Tuesday, February 4th 2025
Reports of Bricked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5090D Surge
According to widespread user reports from Chinese tech forums and Reddit communities, multiple RTX 5090 and 5090D graphics cards are failing permanently after standard driver installation. The issue affects both the standard RTX 5090 and the export-modified 5090D variant released for the Chinese market on January 30th. Users report consistent failure patterns: upon initial driver installation, displays go dark, and systems permanently lose the ability to detect the GPU through both DisplayPort and HDMI interfaces. Hardware failures have been documented across multiple board partners, with Colorful, Manli, and Gigabyte cards showing identical symptoms. Third-party vendor reports sometimes indicate potential IC burn damage, suggesting hardware-level failure rather than recoverable software issues.
Some investigations point to PCIe Gen 5 implementation as a possible root cause. The RTX 5090 series represents NVIDIA's first fully Gen 5-compliant GPU architecture, introducing new signal integrity challenges. Some users report temporary mitigation by forcing PCIe 4.0 mode in BIOS settings, though this workaround remains unverified. Additional complications arise from modern motherboard designs that share PCIe lanes between M.2 storage and graphics slots. The failure pattern appears consistent across both domestic and international markets. On r/ASUS, users report identical detection failures persisting through CMOS resets and system rebuilds. Chinese forum documentation shows systematic failures across multiple board partner implementations, suggesting a fundamental architecture or driver compatibility issue rather than isolated manufacturing defects. NVIDIA has not issued official guidance on the failures.Below are screenshots of the reported user problems:
Sources:
Chiphell, Baidu, Goofish, r/ASUS, via Wccftech
Some investigations point to PCIe Gen 5 implementation as a possible root cause. The RTX 5090 series represents NVIDIA's first fully Gen 5-compliant GPU architecture, introducing new signal integrity challenges. Some users report temporary mitigation by forcing PCIe 4.0 mode in BIOS settings, though this workaround remains unverified. Additional complications arise from modern motherboard designs that share PCIe lanes between M.2 storage and graphics slots. The failure pattern appears consistent across both domestic and international markets. On r/ASUS, users report identical detection failures persisting through CMOS resets and system rebuilds. Chinese forum documentation shows systematic failures across multiple board partner implementations, suggesting a fundamental architecture or driver compatibility issue rather than isolated manufacturing defects. NVIDIA has not issued official guidance on the failures.Below are screenshots of the reported user problems:
84 Comments on Reports of Bricked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5090D Surge
And keep in mind defect rate goes up naturally as the products get more and more complex.
We'll have to wait and see, I suppose. You're not wrong.
It seems that a very big % of the 100 or less RTX5090 cards that were scalped, it's affected.
A very disappointing launch really, I expected more from them. It's probably the most disappointing launch i've witnessed in a good while.
Edit: Here's your chance on a silver platter AMD. You ramped production at the same time at 50 series but didn't have a joke of a launch with hundreds of products. Iron out bugs, do a proper launch, price it well and actually have stock. Judging by their track record, something should be amiss but let's not hope it's all of those points.
Apple kicked Jobs after two commercial fail. The dude went back in shorts and tongs after the supposed better leadership nearly ran the company to the grave. In the current datacenter focused market, Jensen probably got as much aura as Jobs had for the mainstream market (The man is now being interviewed by mainstream vulgarisation tech channels). Nvidia without Jensen sounds scary If you have money invested.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's Vision for the Future
I was hoping the fanboys would begin to shut up by now, but no, they'd rather defend the trillion dollar overvalued company, which HAS the resources, but cares so little about gamers, that managed to "launch" an overpriced, unavailable and failing product.
Because if you look at this objectively, one of the reports posted literally says "all 5090 and 5090D have exploded". Are we not allowed to take that with a grain of salt?
