s. no idea if yyou can make a reliable claim about the lifetime of such a complex circuit board

[@FR4M3Sharma]

Dude, you're one hell of an expert. Really loved the details you showed here. I admire your knowledge.

[@TheSlickmicks]

Your skill level is amazing.

[@cybersamiches4028]

For as what they makes? I have no clue! Your vids are badass, subbed!