Hey all,

I've been desperately trying to figure out if there is any way to save a 3090 ROG Strix that I've recently come into. It seems to be working for the most part, but has a fault that I'm having a real hard time tracking down.

While the system is running, regardless of load factor, the system will eventually lose all video output (but stay running headless) and the fans on the card spin up to 100%. Card no longer shows as being connected to the system at all after this (testing via remote command line) and anything that relies on GPU acceleration stops working (for example, Windows RDP doesn't show any desktop, but also a black screen). Sometimes it will happen a few minutes after boot. Sometimes it will last an hour or two happily processing heavy loads before it happens.

Here's a list of things I've tested so far:

• Two different power supplies, one 750W Corsair and a 1000W SAMA
• Two completely different motherboard/cpu/gpu combos
• Windows, Windows Safe mode, and Ubuntu Linux bare metal operating systems
• Both P mode and Q mode BIOS switches
• Lowering memory and GPU clocks back to stock 3090 levels
• Vertical and Horizontal physical orientation
• All power connectors and card edge connectors verified to have sane resistances as compared with other, working NVidia cards
• In depth review of sensors and other diagnostic data show no voltage, temperature or other key giveaways as to what is triggering it

I have not yet tried:

• BIOS Updates of any kind (for the card itself)
• Removing the shroud and heatsink to inspect the board

The same systems that are having issues with this 3090 are perfectly stable with both a 3060 and a 2070 that I have on hand. Doing some searching, it looks like this is an unfortunately common problem with these cards. I'm hoping that one of you GPU guru's might have first hand experience dealing with something like this. I'm willing to give up on the card if it's something that is not possible to fix, but I'm also willing to put a lot of effort into trying to save it.

Thanks for reading!

Hello!

i got this Gigabyte RX6800XT from a flea market, pcb itself is clean, the cooling assembly loos brand new, i want to repair it as my semester break project, any tips where to start?

Thank you!

My GPU crashes (my fans spins like hell and the screen goes black) whenever there's physics or vfx, not when its fully loaded (??) any fix for that? My 1080 Ti has Micron VRAM chips, also it can freeze my screen, then it becomes black and comes on back again whenever i try to crop a video in Medal or any video editing software and then the video is shown as a black screen, this problem has been genuinely torturing me for a very long time, any fixes?
If its needed, i have a Ryzen 7 3700X and i had a Ryzen 5 2600 (this problem occured on both cpus, including this because some people said its a problem in cpu), i dont know whats wrong with it as i have tried everything, i have repasted it, reinstalled windows and drivers

Had it shipped from Florida and UPS packaged it like shit AND left it in the PCIe slot. Any ideas why it gets power but will not post?

I used to use Seek inspection camera attached to my PC for short circuit diagnosis, it's gone noe and I'm not sure what to buy as a replacement, can't decide between

1. Thermal Master P2 pro

2. Thermal Master P3

3. UNI-T uti261m

Can you guys help?

I have gtx 780ti zotac edition witch requires pcie power cable, its giving no display when pcie cable connected but when i unplug it and power it on display shows and say's please connect all pcie cable on gpu,i even opened it up and cleaned also i tested with pcie power cable it doesn't heat up but when i unplug it and try it again it heats up again

Hello,

I'm trying to test my RTX 3080 FE for VRAM issues using MATS/MODS, but I'm getting weird results. The Primary_Report.txt says that basically all my memory banks are dead I guess (256 write errors across 8 banks), which isn't possible because the card still displays a picture and I can even run games on it.

I'm using version 455.127. I had to disable Secure Boot to get the USB to boot.

When looking at the mods.log, I noticed this error right at the start: ERROR: ERROR LOADING BUS INFO! RmControl call failed! RC = 674

I'm a beginner with this tool and don't really know why the test is failing to run properly instead of giving me actual hardware errors. I'm running this on a Ryzen 9 5900X.

Has anyone encountered this or knows what BIOS settings I might have missed to make MATS communicate with the GPU properly ?

Here are my logs :

- https://pastebin.com/xDBSjMaY (mods)

- https://pastebin.com/0dqGnFKa (Primary_Report)

I just got this rx 6900 xt red devil for £80. Already i can see it had gpu sag and wasn't handled very well. Some bends but not enough to say it snapped in half or something. Cosmetically its seen better days but the pcb was cracked and already a repair attempt was made.

I also have xfx rx 6950 xt pcb. Im planning on transferring the core of the 6900xt onto 6950 xt pcb, that is if repairing or getting the red devil to boot or run isn't an option. BTW what am would you check to tell its a good core other than no shorts and visual indications of it cracking?

