RIP 3090... Can I get an F?

[Ian-Bru Gaming]

Long time viewer of LTT (since the days of the NCIX videos), first time poster

 

I recently posted this on Facebook and some of the comments tagged other tech-tubers in hope they could help with the issue but since I'm a regular LTT viewer, I thought id post it here too (theres a reason, I'll get to that).

 

So a friend of mine has recently started up a tech recycling company and has sent me a bunch of 'untested' cards as his team arent too experienced with how GPUs can be tested and apparently dont have the time do get to do it at the moment and as i'm a regular poster on social media regarding my home setup, technology and general geekyness, he reached out to me to see if I could offer some help. Naturally, I was more than happy to help as this sort of stuff is fun to me.

So first up was an RTX 2070 super, tested, ran on furmark for 20 mins with no issue, benchmarked fine with o issues at all! This put me in high spirits at the thought that the rest of the cards I was sent could be quick wins too and could have been returned/sent to be scrapped due to user error (potential driver issues, inadequate PSU etc).

 

Next up came a beastly RTX 3090 which already looked like it had been to someone to look over and they had given up. None of the fan cables were connected and the backplate that holds on the GPU cooler itself was only held on by 2 screws, both of which were too long and stuck out like a sore thumb.. Knowing some of these cards suffer with overheating, I took the cooler off and began a quick visual inspection - which is when my heart sunk and I must've turned an off shade of white for a few moments... I initially noticed 2 holes in the PCB that were close to the mounting holes near the core itself but going directly through some traces!

 

After a few moments of being completely bewildered by what I had seen, I recorded a video to show my friend why exactly this was labelled as not displaying video and not being displayed in device manager, then spotted a further 2 holes in other areas of the GPU.

 

Now, I suspect this was done intentionally by whoever looked at this previously as a way of intentionally making it so the card couldnt be repaired but some folk on the PCMR Facebook page also suggested this could be a complete n00b to watercooling who simply mounted the screws where they thought it should go and didnt stop to think if they should be drilling through a pcb with a screw - I think its the former, personally.

 

This leads me to the purpose of this post I guess, for us mere mortals with bargain bin soldering irons and generally acceptable levels of knowledge as to how these things work, its a complete write off. But to someone in the know, with some of the tools and industry contacts like LTT, would it be worth suggesting to my friend to ship it over to Canada for the guys at LTT to look at and maybe make a video about repairing/attempting to repair it? Being a big fan of the intricasies of tech that Alex and Anthony create, I'd love to see how someone could even begin to attempt such a thing with multiple PCBs affected.

 

Just a thought, happy to be here none the less :)

 

 

[Skiiwee29]

Absolutely zero ways to repair that since the PCB is physically destroyed basically. Only way would be to harvest the GPU die and transplant it to a card that has a bad DIE, and thats assuming someone has the equipment and knowledge to do so. Louis Rossman comes to mind off the top of my head. 

[tkitch]

holy shit!  RIP 3090

[Ian-Bru Gaming]

I said as much on the Facebook page but comment after comment, people are suggesting that its repairable where as i'm less than optimistic about it since it looks completely destroyed and it appears one of those small black capacitors has been drilled through too (see the last photo)

[Mojo-Jojo]

Yeah, without a proper layout of the inner traces, this board is pretty much SOL.

 

Even if you had a map of all the traces, you'd have to hope that all traces resurface somewhere else on the board so they can be bridged with external jumper wires.

[BondiBlue]

Yeah, that card is done for as-is. Your best bet would be to somehow find a working board with a dead GPU die and swap them over, but that's getting into the territory of needing some expensive equipment. 

