EVGA Responds To PSU Fiasco, Decides To Replace 22 TB of Burned Drives of The Affected User

EVGA has finally responded to the recent PSU fiasco faced by a consumer that reportedly led to the burning of 22 TB of storage drives.

For a quick background, it all started when Reddit user, u/DataHoarder, revealed an issue with his EVGA PSU that shocked many of those who read the post. The user bought a unit of the company's GQ 1000W Gold PSU a year before the incident, claiming that he was hearing immense coil whine coming out from his unit, that was when he realized that the unit was defective, and ultimately, he applied for RMA. After complying with the warranty conditions, he sent out his unit and received a replacement a few weeks later, not knowing that mounting it would result in something unpredictable.

EGVA power supply pin layout change - featuring fried hard drives. Beware when warrantying a PSU. byu/sgircys inDataHoarder

When he powered up his RMA'ed PSU, it wasn't booting up after continuous tries, and following the diagnostic process; the Redditor realized that his SATA power was all messed up, and apparently, 22 TB worth of storage drives were all fired up.

Upon inquiring about the reason from EVGA, their representative told him that the pin layout of the power supply was modified, which was why the older cables were incompatible. The shocker here was the unexpected change in the pin layout, which the consumer wasn't told about on the arrival of the new unit, which ultimately resulted in the burning of all of his storage.

The news gained immense traction among forums, and GamersNexus was kind enough to contact EVGA directly about the issue. According to the firm, there was a safety regulation running change, which made it necessary to modify the pin layout, and according to EVGA, the change was compliant with the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), hence the PSU update was pushed out to every manufacturer out there.

We had set up an internal procedure for RMAs for these model numbers based on a serial range to make sure the customer would get the right version for their cables. Typically, the customer just sends the brick back to us and they leave the cables in there. The procedure was in place and also stated that, if for some reason EVGA did not have the correct models, customer service would send the customer a full G5 power supply with a note to let them know that they would need to upgrade their power supply so everything matches.

But where we fell short is that, while this policy had been enforced for the year since [the change] happened, due to some internal operation error, the wrong power supply brick was sent to the customer.

- EVGA via GamersNexus

In response to the trouble faced by the customer, EVGA has vowed to provide replacement costs for the affected drives, so that's how this case has ended for now. For users looking to stay safe from such issues, double-check what type of wires you get with your power supplies from every manufacturer, not just EVGA. On the company's part, it is apparent negligence, but because the EVGA has already shut down its GPU operations and is apparently "short-staffed", you can't just blame everything on them.

News Sources: Reddit, GamersNexus