Smelly brand new graphic cards? Remanufactured?

[BoggledBeagle]

Recently I purchased and tested some graphic cards, all brand new, sealed and without any signs of anybody handling the cards before me.

ASUS 5080 TUF
Inno3D 5080 X3 OC
MSI 5070 Ti Gaming Trio
Gigabyte 5070 Ti Windforce OC SFF
Gigabyte 5070 Ti Gaming OC
Sapphire RX 9070 XT Pulse
Sapphire RX 9070 XT Nitro+

All but one smelled normally, with some slight normal smell coming from brand new electronic computer parts, as motherboards, etc.

However, when I opened the bag with Gigabyte 5070 Ti Gaming OC, I was struck with a very strong distinct electronic smell, which I have connected with old well used electronic equipment - probably heated (baked) PCBs, wire lacquer, some soldering chemicals, not sure what exactly causes this smell.

I tried to look at the PCB and components, inspected it with flashlight, tried to sniff out the most smelly part, etc, but without disassembing the card I could not find any visual signs ony anything burned. The card seems to work normally.

So the questions are:

Have you recently unpacked a brand new unusually smelly new card, and what was it?

Have you had in the past your card undergo a repair, as exchanging the GPU chip, the RAM chip, etc. and how did the card smell after this procedure, which probably involves heating the PCB a lot more, than how it is heated during original normal manufacture?

I suspect that my card must have been somehow remanufactured (e.g. exchanged GPU chip?), which could have caused the unusually strong smell.

This repair procedure may put some additional heat load on other electronic components and shorten their life span or reliability, right?

So far I found only one mention of this here, curiously it involves the same Nvidia GPU:

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/1j7q3qx

 

[_roman_]

How many cards did you return in the online return window period? in percent please? 80%?

The smell could be plastic smell because of cheap injection molding materials. Could be from pcb because of the soldering and chemicals.

No my graphic cards which I ordered only for myself one piece for one piece to be used did not had any smells. 1x Asrock 6600xT, 1x msi 6800 non xt, 1x powercolor 7800xt
also no smell on 2x msi mainbaord, 1x asus mainboard
in past 3 years

From work experience - rework is common for industrial electronics. To reduce e-waste and to increase the good part counts. I do not see any flaws in fixing stuff at the factory level. You have warranty and the stuff gets tested usually.

 

[r.h.p]

never underestimate the power of smell, it can stop u from eating , can give u headache, and be Suspicious of things like your talking about. Pitty Ai cant smell ...yet (joke)
all i can add is if the thing smells it might be that shit they wash clothes in when they are being produced (formaldehyde)

 

[GerKNG]

maybe they had a GPU with missing ROPs and they had to put on a new one.

 

[Assimilator]

Uh oh, stinky!

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I originally offered some cards for the same price as a reward for the buyer of my other used PC parts, of which I unfortunatelly have a lot, alone for the original price, but from the 5 of those I manager to sell only the Pulse card, because it was for the introductory very low price. Other than that people simply seem to prefer to be the first owner of the card will all the paperwork from the retailer in their name. So 4 went back to retailers. I view myself as an additional QA tester for the products and having a great benefit for the customers, who buy the things that I pretest for them.

Now I have the two 5070 Ti GB cards, from which one is unfortunately highly suspitios to me.

These two cards have THE SAME PCB, with Gaming OC being a bit more populated and using a row of different caps than the Windforce model. I smelled the Windforce very carefully and it smells normally as expected.

I do not expect the Gaming model to be populated with some extra smelly components compared to Windforce.

From work experience - rework is common for industrial electronics. To reduce e-waste and to increase the good part counts. I do not see any flaws in fixing stuff at the factory level. You have warranty and the stuff gets tested usually.

I have no problem with this, but I simply do not think that the reworked product is the same good and the normal product, because how I already mentioned it probably puts some additional heat stress on other components.

As a consumer you do not expect to get the overwhelming aroma of a 30 year old burned electronic junk when you open your brand new product.

EDIT:

The other explanation beside reworking could be, that with their new TIM for the card components (gel instead of pads) the application failed and in some places there is not enough material and some parts of the card simply heat up too much.

I do not see much of the gel from outside without disassembling the card, I can post pictures in the evening.

 

[LabRat 891]

I know RAM manufacturers 'repair' and 'salvage' mis-manufactured sticks, sometimes.
Perhaps the core was mis-aligned or something and was re-worked before packaging?

maybe they had a GPU with missing ROPs and they had to put on a new one.

Unironically plausible.
Clearly, the 'defect' GPU cores already were attached to boards, and only after public outcry did nVidia make a public statement.
It's not unreasonable to believe that nVidia told AIBs to 'address' in-inventory cards (Or, Gb in their infinite cost-cutting wisdom, elected to do so themselves, rather than scrap the missing-ROP cards.)


Though IMO,
There's something that's changing/ed industry-wide, either with a common plastic(izer) or some processing aid, lubricant, flux, etc.

