RTX 3070 caught on fire

Pradeep Murugan · April 15

I had bought RTX 3070 Founders edition through RP Tech in February 2021. This incident happened back in November 2024

Here is my PC specs(listing it here as it will become important later)

CPU - 9950X
Motherboard - MSI X670E Tomahawk
Storage - WD SN 850X 4TB + WD SN 750 1TB + SN530 1TB
PSU - RM1000X
GPU - RTX 3070 (The GPU was plugged in to PSU by using the included adapter from Nvidia)

This is how it happened

One fine day in the morning, I pressed the power button in the case and nothing happened. Pressed again, nothing happened. Pressed again (third time is the charm), fire - Yes I could see small flames and smoke started coming from inside the PC. I disconnected the power to the computer as fast as I can and started dissembling the PC. I was quite scared as I just recently upgraded from 1200k to 9950X and all new motherboard. The PC was working absolutely fine until that day and I did not have any sign of issues before this.

As soon as I disassembled it, I immediately noticed that the smoke is coming from the GPU and I could smell that the GPU had caught on fire. So I removed the GPU, and PSU, used a different PSU as I was not sure if the PSU had got damaged somehow which could affect other components in the PC and tried to boot. Did not boot. Started removing components, and I found out that two out of three of my SSDs are dead and the PC will not boot into bios with them.

After troubleshooting everything, these are the components that got damaged

RTX 3070
WD SN770 1TB
WD SN850X 4TB
RM1000x - Till this day I actually do not know if the PSU works or not, I am just afraid to plug it in any PC.

Now, my next steps were to get warranty for these components as much as I can

Warranty claims

Both the WD SSDs were replaced under warranty within a month and the support was excellent. Quick side note - Sandisk covers the warranty for these SSDs now. As for SN750, they did not have that model in stock so they replaced it with the newer SN770 model.
RTX 3070 - I reached out to both RP tech and Nvidia and both of them said that the card is out of warranty and they could not do anything for me. I even explained them that this GPU had caused other components in my PC to fail, but they did not care. I understand that the GPU is out of warranty but the 12 pin connector burning is very much a widespread issue.
RM1000x - yet to apply for warranty.

I was originally planning to upgrade to 5080 once it launches but given Nvidia's behavior in my situation and it literally burned my PC, I have changed my mind and will not be going with Nvidia this generation

Please be advised that if you are planning to buy a Nvidia GPU, we all know that the issue is common on 90 class cards. But it can happen to any Nvidia card unless Nvidia changes the 12 Pin connector.

I could not find any damage on the connector though.

I posted the same in reddit as well. But posting it here to raise awareness.

Edit1: Added Pictures

Edit 2 - Added more context on SSDs

strange13930 · April 15

6 minutes ago, Pradeep Murugan said:

I had bought RTX 3070 Founders edition through RP Tech in February 2021. This incident happened back in November 2024

Here is my PC specs(listing it here as it will become important later)

CPU - 9950X

Motherboard - MSI X670E Tomahawk

Storage - WD SN 850X 4TB + WD SN 750 1TB

PSU - RM1000X

GPU - RTX 3070 (The GPU was plugged in to PSU by using the included adapter from Nvidia)

This is how it happened

One fine day in the morning, I pressed the power button in the case and nothing happened. Pressed again, nothing happened. Pressed again (third time is the charm), fire - Yes I could see small flames and smoke started coming from inside the PC. I disconnected the power to the computer as fast as I can and started dissembling the PC. I was quite scared as I just recently upgraded from 1200k to 9950X and all new motherboard. The PC was working absolutely fine until that day and I did not have any sign of issues before this.

As soon as I disassembled it, I immediately noticed that the smoke is coming from the GPU and I could smell that the GPU had caught on fire. So I removed the GPU, and PSU, used a different PSU as I was not sure if the PSU had got damaged somehow which could affect other components in the PC and tried to boot. Did not boot. Started removing components, and I found out that both of my SSDs are dead and the PC will not boot into bios with them.

After troubleshooting everything, these are the components that got damaged

RTX 3070

WD SN770 1TB

WD SN850X 4TB

RM1000x - Till this day I actually do not know if the PSU works or not, I am just afraid to plug it in any PC.

Now, my next steps were to get warranty for these components as much as I can

Warranty claims

Both the WD SSDs were replaced under warranty within a month and the support was excellent. QUick side note - Sandisk covers the warranty for these SSDs now. As for SN750, they did not have that model in stock so they replaced it with the newer SN770 model.

RTX 3070 - I reached out to both RP tech and Nvidia and both of them said that the card is out of warranty and they could not do anything for me. I even explained them that this GPU had caused other components in my PC to fail, but they did not care. I understand that the GPU is out of warranty but the 12 pin connector burning is very much a widespread issue.

RM1000x - yet to apply for warranty.

I was originally planning to upgrade to 5080 once it launches but given Nvidia's behavior in my situation and it literally burned my PC, I had bought a RX 9070 XT and I am pretty happy with my purchase.

Please be advised that if you are planning to buy a Nvidia GPU, we all know that the issue is common on 90 class cards. But it can happen to any Nvidia card unless Nvidia changes the 12 Pin connector.

I could not find any damage on the connector though.

I posted the same in reddit as well. But posting it here to raise awareness.