SOLVED: EVGA 2070 Super XC Ultra brought back from the dead, need help solving power issue.

Joined
Jan 1, 2022
Messages
3
Hey everyone, long time browser first time poster.

I recently brought an EVGA RTX 2070 Super XC Ultra back from the dead as the title mentioned. And it works great.
But for some reason, it seems to be severely power limited as it never goes over 40% of its TDP no matter how demanding the game is and it has caused noticeable FPS issues.
I know I can't expect it to work flawlessly since it was bought as a dead GPU.

So I am going to explain what I've done in terms of repairs and trouble shooting.

I bought the card as showing no signs of power at all for a reasonable price, the previous owner never attempted any repairs or ever repasted the card and it was long out of warranty.

So when I got home and opened it up, I had found the 20 AMP fuse for the 8 pin PCIe power input was blown, along with another fuse seeming SMD, so I searched for every detail I could but couldn't figure out the second SMD fuse details.
But I found reference PCB photos and found that EVGA kept pretty similar to the reference design except for these extra fuses. I checked all Vrails for shorts, checked resistance and everything checked out. There was no shorts at all.

So since I found that they were only added via EVGA, and the Nvidia Reference card didn't have any on them I decided to take a risk and just remove them and then bridge them with solder to complete the circuit and bam the card powered on,
booted into windows and drivers installed with no problem, everything reported correctly. But I noticed the performance was exactly right for card of this level so I kept GPU-z open and monitored temperatures along with voltage and total TDP usage
and that is where I found the oddity that I am seeking help with.

RTX2070superproblem.PNG


With a game running on the highest settings, at 1080p (windowed or full screen seemed to show the same results so hence why It is windowed) But even in full screen as 1440p the FPS was lower than what this card would/should typically get.
(And I have tested this with 2 different power supplies and the results are the same)

Here is a photo of the fuses I am referring to before removing them and bridging them.
Specifically the White SMD 20AMP Fuse with Blue and the at the bottom corner the brown one with the letter R on it which is one of the ones I cannot identify, not even sure if its a fuse but the card wouldn't power up without it bridged.
2070 fuses.jpg


If anyone can provide any information on the SMDs or any information as to why I may be seeing a lock on power consumption. (Might be the solder having too high of a resistance?) It would be greatly appreciated.

System Specs:
Lenovo Y910 27 inch AIO
Core i7 6700
16GB DDR4
650W PSU (Second PSU is also 650W)
 
Last edited:
So I have realized something new that I have never seen before. I had to do a triple take because it is confusing the hell out of me. So for some reason the GPU never exceeds 65% if pushed with furmark, in games it will sit lower at around 30$% to 40% TDP causing some weird FPS behavior.

I had checked GPUz and also HWinfo with HWinfo providing the most detailed information.

So it does show the GPU is receiving 12 volts as it should. But for some reason, the GPU is only letting 6.4 volts in. When running Furmark the GPU will take upto 7.2 Volts. But never more than that. I would love to get this GPU back to normal but I have used up everything I know at this point.


Mindfukery.PNG
 
Well I have solved the problem, incase anyone else ever has this issue you need to replace the SMD NCP45491. It reports the voltages via the shunt resistors and sometimes commonly fails especially if the gpu had a power surge.

Here is the data sheet.

And here is a link to it on Digi-Key

Edit: I also want to add that the GPU would not be working or even boot if it was not truly getting 12 Volts (11.4 minimum). If this issue occurs it can cause poor performance in general as it directly affects the perfcap and will make the GPU think it has less power than needed causing to spike with frame drops in some intensive games.

This is is more so reference for those with 20 series GPUS but this would be the same SMD controller, just a different revision/model for other cards as they are an essential components on GPUS.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top