 

Not sure how it died, but it sucks that it did. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Yea just harvest everything off the gpu with a heatgun and scrap the board is what you are looking at, board cant be saved but the gpu is savable

[Vishera]

25 minutes ago, Ian-Bru Gaming said:

I said as much on the Facebook page but comment after comment, people are suggesting that its repairable where as i'm less than optimistic about it since it looks completely destroyed and it appears one of those small black capacitors has been drilled through too (see the last photo)

It can be repaired,

It will be a mess of wires but it's possible if you know what you are doing:

Looking at the top layer that one won't be that difficult to repair/bypass.

Power lines and VRMs can be bypassed with external ones made for overclockers:

[LIGISTX]

110% someone “tried” to water cool that bad boy. 

If someone wanted to actually kill it, I don’t think they would just drill through the PCB, makes almost no sense. Also those holes totally look like the size of most fan/block hardware. Are there 4 holes? This is fascinating lol. People are wild. 

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, LIGISTX said:

110% someone “tried” to water cool that bad boy. 

If someone wanted to actually kill it, I don’t think they would just drill through the PCB, makes almost no sense. Also those holes totally look like the size of most fan/block hardware. Are there 4 holes? This is fascinating lol. People are wild. 

Oh no I take it back. They tried to put a full cover block that was for a different card on it looks like. Wild. Lol. 

[Tristerin]

Soon as I saw the pics I just said to myself

 

What. The. Fuck.

[Ian-Bru Gaming]

5 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

110% someone “tried” to water cool that bad boy. 

If someone wanted to actually kill it, I don’t think they would just drill through the PCB, makes almost no sense. Also those holes totally look like the size of most fan/block hardware. Are there 4 holes? This is fascinating lol. People are wild. 

 

I mean, if someone DID try it. I cant even begin to comprehend the thought processes involved (if any) as they holes are in random areas of the board BUT theres a TINY element of sense to it as the backplate, when it arrived, wasnt flush with the PCB and the spring screws that hold the cooler in place around the core were in place but none of the other holes were alligned at all and I had to pull up a photo of the card online to try and reference how it was supposed to fit as it didnt quite line up - maybe they botched that too but who knows.

[LIGISTX]

8 minutes ago, Ian-Bru Gaming said:

 

I mean, if someone DID try it. I cant even begin to comprehend the thought processes involved (if any) as they holes are in random areas of the board BUT theres a TINY element of sense to it as the backplate, when it arrived, wasnt flush with the PCB and the spring screws that hold the cooler in place around the core were in place but none of the other holes were alligned at all and I had to pull up a photo of the card online to try and reference how it was supposed to fit as it didnt quite line up - maybe they botched that too but who knows.

The holes look to be mostly around the outside of the PCB in line with the other through holes… post a pic of the entire card, but to me it certainly looks like a full cover block was attempted to be made to work. 

[Jurrunio]

42 minutes ago, Ian-Bru Gaming said:

I said as much on the Facebook page but comment after comment, people are suggesting that its repairable

The same bunch of people who thinks PCB is a blank canvas that you can freely drill through did this lol

 

26 minutes ago, Vishera said:

It can be repaired,

It's not "missing a port" kind of complex, there's clearly a hole on the main power plane between the VRM and GPU die so even with an external power, you have a shorting hole that even after to insulate it, you have weakened the power plane so it will run hotter from now on. 

 

Wire is not a replacement for all kinds of traces. There are voltage/inductance/length sensitive traces that could not be repaired by often longer and thicker wires. 

[Vishera]

8 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

The same bunch of people who thinks PCB is a blank canvas that you can freely drill through did this lol

 

It's not "missing a port" kind of complex, there's clearly a hole on the main power plane between the VRM and GPU die so even with an external power, you have a shorting hole that even after to insulate it, you have weakened the power plane so it will run hotter from now on. 

 

Wire is not a replacement for all kinds of traces. There are voltage/inductance/length sensitive traces that could not be repaired by often longer and thicker wires. 

You are correct,tough luck.

[CTR640]

Yes, our dear friend, your 3090 was a cute beast that crunched any graphics and resolutions with ease, it was a true king of the beasts!

Your 3090 deserves a big and powerfull F.