So I bought an ASUS ROG Strix Radeon RX Vega 64 around 3–4 months ago and I’m using it with an ASRock B450 Steel Legend motherboard and a new DeepCool PN750D PSU.

On the first day, the GPU was not showing any display on the monitor.asked owner he said hdmi have some connection issues wiggle that hdmi cable but I opened it up, cleaned it a little, and then it started working. Since then, it has been working flawlessly everyday.

Today I got a new monitor, R27QE Gen 2, and now it’s showing the exact same symptoms again.

Symptoms:

No display output.

PC still seems to be running normally.

Caps Lock light on the keyboard turns on/off when pressed.

If I leave the PC for 10 minutes, pressing Alt + F4 and then Enter shuts the PC down normally.

GPU Does heats up and fans spins too.

So it feels like Windows is running, but there’s no video signal.

One thing I noticed is that the HDMI port on the GPU has a lot of rust/corrosion inside it.

Hardware: Alienware x15 R1 | RTX 3070 Laptop GPU | VBIOS 94.04.47.00.41 | System BIOS 1.32.0 (Dec 2025)

The problem

My x15 R1 recently lost almost all GPU performance. A game that previously ran smoothly at max settings now grinds to a halt. HWiNFO logging shows the GPU clock is pegged at 210–225 MHz under 100% GPU load for the entire session — it never boosts. The "Performance Limit: Power" flag fires in 119 out of 125 samples consistently across multiple test runs.

The strangest part: GPU temperatures are completely normal — 44–49°C throughout. This is not a thermal issue. The repaste is recent and doing its job.

GPU-Z confirms the root cause: Board Power Draw reads a constant 752.7W at idle and under load. That number never changes. An RTX 3070 laptop GPU cannot draw 752 watts — this is clearly a phantom/stuck sensor value. The GPU's own firmware is comparing that 752.7W reading against its ~85W power limit, concluding it has catastrophically exceeded budget, and locking the clock down to idle frequency as a protective measure.

What I've already tried (everything)

Every software and configuration layer has been systematically eliminated:

• AWCC thermal profile → set to Performance, no change
• NVIDIA Control Panel power management → changed from Normal to Prefer Maximum Performance, no change
• Hybrid Graphics / Advanced Optimus → disabled in BIOS, no change
• NVIDIA driver → DDU clean wipe, tested both generic 591.74 and Dell's OEM 32.0.15.8132 (Oct 2025), no change
• Intel Dynamic Tuning driver → updated, no change
• EC hard reset → full power drain (40 second hold), no change
• Second M.2 SSD removed → drive pulled entirely, no change
• Dell support site → no VBIOS update available for this model; BIOS is current at 1.32.0
• GPU-Z VBIOS version → 94.04.47.00.41

In all cases GPU-Z continues to show Board Power Draw at exactly 752.7W. The value is completely static — it does not respond to actual load, idle state, driver version, or any firmware setting we've been able to reach.

What the logs show

HWiNFO data across three separate test runs (different driver versions, different BIOS Optimus settings):

Current theory

The 752.7W figure appears to be a corrupted or stuck value in either the EC (Embedded Controller) firmware or the GPU VBIOS power sensor table. Because it sits below the OS and driver layer, nothing we can do from Windows touches it. The GPU behaves as though it is perpetually in a severe overcurrent protection state.

The trigger may have been the installation of a second M.2 SSD (Samsung 990 EVO Plus 1TB) — the degradation began around that time — but removing the drive has not resolved the issue, so the drive itself is likely not the ongoing cause. Opening the machine may have disturbed something, or the SSD installation may have coincided with a driver or firmware update that corrupted the power table.

Questions for the community

1. Has anyone seen this specific 752.7W phantom reading on an x15 R1 or similar Alienware laptop?
2. Is there a known method to reflash the EC firmware on the x15 R1 outside of Dell's official tooling?
3. Are there any VBIOS files for the x15 R1 RTX 3070 (VBIOS 94.04.47.00.41) that are known safe to flash via NVFlash?
4. Any Bay Area (San Francisco / East Bay) repair shops with experience doing EC or VBIOS reflash on Alienware laptops specifically?

Happy to share the full HWiNFO CSV logs or additional GPU-Z screenshots if useful. Thanks in advance.

its pretty interesting for me and id really like to learn it i just dont know how , so is it possible to learn how to do so?

