Monday, February 24th 2025
Unlucky Owner of ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 OC Reports "Caught on Fire" Incident
The new ASUS ROG Astral graphics card design debuted last month, with the rollout of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 "Blackwell" GPUs. The flagship model—in overclocked form—is not a wallet-friendly prospect; as highlighted by W1zzard's in-depth evaluation. The "astronomically-priced" premium-tier quad-fan model is a hot property; in more ways than one—late last week, an unfortunate ownership experience was shared online. NVIDIA subreddit member—Impossible-Weight485—uploaded photo evidence, accompanied by a short story: "I was playing PC games this afternoon, and when I was done with the games, my PC suddenly shut down while I was browsing websites. When I restarted the PC, the GPU caught on fire, and smoke started coming out. When I took out the GPU, I saw burn marks on both the GPU and the motherboard." Post-absorption, initial community and press feedback posited that the problem originated with a Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor (MLCC), located not far from the card's PCI-E interface.
High-profile figures soon swooped in, with different theories and offers. A Team Green subreddit moderator weighed in: "not adding this one to our GeForce RTX 50 Series 12VHPWR Megathread. This looks to be a blown power phase, and not melting power connector. The original poster provided additional photos of the cable, in addition to the GPU connector photo in the post. Both looks pristine...Yes, I watched Buildzoid's video (see below), hence updating this comment...Thanks to Buildzoid for the education!" The owner uploaded another interior shot, seemingly showing burn damage on their ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X870E HERO motherboard. The severity of this incident attracted the attention of Gamers Nexus—Lelldorianx (aka Stephen Burke) reached out to the damaged card's owner: "messaging you. We'd buy the board and GPU from you if you want to just take the cash and buy something else (or) skip the RMA process." Burke and his colleagues are actively investigating various GeForce RTX 50-series "pratfalls"—earlier this month, reports indicated that the team was already engaged in the sourcing of problematic units.
Here is Buildzoid's "Innocent capacitor blamed for ASUS RTX 5090 Astral catching fire" video coverage:
Sources:
NVIDIA Subreddit, VideoCardz, Tom's Hardware, Wccftech
High-profile figures soon swooped in, with different theories and offers. A Team Green subreddit moderator weighed in: "not adding this one to our GeForce RTX 50 Series 12VHPWR Megathread. This looks to be a blown power phase, and not melting power connector. The original poster provided additional photos of the cable, in addition to the GPU connector photo in the post. Both looks pristine...Yes, I watched Buildzoid's video (see below), hence updating this comment...Thanks to Buildzoid for the education!" The owner uploaded another interior shot, seemingly showing burn damage on their ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X870E HERO motherboard. The severity of this incident attracted the attention of Gamers Nexus—Lelldorianx (aka Stephen Burke) reached out to the damaged card's owner: "messaging you. We'd buy the board and GPU from you if you want to just take the cash and buy something else (or) skip the RMA process." Burke and his colleagues are actively investigating various GeForce RTX 50-series "pratfalls"—earlier this month, reports indicated that the team was already engaged in the sourcing of problematic units.
39 Comments on Unlucky Owner of ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 OC Reports "Caught on Fire" Incident
Edit, to satisfy the offended loyal ones, faulty power phase.
In the end, same crap, power related issue on a way too expensive gpu.
Not defending this cause this card is overpriced as heck and this kind of issues should not exist with this level. And this whole 5090 lineup is nothing but a joke with a lot of failures...
Which is unacceptable when you are talking about extremely high end card for consumer field.
RIP 630€ ASUS mainboard. That shiny, shiny ASUS mainboard needs now a new replacement plastics.
Does ASUS now use flame retarding plastics now on their shiny 630€ ASUS - ROG - HERO mainboards? Which costs 4 times of an usual mainboard? (3 times is up to debate)
edit
Did you know that flame-retardant plastics are essential for improving the safety and durability of electronic devices? They're designed to resist ignition and prevent the spread of flames, offering an added layer of protection to sensitive components like motherboards.
Note: Not a real product - check the product homepage before buying. Not a purchasable product - Fake picture - you have been warned
101 tactic with Asus Warranty Center!
It's just very isolated cases getting huge by reddit and forum exposure. If you google reddit about blown capacitors youll get hundreds of hits. For example, this one is with a brand new GPU, happened 5 months ago
'
You're all over the place trying to give justifications on behalf of nvidia.
You know, its the same thing with AMD and their "infamous and horrible drivers" right? :D
As for the actual situation itself, can the 50 series launch get any worse? We might as well start making a bingo card for this.
But there are probably enough issues to fill at least half of a bingo card. :D