I experienced a catastrophic failure of my EVGA GTX 1080 FTW card over the weekend.

But first... What am I drinking???

Beer is for celebrating.  Tonight, I'm drinking Scotch.  Specifically, Glenlivet 12 Single Malt.  One word... hell yes... well, I guess that's two words... Fine, you want a review, watch through the end of the video.

About 10 days ago, I walked downstairs to find my computer shut down.  Very odd indeed, as I never turn it off.  After some diagnostics, I determine the power supply had failed, so off to RMA land it goes.  When it returned, I experienced the same issue as before... that is, pressing the power button results in a 'click' but nothing else.  No fans, no power, nothing.

I test the power supply in another machine, and find it is working just fine.  So I move on to replacing the motherboard.  With new board in hand, I fire it up on a test bench, along with the power supply, CPU and RAM from my workstation.  Everything works, we boot into Windows, so I can start reassembling my loop.

With the water loop refilled, I power on and.... nada.  Same result.

I remove the GPU from the motherboard, but leave it connected to the power supply 2x8-pin leads.  Same result.

Next I reseat the GTX 1080 FTW into the PCIe slot, and remove the 8-pin power.

And God said... let there be light.

And also hellfire.

About a year ago, there was a recall on the GTX 1070/80 FTW cards for overheating VRMs and premature failures.  There were even a few reported fires similar to mine.

My card did not die due to overheating.  It has lived the majority of its life under a full-cover waterblock