Are there any reliability issues with used mining cards?
AFAIK most miners undervolted their cards to maximise profitability vs. power/cooling requirements. Would applying new thermal paste + replacing fans on the cooler be enough?
AFAIK most miners undervolted their cards to maximise profitability vs. power/cooling requirements. Would applying new thermal paste + replacing fans on the cooler be enough?
The tl;dw is that used cards don't perform worse than new cards - your card either works, or it doesn't. But like any electronics, they have an "expiration date", and if it's been used for 2 years, it's 2 years closer to dying. It's up to you to decide if the discount of a used card might be worth it.
I'm guessing like most electronics, if they don't break in the first few months, they'll probably last until they're thrown away.
A bathtub curve needs to come back up, right?
I've had one motherboard on a laptop go. And that was due to flexing at the hinge. Everything else was mechanical, and I keep pcs for longer than average. My current laptop is 7 years old I believe.
How many I've had fail? Or how many I've replaced?
I worked for a few years in a warranty depot doing desktop and laptop repair. I've replaced a lot of parts outside of that first few months.
I keep my stuff around a good long time too.
I replaced a 5 year old GPU in my desktop just this spring. Tossed a desktop motherboard that would no longer POST with known good parts this summer that was probably about 7 years old. A couple of laptops hit the recycle bin last year because their screens stopped displaying a picture, but it wasn't physical damage or the cable. They were probably close to 8 years old.
Stuff happens, as they say.
For electronics, it is often not just "either works, or it doesn't", but there is also decreased reliability (increased rate of random crashes and restarts). We ran many PCs as routers in often inadequate temperature conditions and that was pretty common failure mode.
It's obviously been running fine under high loads, so why would it just decide to stop working fine?
I think the major issue is that many cards have been running outside of specs for a long time. High loads tends to increase the risk of that, so the problem lies in figuring out the case for the card you're interested in.
I think most people don't really get how durability works with solid state electronics. It makes sense that a truck used under high loads for 2 years straight is going to show some issues. If I was buying a used tube guitar amp and the seller told me it had been left continously playing a test tone at maximum volume for years I'd assume the tubes and speaker cone are F'd.
The idea of "it's been running fine for 2 years under high load, so that's a good sign it will continue to run" is correct but very unintuitive.
Yes.
Specifically, voltage regulators tend - for some reason I am not familar with - wear out and die.
I'd be very careful when buying a second-hand GPU that was used for mining.
> Would applying new thermal paste + replacing fans on the cooler be enough?
Doubtful.