I bought my Galax 4080 SG in August of 2023 and haven't had any problems with it until today. Anyway at this point I hook a hdmi cable up to my Asus x670e Hero and reset the bios with the button because I had the IGPU disabled and couldn't see to get in and enable it. So I boot into Windows 11 with the IGPU and device manager is seeing my RTX 4080 and reports it's working correctly. So I hook a DP cable up to it and try to change the source.. black screen loss of signal. Eventually my Galax vanishes from device manager. I've tried reseating etc many times and currently can't get it back at all. There is no obvious reason as to why it suddenly stopped working. The plug which has caused problems at various points (just meaning the issues people have had since they changed to the new power plug.. I haven't personally had any issues) looks brand new still. So no scorches, damage etc Pulled the card out and all the contacts on the PCI slot look good. There was no spark, explosion or smell.. many years ago I had a card fail and blow the pci slot right off the motherboard and looked like a small sun in my pc case when it happened. So nothing like that. It's just like the card and pc are no longer talking to each other.
I'll have to get into my parts closet to grab another motherboard/power supply so I can set up a open bench machine to see if that can see/post with the 4080. Right now it seems pretty dead for no apparent reason or bricked etc (something).
Either I was just really unlucky today or this driver has some real issues.
Also, there are barely any cards launched and available to begin with, so any amount counts.
Lastly, blackwell was overheating on datacenters before that.
"The first shipments of racks with Blackwell chips are getting too hot and have connection issues between chips"
NVIDIA's GB200 "Blackwell" Racks Face Overheating Issues | TechPowerUp
Consider this: Being an early adopter, you go out of your way to buy a 5090 now, then RMA it after a day and then wait weeks for the replacement, while others buy cheaper and better, as they will certainly fix the issue in the next weeks.
But this kind of issues are testable before launching the product!!
It's not like an Intel 14th gen CPU that gets degraded after being fed power spikes over months. It's a 0 day bug, which is unforgivable (if true).
Another signal how they shifted all their focus to their Data Center clients.
Nvidia is still surprisingly unprofessional in testing things. See for example the Nvidia App, which was Beta for almost all of 2024 until they finally were able to release it. It matured with the beta testers. No adequate inhouse testing was active on this (it seems). They even forgot to add Gsync controls into their App at the start.
Don't mistake a high stock value with a professional corporation. They came to fame (and value) unexpectedly after 11/2022. They are toying with their B2C userbase right now because almost 9/10 of a $ in revenue is coming from B2B now. And they are toying with their large data center clients as well as they constantly increase pricing like a monopolist does. Most of us are forced to use their products for now. But customer retention is not in their mind. In the next years Nvidia needs to stay at the top of R&D with this kind of strategy because the minute somebody will catch up with raw GPU power or smarter software solutions they are dead in the water. Most won't shed a tear when this happens.
If this turns out to be true, it's a colossal screw-up by Nvidia. Of course I think we should wait for more evidence but people rushing to say this is expected because PCIe 5.0 are absolutely jumping on the sword for Nvidia.
The same people saying this was expected and should be excusable are the same people who are first in every thread bashing AMD, even when the thread isn't related to an issue or when spouting some dated input (like saying AMD drivers are unstable).
The double standard is obvious. Bricking cards from a game (new world) and burning adapters are completely fine. I don't have any problem with people pointing out AMD's screw-ups (and there are a LOT of them) but the rush to defend Nvidia is nuts. A part of the reason Nvidia gets away with this stuff is because of this mentality. Hmm, I would not bet against that on my Nvidia future failure reason bingo card.
Now wait till nvidia says it's just the motherboard makers that failed hard and you need a new nvidia arm CPU and purpose built mobo for their GPU's. This isn't a fail, it's a weapon to counter attack if they wish.
When is the last time an AMD driver killed their GPU? I remember there was one, but it must've been so long ago that i forgot.
If you test a card door thousands of times to just see if it resist open and shutting, I'm sure you can test a gpu, that can start a fire in some cases, before getting out the door.