my question is, being in australia and running games at 1440p / 4k i get around 83 celius temps, and my card stock fan gets out of this world loud. i wish to replace it with a custom cooler loop or even a fan cooler from artic " https://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/accelero-xtreme-iv.html "
Gigabyte in emails has stated when asked if even cleaning the fan or replacing the thermal compound with something of higher performance would void the 3 year warranty i have i was told yes it will. My wondering is, HOW do they know? like ive seen a number of founder edition cards beeing taken apart etc and there is no special screws or stickers that would give it away if it was taken apart.
If the card dies or something, just put the old cooler back on and if they ask you anything about how and why it stopped working tell them nothing. You're not a computer expert. It just stopped working.
just put the old cooler on. if there is water damage then they will be able to tell due to corrosion. they is not much of a situtation where they can entrap you and void the warrenty. good luck
I would echo the tip of putting the original cooler on it, just make sure you clean the PCB for any possible fingerprints from previous handling of waterblock installation. I recommend using q-tips dipped in alcohol. Who knows, they may be checking those using UV light to check if user handling was the cause of damage when RMA'ing it.
For starters, they let Australian warranty handlers deal with it. They are NOT going to be very strict on a change of heatsink etc provided the original is mounted on it when received. I have done this myself with a 290 watercooled system, I even had a couple incorrect screws on the back and they still accepted it.
Often the cards can have stickers on one of the screws but they are not going to care, afterall here in Australia you actually have consumer protection for electronic goods so its in their best interest NOT to piss off us Aussies as we do have a legal system to deal with such a thing (and you would win unless you clearly destroyed your card).
In fact I replaced my 390x not long ago which is a gigabyte brand, redid the thermal paste on it several times and still got a totally new replacement in the end (damn thing kept overheating). I even used different thermal pads for the vrm/vram, surely they would have noticed that? but its not a issue.
How do they know? If there are warranty void stickers on the back of the card on top of the screws or any other type of stickers. If the thermal paste you use looks vastly different compared to the one they apply at the factory, they would suspect it. Don't tell them you've changed the cooler, if they'd know it and they have a way to identify the exact card (S/N) they could woid the warranty.
But if there are no warranty void stickers, go ahead. Change the cooler. Be sure to not scuff it up anyway on the PCB and so on. If you fuck up the card somehow damaging it by something you did, please don't be an a-hole and send it in for repair. And if you at somepoint need to send the card in for repair because of something you did not do, just replace the custom cooler with the stock cooler. Make sure you don't leave any excess thermalpaste or something like that on the PCB either.
Fyi, it's actually illegal in the US to void the warranty when something is opened unless you really caused damage. Nearly all of those "Warranty void if seal broken" stickers and clauses are unenforceable except in a few rare cases (such as with hard drives where even a spec of dust can cause major damage).
I know you're not in the US but I wonder if you have consumer protection laws there around such things.
we have the australian consumer laws that are one of the best in the world so ill look into this. im screwed if i did void haha i put arctic silver 5 on my gpu and lowered the temps enough for a good OC :)