well that's a minor bummer but not an end of the world..
100watts statement comes from some other comment made on the thread where idle these cards pull ~100 watts.. So if they are pulling 100 watts idle, that's extra heat that has to be removed from the card before it cools down enough to self test... (which I understand is 34c correct?)
Josh
They shouldn't be idling at 100W after a reset, more like 10-20W the majority of which is often the fan. After a reset the board turns on the 1V power supply to the chips, but it runs at 0.85V and does not enable the clocks until the self test starts. The chips only pull a few watts at this point.
The only time I could see it idling at 100W is if it was at a high voltage after having run for awhile (like 1.15V) and for whatever reason work isn't being sent to the chips, but the clocks are still on.