My RTX 3080 fried itself during a Windows update last Tuesday

Was just sitting there browsing Reddit when the screen went black and smelled burnt electronics, now I'm stuck using a 5 year old laptop and can't even run Elden Ring, has anyone else had their GPU die out of nowhere like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

carr.xena1mo ago

Same thing happened to my buddy who had a 3080 FE. He was just running a benchmark, not even a game, and poof. Did you check if your power supply was maybe the cause? I've heard a lot of stories about these cards drawing sudden spikes that older or cheaper PSUs just can't handle, even if the total wattage looks fine. That smell could be a blown capacitor on the card itself or maybe a melted connector on the power cable. What brand and model was your PSU anyway? That info would help figure out if it was a bad card or a bad power situation.

willow6721mo ago

Read some guy on Reddit said his 850W Gold couldn't even handle it.

jennifer35812d ago

Oh man, that's exactly what I was thinking. @carr.xena brings up a good point, it reminds me of how people treat cars, you know? Everyone focuses on the engine size but forgets the transmission and the fuel system have to be solid too. Same with PCs, everyone just looks at the wattage number on the PSU box without thinking about the actual quality of the parts inside or the age of the unit. I had a buddy with a Corsair 750W that was like 5 years old and it couldn't handle a 3070 without shutting down, even though it had plenty of headroom on paper.