So I've had good luck setting up a Lenovo Z580 with a mini pcie eGPU using the EXP GDC powered by a DA-2. While many things have been going right with this setup, like a custom bios with every option unlocked, one thing has been a bit of a headscratcher.
Taking an EVGA GTX 970 that was perfectly functional, I used it while setting up this eGPU rig. Things seemed relatively normal for a while, but I noticed after a number of reboots that one of the two fans on the GPU had stopped working. I yanked the gpu and put it on my test bench, and fed the fan 12V directly, and sure enough, it was dead (though the RPM meter still worked). I thought this odd but maybe just luck of the draw, until a couple of days later when the other fan also failed. I put it on the test bench again (where the second failed fan originally worked fine off the direct 12v feed by the way) and sure enough, it was definitely dead. I was paying more attention the second time, and verified that the fan did not fail while running. It specifically failed after a shutdown and power on cycle, where it didn't spin up at power on. I couldn't get at the components of the fan to do a full inspection due to not wanting to invalidate my warranty. This card was perfectly fine and had a stable life before being put on the EXP GDC.
Has anyone experienced something like this? The DA-2 appears to be feeding a stable 12.1-12.3V, and I'm not sure what else I can check before putting my exchanged GPU on the eGPU. Thoughts?