Unlucky Owner of ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 OC Reports "Caught on Fire" Incident

[T0@st]

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:

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

Lets see how many will blame the user, instead of this clearly faulty power connector.

Edit, to satisfy the offended loyal ones, faulty power phase.

In the end, same crap, power related issue on a way too expensive gpu.

 

[kapone32]

Imagine if more supply was in the market.

 

[JustBenching]

Lets see how many will blame the user, instead of this clearly faulty power connector.

It's the power stage that blew up. Let's see how many will blame the connector instead of the power stage

 

[FinlandApollo]

Lets see how many will blame the user, instead of this clearly faulty power connector.

Except it wasn't the faulty power connector but faulty power phase.

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...

 

[Klemc]

lol ?

 

[JustBenching]

Not defending this cause this card is overpriced as heck and this kind of issues should not exist

These kinds of issues will exist even if the price was 5 billion $. A small % of products from an assembly lane will always be faulty no matter what.

 

[FinlandApollo]

These kinds of issues will exist even if the price was 5 billion $. A small % of product from an assembly lane will always be faulty no matter what.

True but the fact that this card lineup has already faced melting connectors, missing ROPs and now we have seen power phase failing up. It would be fine after a lot of deliveries but the fact that 5090 are still quite rare and it hasn't been widely available, makes the number of failure incidences a lot higher than normally there should be.

Which is unacceptable when you are talking about extremely high end card for consumer field.

 

[kapone32]

These kinds of issues will exist even if the price was 5 billion $. A small % of products from an assembly lane will always be faulty no matter what.

A sample size of how many though? Could we say 10000 world wide?

 

[R-T-B]

These kinds of issues will exist even if the price was 5 billion $. A small % of products from an assembly lane will always be faulty no matter what.

True. We certainly need better stats, though I'd say the media activity indicates an unusual failure rate.

 

[_roman_]

Call the plastic surgeries! Urgent!!

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

 

[Hecate91]

If there were more supply then more cards would probably have issues, absolutely inexcusable for expensive products like this to be having such issues.

 

[FinlandApollo]

Call the plastic surgeries! Urgent!!

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 mainobards? Which costs 4 times of an usual mainboard? (3 times is up to debate)

No need, they just need to tell that the customer has violated the terms of warranty due misuse of the hardware. No need to replace anything.

101 tactic with Asus Warranty Center!

 

[Onasi]

True. We certainly need better stats, though I'd say the media activity indicates an unusual failure rate.

What’s interesting to me is how many DIFFERENT issues there are - both hardware (like this, the connector, the missing ROPs) and software (like the driver issues NV is investigating). Interesting because, well, Blackwell is technically late in the consumer segment, by almost half a year compared to the usual NV 2-year cycle. The fact that it released in a form this raw is a bit perplexing.

 

[TheDeeGee]

One could blame NVIDIA for this, because they set the rules on how AIB's get to design their cards.

 

[maximumterror]

Lets see how many will blame the user, instead of this clearly faulty power connector.

I will blame unidentified PSU and the user for not telling the PC details

 

[JustBenching]

True but the fact that this card lineup has already faced melting connectors, missing ROPs and now we have seen power phase failing up. It would be fine after a lot of deliveries but the fact that 5090 are still quite rare and it hasn't been widely available, makes the number of failure incidences a lot higher than normally there should be.

Which is unacceptable when you are talking about extremely high end card for consumer field.

Ι don't think there is a single generation of any brand in the history of gpus that didn't have power phases blowing up and melting connectors. Missing ROPs is a new one, ill give you that.

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

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/1fxxrc2

No need, they just need to tell that the customer has violated the terms of warranty due misuse of the hardware. No need to replace anything.

101 tactic with Asus Warranty Center!

Asus will tell them to contact the GPU manafacturer to cover the costs. In which case it's Asus. Inception

A sample size of how many though? Could we say 10000 world wide?

You talking about capacitors? It should be less than 1% (which is the going failure rate for almost every product).

 

[kapone32]

Ι don't think there is a single generation of any brand in the history of gpus that didn't have power phases blowing up and melting connectors. Missing ROPs is a new one, ill give you that.

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

Spoiler

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/1fxxrc2

Asus will tell them to contact the GPU manafacturer to cover the costs. In which case it's Asus. Inception


You talking about capacitors? It should be less than 1% (which is the going failure rate for almost every product).

I am talking about 5090s in people"s hands.












'

 

[ThomasK]

These kinds of issues will exist even if the price was 5 billion $. A small % of products from an assembly lane will always be faulty no matter what.

Sure, keep having your koolaid, kiddo.

You're all over the place trying to give justifications on behalf of nvidia.

 

[JustBenching]

Sure, keep having your koolaid, kiddo.

You're all over the place trying to give justifications on behalf of nvidia.

Monolithic makes the power stages, asus makes the board, clearly it's nvidias fault. For what exactly, nobody knows...

 

[Ruru]

Great, issues even with the "only properly designed model". The whole 5090 is a total failure.

 

[Neo_Morpheus]

Except it wasn't the faulty power connector but faulty power phase.

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...

Weeelll, just a bit more down the line of the power delivery, but I guess that we can always look for reasons to trash the connector.

You know, its the same thing with AMD and their "infamous and horrible drivers" right?

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Lets see how many will blame the user, instead of this clearly faulty power connector.

Faulty power stage.

 

[Scattergrunt]

You know, its the same thing with AMD and their "infamous and horrible drivers" right?

Now I'm not that petty; but this, this made me chuckle.

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.

 

[Onasi]

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.

All jokes aside, this IS objectively the worst NV launch since first generation Fermi. I kinda thought they would be past such blunders, but here we are I suppose.