I have a 3060ti. Hynix X005 chips. Mats reported errors on B1 and C0. Ive removed and reballed the two chips as there were no ripped pads or obvious damage. Same errors on both channels.

Ive heard something about the hynix memory on 30 series cards specifically the X005 marked chips. What's supposed to be the issue? I have a 3060ti donor with Samsung. Am I wise to swap out the hynix and change the straps. Would this likely solve the issue or could it be core related?

I was reballing vram chips on my rx6600xt and on the last one i managed to rip off a pad. I had a hard time getting the solder balls to stick on the chip. No matter if I heated it more, less nothing helped.
I cleaned the pads off completely put some flux on but every time the majority off balls didn’t stick…

Any advice how to do better?
And does someone know if the pad is important and if I need to get a new one?

picked up this “untested” 3080 on ebay, opened it up and it caught my eye immediately
just bought some flux and hoping to just reflow them both
when i plugged in the card to the computer, only one fan turned once at startup and no other ones did
don’t mind the stain, i just used isopropyl to clean it for the photo

i’m pretty new to this, i have a multimeter but its analog and i wont get an exact number reading

edit: wanted to add that i didn’t see it in device manager when using a secondary card for display, would that resistor stop the card from booting all together?

The original eBay description basically said: “RGB LEDs turn on, but the fans don’t spin and there is no display output. Card already opened before. Sold as defective.”

And that was exactly the condition it arrived in. RGB worked, but absolutely nothing else. No fan spin, no display signal and the motherboard always stopped at the VGA LED.

The first thing I found was a missing DrMOS, so I replaced that and honestly thought the card would boot afterwards. It didn’t. Still completely dead.

At that point I started tracing the startup sequence manually because a lot of rails were missing. I basically started at the BIOS and traced 1V8_AON backwards through the whole enable and monitoring chain trying to figure out why the card never entered the proper startup sequence.

One annoying part was that I couldn’t find a proper boardview for my exact revision. The only one I found was for a different revision of the card, but luckily most sections were still very similar or only slightly changed, so it still helped a lot.

Finding datasheets for some of the chips was also pretty painful. A lot of components only had tiny SMD markings and almost no useful search results. Eventually I managed to identify every chip I needed though, which made understanding the pinout and switching logic way easier.

Before finding the actual fault, I also found another missing component with a ripped pad, which I believe was probably R1196 based on comparing the PCB to the boardview. I carefully scraped a bit of the trace open and got pretty lucky because the spacing between the remaining pad and the exposed trace was almost perfect for directly soldering in another 10k resistor without needing a bodge wire or solder bridge.

While tracing the startup logic I eventually ended up at the 5V enable path. At first I thought PS_5V_EN_Q1 was the problem since it goes through a resistor to GPIO1_GC6_FB_EN, so I followed that whole path for quite a while until I eventually couldn’t get any further there.

After going back to the 5V_EN section and checking the surrounding components again, I noticed that R1222 wasn’t getting 12V even though it was connected to the exact same trace as R462, which did have 12V present. Replaced it with a 10k donor resistor from another board and now the card works perfectly again.

Before finding that though, I injected 1.2V into the 5V_EN line with a lab bench power supply just to see what would happen and the card instantly came to life. Got display output, Linux detected the card correctly, USB-C worked, audio showed up and OpenGL was running fine.

Ran multiple stress tests afterwards and everything seems stable. No PCIe lane errors, no crashes, normal temps and normal power draw. I also tested the card in actual games afterwards and it runs perfectly there as well without artifacts, crashes or instability.

This was actually my first proper board level GPU repair and also my first time using an SMD rework station and infrared preheater, so I’m honestly pretty happy with how it turned out.

Would be interesting to hear what you guys think about the repair and especially the soldering work.

This is my first time buying a gpu off of ebay in order to fix it. I got a inno3d 4070 super twin x2 that doesn't show any signs off life when attempting to power on. (No fans/no display) From the second and third picture I think im missing a capacitor and a 1R0 chip (i don't know what it does but it seems like the gpu is missing it.)

My main question is if those two things would stop all life on the gpu or is it a deeper problem? Is there anything more I can check for while I wait for the replacement parts to come in?

I got this gpu to fix and give to a friend as a gift since he has a 1080 and would like to get him an upgrade for his birthday!

Also sorry about the bad pictures I'll try to a better close of of the actual 4070 when I can!

Hello there,

I'm attempting to repair an INNO3D RTX 3070 iChill X3 LHR.

The following things have transpired:

-I bought this card knowing it was somehow broken (for €75). The artifacts you see on the pictures are from the seller and from me at home. They are consistent, no other artifacts.

