Reports of Bricked NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5090D Surge

[AleksandarK]

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:




View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Caring1]

Early adopter problems in the 1st world.

 

[Hyderz]

Hardware level failure! Yikes

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

paper launch and it's a $2k silicon brick. To those who went through all the troubles just to get their hands on a card that gives ~10% improvements over the 4090; congratulations, you've played yourself. The scalpers who bought a pallet worth of it; congratulations, you've bought a pile of bricks that no one will be buying.

 

[_roman_]

I would not be surprised when some buyers of the cards changed the firmware of the card before these issues happened.

Additional complications arise from modern motherboard designs that share PCIe lanes between M.2 storage and graphics slots.

I think this is unrelated to the topic. It does not matter. It is just less electrical pcie lanes. I prefer to write electrical lanes. With the eyes I always see 16 mechanical pcie lanes PEG slots or 1 mechanical pcie slots. For the device it is important the electrical lanes.
These pcie lanes can be used for m2 nvme slots but could be used for something else or just be wasted. Recently we had another mainboard topic where some lanes were just wasted when installing a single m2 device.

--

Anyway baby burn - baby burn - with 575Watts or even more.

I would be not surprised when some of the buyers used certain software to use the card with 700 or 800 Watts to get these issues.

 

[Chaitanya]

Now those people have to wait 3-4 months for replacements.

 

[R0H1T]

Yeah avoid flatworms, or roundworms

Spoiler

In fact anything with worms

 

[1sanpedro1]

paper launch and it's a $2k silicon brick. To those who went through all the troubles just to get their hands on a card that gives ~10% improvements over the 4090; congratulations, you've played yourself. The scalpers who bought a pallet worth of it; congratulations, you've bought a pile of bricks that no one will be buying.

Probably more like a $3,000-5,000 brick... That would really suck

 

[mtosev]

Terrible news. Sad to see that users of 5090s are having issues.

 

[Alan Smithee]

These aren't hardware failures. They're PCIe gen 5 compatibility issues with certain motherboards/BIOS. Der8auer covered this in his 5090 review video. Dropping the slot to PCIe gen 4 fixes it. I'll bet many boards will work around the problem by releasing a new BIOS with better gen 5 card compatibility. In the meantime, the FPS difference between gen 4 x16 and gen 5 x16 is around 1%, so it's not significant. There will be a delay for releasing fixed BIOS due to CNY and of course the difficulty in getting cards to test (even though they are in many cases the same company that makes GPUs, they're different departments).

In short, overblown, nothing to see here, move along

 

[LittleBro]

There has already been some information about RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 failing during reviews: Tom's Hardware, der8auer, igor's LAB.
Looks like PCI-E 5.0 related (possibly hardware) problem. What I don't understand is this:

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.

After driver installation, DP and HDMI are like really permanently gone?
If you really need to just install drivers to kill a card, that's another level. I mean people here on TPU keep saying that AMD drivers are shit ...
(And I thought the RX 9070's release is/was a shitshow.)

At least 9800X3Ds are stocked now, they also dropped price from 600+€ to 580.

 

[Alan Smithee]

There has already been some information about RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 failing during reviews: Tom's Hardware, der8auer, igor's LAB.
Looks like PCI-E 5.0 related hardware problem. What I don't understand is this:

After driver installation, DP and HDMI are like really permanently gone? If so, this is quite serious problem.
In history, there were problems when a game killed Nvidia card and when bad drivers stopped cooling fans from working,
but if you really need to just install drivers to kill a card, that's another level. I mean people here on TPU keep saying that AMD drivers are shit ...
(And I thought the RX 9070's release was a shitshow.)

At least 9800X3Ds are stocked now, they also dropped price from 600+€ to 580.

It's not permanent, it's not a hardware failure. It's fixed by setting the slot to gen 4.

To be perfectly clear, the only reason it's related to installing drivers is because Windows doesn't run the slot at full speed until drivers are installed.

This is a completely expected teething-pain issue with a new PCIe generation and will undoubtedly be resolved in a new BIOS.

 

[LittleBro]

It's not permanent, it's not a hardware failure. It's fixed by setting the slot to gen 4.

To be perfectly clear, the only reason it's related to installing drivers is because Windows doesn't run the slot at full speed until drivers are installed.

This is a completely expected teething-pain issue with a new PCIe generation and will undoubtedly be resolved in a new BIOS.

Well, the article states otherwise. Either you or the news post is misleading.

 

[R0H1T]

This is a completely expected teething-pain issue with a new PCIe generation and will undoubtedly be resolved in a new BIOS.

Good job shilling for arguably the scummiest $3 trillion company in the world & that's saying something considering the other one is a cult

 

[Assimilator]

4 reports is not a surge.

 

[Alan Smithee]

Good job shilling for arguably the scummiest $3 trillion company in the world & that's saying something considering the other one is a cult

This has nothing to do with nVidia, we can assume the same motherboards will have issues with the upcoming AMD RDNA4 cards. It's a PCIe gen 5 issue, and you can hardly blame anyone since there were no consumer gen 5 GPUs to test with when these motherboards were manufactured. This was widely predicted to happen with the first gen 5 GPUs and is in no way unexpected or surprising.

