Sapphire 290x Vaporx Thermal pad quality control issues

[BranField]

I have already posted on another site about this but i thought i would post here to bring it to more peoples attention

i decided to repaste my 290x vaporx and upon removing the heatsink i had a shocking discovery.

The plastic that covers the thermal pads before they get put on the memory chips etc at the factory were still on. This may not seem like a big deal to some but I think that for a premium card (£400+) this kind of quality assurance is horrendous. It wasn't much of a problem for me as i have only had it a couple of weeks and haven't had much time to game on it so haven't noticed any issues, however for someone that just buys a card and leaves it to do its stuff (not me, im a tinkerer) then this could be a huge problem.

I didnt have temp problems that i am aware of however afterburner and gpuz do not report the memory temps and are also not reporting the fan rpm for what ever reason. If you see in the pictures, i did not remove the fan connectors. This is because i couldn't. As i started easing them off the pcb connector the plastic shroud (i presume you would call it) started coming away from the pcb and i could see the actual connectors that attached to the pcb. So i left them well alone after that.

I took some pictures to show just how much there was, not just one was missed but all of them.

initial shot from first removing the heatsink

you can even see that the one for the pad for the exposed layer of pcb was left in place and they all clearly say remove

obligatory die/paste shot (too much in my opinion). i got worried that the thermal pad under the VRM heatsink (at the top of the pic) still had the plastic on so i removed that but it was fine.

starting to remove the plastic

closer shot of exposed pcb thermal pad

all removed minus the pcb pad

naked shiny die

another shot of naked shiny die

all of the plastic that i had to remove.

 

[Dicehunter]

That's actually pretty bad :-/

Is that the 4GB or 8GB version ?

 

[barnsley]

Send the photos to Sapphire. This is very bizarre. Especially considering the Vapor-X is their top of the line single GPU cooler.

 

[BranField]

That's actually pretty bad :-/

Is that the 4GB or 8GB version ?

I was really shocked when i saw it all there. luckily i only had it running for a couple weeks and i like to tinker with my PC or it could have gone months if not years unseen.

This is the 4gb model. im only running 1080p so 8gb would be totally overkill for my needs.

Send the photos to Sapphire. This is very bizarre. Especially considering the Vapor-X is their top of the line single GPU cooler.

i have posted a thread on OCN and their rep (VaporX) has forwarded it on up the food chain so hopefully something will come of this.

I just thought it needed a bit more air time and exposure so more people are aware

 

[MadShadow]

That's horrible, just as I started to trust sapphire...

 

[Dicehunter]

That's horrible, just as I started to trust sapphire...

Sounds to me like it was either a Monday or Friday factory jobby.

A Monday jobby means you get into the factory either hung over from the weekend or just simply knackered and you make mistakes.

And by Friday jobby I mean you can't wait to go home for the weekend so rush through all your work again making mistakes.

I've seen it happen a butt load when I worked in various factories.

 

[BranField]

That's horrible, just as I started to trust sapphire...

I have never gone with sapphire before but a couple of friends had and I had heard that they were starting to get their act together so i went all in and it looks like I lost to a guy with an ace up his sleeve.

 

[MadShadow]

Sounds to me like it was either a Monday or Friday factory jobby.

A Monday jobby means you get into the factory either hung over from the weekend or just simply knackered and you make mistakes.

And by Friday jobby I mean you can't wait to go home for the weekend so rush through all your work again making mistakes.

I've seen it happen a butt load when I worked in various factories.

Still Sapphires fault no matter how hung over some guy was. I'll be wary of Sapphire from now on.

 

[BranField]

Still Sapphires fault no matter how hung over some guy was. I'll be wary of Sapphire from now on.

This is what i was hoping for with creating this thread, spreading my experience so people can make informed decisions. I don't want to spread hate on Sapphire at all, they do some great products, however i just want them to be aware of the problem and reach out to others to make them aware

 

[Dicehunter]

Still Sapphires fault no matter how hung over some guy was. I'll be wary of Sapphire from now on.

1 incident is no reason to avoid that brand, It can happen to ANY brand.

I've had Asus motherboards arrive with actual missing bits but I just sent them back and got a non faulty version.

Shit happens sometimes, You must remember these things are put together a lot of the times by human beings and we make mistakes

This is what i was hoping for with creating this thread, spreading my experience so people can make informed decisions. I don't want to spread hate on Sapphire at all, they do some great products, however i just want them to be aware of the problem and reach out to others to make them aware

Instead of making a bit of a hate campaign and now putting everyone off Sapphire *I know that's not your intention* you should instead get in contact with Sapphire as spreading this around forums fixes nothing.

I have a lot of friends who have had Sapphire cards over the years and have never seen this and all their cards were water cooled.

 

[BranField]

Instead of making a bit of a hate campaign and now putting everyone off Sapphire *I know that's not your intention* you should instead get in contact with Sapphire as spreading this around forums fixes nothing.

I have a lot of friends who have had Sapphire cards over the years and have never seen this and all their cards were water cooled.

That is the reason why i originally put the thread up on OCN (on Saturday) as i know there is a Sapphire PR rep there that is very active in the community and he knows the channels to go through and the people to contact, when i get home tonight i may also post on the Sapphire forums.

I appreciate that this may be a one of and there could have just been one worker who missed this card however i also think that it needs to be looked into as if it was a worker or a group or workers that did not know to remove these pad protectors then there could be more out there and they could have a bigger problem on their hands.

 

[MadShadow]

1 incident is no reason to avoid that brand, It can happen to ANY brand.

I've had Asus motherboards arrive with actual missing bits but I just sent them back and got a non faulty version.

Shit happens sometimes, You must remember these things are put together a lot of the times by human beings and we make mistakes

Yeah I understand all that, so I said I'd be wary. I'll still go sapphire over asus or MSI for AMD cards. I'll just remember this and if I see a similar problem again, then I may start avoiding them.

 

[Dicehunter]

That is the reason why i originally put the thread up on OCN (on Saturday) as i know there is a Sapphire PR rep there that is very active in the community and he knows the channels to go through and the people to contact, when i get home tonight i may also post on the Sapphire forums.

I appreciate that this may be a one of and there could have just been one worker who missed this card however i also think that it needs to be looked into as if it was a worker or a group or workers that did not know to remove these pad protectors then there could be more out there and they could have a bigger problem on their hands.

Well this is what you *Sapphire* get for paying your workers crap money ^_^

Yeah I understand all that, so I said I'd be wary. I'll still go sapphire over ASauS or MSI for AMD cards. I'll just remember this and if I see a similar problem again, then I may start avoiding them.

If it was me I personally wouldn't be bothered as I always replace the stock TIM anyways so peeling off a few bits honestly wouldn't bother me, I do agree it shouldn't happen though, But what can you do, Put together by humans so expect human problems ^_^