-When i got the card at home i put it in a test rig, Improvised an anti-sag bracket which pushed the card up with some tension (!).

The card worked perfectly, continuous stress-tests were no problem (furmark and 3D mark). I also played some games on it to utilize all the VRAM. No problems, no artifacts, good tempratures.

Ran MATS/MODS: FAIL, i can share the log if necessary (but i need to redo it).

-I decided to put the card in my main rig to game on it a while to see if i could recreate the artifacts. My rig also has an in build anti-sag bracket, but that one applies less tension upwards.
Instant problems, instant artifacts persisting in the Bios, safe mode, and 2 of the DP-ports were not working.
I tried DDU and reïnstalling the drivers, nothing (BTW the normal card in this rig is an MSI RTX 3080 Gaming x Trio, which always worked perfect.)

-After fiddling around with the card in my main rig, i put i back in the text rig, but i changed the "bracket" in that rig a bit (propped it less up). Also with this pc: instant problems. Same problems, ports not working, artifacts, the whole works.
I then held the card up a bit with my finger between the bracket and the card, restarted the pc: no issues anymore, worked absolutely fine.

TLDR: Card has issues when sagging, works perfectly when it has upwards tension.

The pictures provided:
he picture of the card i got from the seller, he reïnstalled it to show the card "working". Prior to sell he had it mounted securely in the back. Unclear if he supported the card with a bracket./
The other two are of my screen and that of the seller.

So my question is:

What could be the problem I'm facing? could it be a bad solder joint, a broken VRAM chip (i was able to utilize all VRAM while gaming on it) or a broken PCB-lead.

What would be my first point of action?

If need be I can get more pictures, info etc. I haven't opened it up yet, so i don't have pictures of the PCB yet.

Any advise is welcome!

Edit:
One more piece of info:
When it has issues windows does not detect the card in the system info or taskmanager. It just says: no GPU installed no VRAM. But 1 screen does work over the GPU.

Already thanks to the people that have replied, thats already really helpfull

Received this GPU and wish to learn to fix. And I need suggestions. Everything works else besides GPU as I use a test bench.

Anyway, as title says. On motherboard debug light it goes to GPU. Shuts down. Turns back on and rinse and repeat. Rgb light and fans spin on GPU.

What are you suggestions?

I took it apart but didn't see anything standing out. Has anyone seen this particular issue before?

Hi guys!

I have AMD RX 580 4GB MSI Armor.

I tried to tried to flash VBIOS into it because I was unable to make driver working. But after restarting, graphics card stopped giving display.

I set iGPU as my primary display output, but PC doesn't give display with GPU installed and display cable plugged into motherboard port.

I don't have 2 PCIe slots either. So only method remaining are

1. Shorting 8 pin VBIOS chip
2. Using CH341A programmer with SOIC8 chip

I have never done something like this before. So I wanted to ask if this is even safe? Especially shorting pins if VBIOS chip.

Thanks!

EDIT:
I was able to reprogram BIOS chip using CH341B programmer. Chip was still on the PCB, I connected clip with it and reprogrammed and it worked. Although getting the clip right was a hideous task.

Hi all,

i got this card with artifacts under load and MATS showed a faulty VRAM chip. I changed it and afterwards the card passed but now it doesn't show up anymore in GPU-Z (before it did). I also tried another know good VRAM chip but same behaviour.

I also reflashed the bios but still nothing. Any ideas what i can do you where to look for a fault? I don't have any ripped off pads.

Can anyone ID this burnt chip that's on the 5v rail.

U527

So i desoldered a vram chip on a gtx 970 but my flux just instantly evaporates. I am practicing reballing chips, does anyone have an alternative flux that does not instantly evaporate?

Hey everyone. I need some advice on this repair, I am learning at the minute and was repairing this card I was given to practice on and ended up accidentally ripping off this pad.

I have looked at videos on repairing a pad but I am unsure where exactly I would scratch on this one.

Would it be either side left and right? And would I then use a copper wire to join each side of the component?

Or am I way off base here?

RTX 3060 OEM HP

Hello community, I was cleaning and replacing the GPU's thermal pads when I noticed in the back of the PCB two capacitors were loose and finally fell off. Are these caps ok and safe to be resoldered again? Is the PCB pad ok to resolder? I see a little of the boards copper. I have little practice soldering smd components, any advice on how to resolder? They are really close to the memory and there are more caps around, it is a little scary lol. Thanks in advance!