Not even the most advanced graphics cards are immune to manufacturing defects or failures.
Recently, a user going by the handle kromz shared his RMA (warranty repair) experience. His ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 stopped working.
According to the GPU owner, his PC began rebooting at times and the display would occasionally go dark. The system ran normally with a different graphics card, so he sent the RTX 5090 in for RMA.
ASUS denied the warranty claim and quoted a repair fee so high that it would have been cheaper for kromz to buy a new card outright.
Support initially requested 4,661 Canadian dollars (about 3,370 US dollars) to replace the card — more than the cost of a new one. As Tom’s Hardware notes, even in Canada — where PC components are often pricier — the GPU has been listed for CAD 4,059.
ASUS reported a “surface irregularity” near the PCI connector. Kromz says he photographed the card before shipping it and did not find any cracks or visible defects.
He continued communicating with support and managed to secure a 50% discount — the replacement is now quoted at CAD 2,330.50. Kromz still hopes the case will be accepted under warranty:
I used the supplied GPU support bracket and installed it carefully, and my PC hasn’t been moved since. This card weighs three kilograms, and all that weight rests on a single point. Frankly, that’s a design flaw that was bound to show up eventually. It’s easy to see how that could cause the very crack they’re attributing to “user-inflicted damage.”
Source: iXBT.games