We have this issue literally every PCIe generation, and it's exactly the same symptom you'll get if you buy a case with a gen 3 riser cable and install a gen 4 GPU, with the same solution (downgrade slot in BIOS).

If nVidia hadn't rushed this launch (der8auer reports 2-10 days from chip delivery to manufacturing) the partners may have had time to test motherboard compatibility. But the other problem is they launched at CNY so there are no engineers at work to release fixed motherboard BIOS.

 

[R0H1T]

It's a PCIe gen 5 issue, and you can hardly blame anyone since there were no consumer gen 5 GPUs to test with when these motherboards were manufactured. This was widely predicted to happen with the first gen 5 GPUs and is in no way unexpected or surprising.

I find that impossible to believe, sure in retail/consumer hands but not within Nvidia's test labs!

So after the 4090 connectors melting we're given them another pass here?

 

[LittleBro]

I find that impossible to believe, sure in retail/consumer hands but not within Nvidia's test labs!

So after the 4090 connectors melting we're given them another pass here?

I, too, think that Nvidia would test it with PCIE 5.0 boards. There are many of them. Basically any B650E/X670E board or Intel 600/700 boards have support for PCIE 5.0 for GPU slot AFAIK.

EDIT: Corrected X670 to X670E. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[_roman_]

Der8auer covered this in his 5090 review video. Dropping the slot to PCIe gen 4 fixes it.

thanks for mentioning this. So the consumer bought a more expensive mainboard with pcie 5.0 on the peg slot which he can not use out of the box.

X670 board or Intel 600/700 boards have support for PCIE 5.0 for GPU slot AFAIK.

I bought on purpose a mainboard without pcie 5.0 on the graphic card slot. X670 and B650 does not have pcie 5.0 on the graphic card slot. You need the E suffix for that feature. B650E / X670E

it's not a hardware failure

The hardware was delivered with a failure. It does not work. Workaround changing the bus speed. So it is broken by definition and it needs a dirty workaround.
It needs later a repair with maybe changed mainboard or changed firmware.

I consider firmware part of the hardware.

Those firmware fixes are there to make green bananas to yellow bananas much later at the consumer when he already owned the hardware for a long time.

Firmware = software for programming microcontroller and other programmable, usually flash, integrated circuits. E.g. the uefi = "bios" of a mainboard

AMD drivers are shit

the windows amd graphic card drivers are bad.
I can not remember any issue with ryzen master or the amd chipset driver.
gnu linux has issues with high memory clock always with certain amd graphic cards

 

[Assimilator]

I find that impossible to believe, sure in retail/consumer hands but not within Nvidia's test labs!

I, too, think that Nvidia would test it with PCIE 5.0 boards. There are many of them. Basically any B650E/X670 board or Intel 600/700 boards have support for PCIE 5.0 for GPU slot AFAIK.

This is such a stupid non-argument. Of course NVIDIA tested it with PCIe 5.0 motherboards, otherwise every man and their dog would be complaining. The fact the latter is not happening should, but apparently hasn't, clue you into the fact that maybe, just maybe, these isolated reports are either user error or incompatibility issues with specific motherboards and their firmware.

 

[katzi]

The Schadenfreude is Exquisite.

 

[R0H1T]

clue you into the fact that maybe, just maybe, these isolated reports are either user error or incompatibility issues with specific motherboards and their firmware.

So you're speculating yourself & claiming it as a fact

Come on how many times does the "gaming industry" needs to get down on their knees for you know who?

 

[outlw6669]

Assuming it is 'just' PCIe 5.0 issues, and not component failures on the GPUs...
My question is then, if it is an issue with PCIe 5.0 on specific motherboards.

Other than PCIe 5.0 NVMEs, to the best of my knowledge, there have been no consumer PCIe 5.0 devices released, with which the motherboards could be tested.
I find it conceivable, that some motherboard designs tried to cut costs too hard, and have compromised PCIe 5.0 connectivity.
Since these are the first 5.0 GPUs using the 16x slot, perhaps a preexisting issue is just now coming to light?

 

[Daven]

This might be a great time to bring up this.

All companies have hardware and software problems and none of the big three (Intel, AMD and Nvidia) have more problems compared to each other.

But for some reason Nvidia users feel the need to feel better about their purchase by knocking down non-Nvidia solutions with disinformation. That combined with disinformation efforts by Nvidia itself continues to perpetuate Nvidia’s monopoly even though their products are no better when it comes to driver quality.

I’m happy to see the media continues to try and kill this bad driver myth with articles like the one here and the YouTube video above.

 

[Crackong]

3000 Series - Teaches people backside capacitor knowledge
4000 Series - Teaches people cables, connectors, electrical resistance and contact surfaces knowledge
5000 Series - Teaches people IC burn and signal integrity ?????