Both of the Brand New Sapphire Pulse RX 9070 XTs I've unpacked, smelled markedly different than my BNIB Sapphire 7900GRE and back cards did. A lot like melty plastic.
My 7900XTX Nitro+ didn't smell too weird, but it had that 'melty plastic' note, too. I kinda assumed that was from the copious amounts of peel-off finish-protecting film/cellophane on the 3.5+slot behemoth

The BNIB Cooler Master MWE GOLD 750W V3 I unpacked last week, 99.9% smelled like 'magic smoke' and burnt plastic, but lacking part of the 'acrid' note that many plastics emit as they thermally decompose.
I'm not kidding in saying this: the smell was so strong, I hallucinated a puff of smoke coming out of the case on first power on.
I assume my mind so-strongly associated the spread and permeation of that smell into a room with electronics frying, that it 'filled in the blank'.

It's definitely noticeable; I'm one of those freaks that actually kinda loved (past tense) the smell of 'brand new electronics'.
Mmmmm, cancer

 

[ty_ger]

There are no rejectable defects in consumer electronics assembly. Only process indicators which may require rework and process changes to reduce reoccurrence.
Getting a reworked product is always possible.

 

[ShrimpBrime]

Great, now they gonna start upcharging for funky smells. Nice Going Boggledbeagle

 

[LabRat 891]

Great, now they gonna start upcharging for funky smells. Nice Going Boggledbeagle

They are already well-atop that

Yeston's Sakura Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs Double as Aromatherapy

Blending gaming and sensory indulgence, Yeston has unveiled its latest Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics cards—hardware that powers high-octane gameplay and fills your space with curated scents. Dubbed the Sakura Atlantis and Sakura models, these AMD RDNA 4-powered GPUs integrate fragrance modules...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[wolf]

I view myself as an additional QA tester for the products and having a great benefit for the customers, who buy the things that I pretest for them.

Do you view this as a service they should be grateful for? I'm not sure what you presume to add beyond the in house design and testing these companies already do, and then the comprehensive independent testing review sites such as Techpowerup! do.

I've heard scalpers try and justify their existence as if they are somehow adding value to the market but the reality is we're better off without them. Not calling you a scalper, just a similar anecdote.

I'm just not sure what value, if any, customers are getting from you pretesting these cards, except that depending where you bought from, some might get a cheaper open box deal from your returns.

I am making effort here to be civil and this is not an attack, I genuinely want to hear your rationale as to why this is, in your own words, a great benefit for the customers.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I've heard scalpers try and justify their existence as if they are somehow adding value to the market but the reality is we're better off without them. Not calling you a scalper, just a similar anecdote.
I'm just not sure what value, if any, customers are getting from you pretesting these cards, except that depending where you bought from, some might get a cheaper open box deal from your returns.

I have a hard time understanding why are you even mentioning scalpers, I made nothing by reselling the one card, I sold it for the exactly the same price I bought if for and the buyer was happy he could buy the card for the low MSRP price, because the card sold like in a minute after the launch. And yes, I genuinely believe that the people buying the stuff I returned to the retailer are getting a better tested product than what left the factory.

The topic of this thread is a smelly suspitious card, ok?

 

[wolf]

I genuinely believe that the people buying the stuff I returned to the retailer are getting a better tested product than what left the factory.

I disagree, and this sounds like a way to justify what you want to do as beneficial to the customer, who didn't want, need, ask for or actually benefit materially from your testing unless they get a cheaper open box deal, but you're potentially still stopping someone who wanted one the day you bought it full well knowing you wanted to play with it then return it. I also never called you a scapler, I just likened it as they also believe they add value where they don't. I said what I wanted I guess so I won't keep griefing you about it, but don't expect universal support, praise, thanks etc when telling people you do this. You talk as if you don't want any discussion on this point but you typed it, and in bold too, so perhaps expect that people might want to engage on something you wrote.

The topic of this thread is a smelly suspitious card, ok?

On that, I can only assume there is a defect of some kind, a capacitor or similar component has let the magic smoke out but somehow the card still works, I'd be RMA'ing it if it happened to me.

 

[Hereticbar]

They are already well-atop that

Yeston's Sakura Radeon RX 9070 XT GPUs Double as Aromatherapy

Blending gaming and sensory indulgence, Yeston has unveiled its latest Radeon RX 9070 XT graphics cards—hardware that powers high-octane gameplay and fills your space with curated scents. Dubbed the Sakura Atlantis and Sakura models, these AMD RDNA 4-powered GPUs integrate fragrance modules...

www.techpowerup.com

I heard Yeston graphics card smells like girls. Is it true?

Just asking for a friend.

 

[Marcus L]

I have a hard time understanding why are you even mentioning scalpers, I made nothing by reselling the one card, I sold it for the exactly the same price I bought if for and the buyer was happy he could buy the card for the low MSRP price, because the card sold like in a minute after the launch. And yes, I genuinely believe that the people buying the stuff I returned to the retailer are getting a better tested product than what left the factory.

The topic of this thread is a smelly suspitious card, ok?

just buy multiple newly released SKU's to sniff them and sell them on at not for profit?

You literally have bought multiple GPU's that are not available to the general public at MSRP, for what reason? you are selling them on as you have said, you only mentioned you made 0 profit on this one particular GPU, seems sketchy....