Graphics card repairer laments 'catastrophic failure' of customer's RTX 4090 volt mod and thermal paste overdose

Seasoned GPU fixer NorthWestRepair shared another enthralling installment from the repairs bench today. Under the spotlight was a Gigabyte-branded GeForce RTX 4090 – one of the best GPUs available as we end 2024. However, this particular sample was in a very sorry state due to a volt mod that went wrong – and showed signs of a lot of physical PCB damage.

From the first sight of this RTX 4090, NorthWestRepair thought there were some serious things wrong. A broken seal and missing screws are typical red flags to the repairer. However, some more deeply worrying things quickly caught the eye - labels looking distressed, and from either side, it was observed that the memory chips and GPU were obscured from view due to a surplus of 'goo.'

With his interest piqued, NorthWestRepair quickly took the backplate off to see immediate evidence of amateur soldering. Separating the PCB from the cooling assembly, we witness one of the worst thermal paste messes we have ever seen. But thankfully, under the goop, which had to be toweled off, the GPU and memory chips all checked out, seemingly original and non-tampered-with.

Investigations continued, and a sigh of relief came as short circuit testing for a dead GPU revealed this most pricy of components was all fine. However, some other support components, like inductors, were shorted.

Image 1 of 3

In the video remaining NorthWestRepair uncovered error after error, and damage upon damage. Check out some of the stills from the video showing the "horror" solder work that the card had before it got fixed, and the bent PCB. Moreover, the repairer noted, "Not an inch on this board that is not scratched."

All this, "to gain 5fps at best"

After fixing the first batch of observed repairs, there was more to come. Resistors and capacitors were damaged, misplaced, or missing from several locations. Several other intricate fixes were required, like PCB traces that were broken, requiring connection wires to be soldered – tricky work. NorthWestRepair wondered how all this damage could result from someone trying to do a volt mod. All this effort – and damage – came from someone wanting "to gain 5fps at best, only if the weather was right," wryly quipped the heat gun-toting repairer.

Thankfully, this is the kind of work that NorthWestRepair reckons makes a "very interesting repair." With the first round of repairs seemingly completed, he used a thermal camera for diagnosis, with some power injected into the PCB. Straight away he noticed the RAM chips weren't warming up, indicating they didn't have power.

The final hardware fix seems to have been replacing the memory controller and a MOSFET feeding the memory chips. Subsequent thermal images looked correct, and thus it was time to take the tests to the next level.

Passing memory training and GPU stress tests

Next up NorthWestRepair tested the VRAM in a command line memory training utility. After that passed, it was time to try the card in Windows. After successfully booting the system, tools like FurMark and system monitoring software indicated that all was working as expected.

On a roll now, NorthWestRepair decided he was going to reassemble the RTX 4090 fully, and put it into a proper PC for more extensive testing. If we don't see another video with this card – good news, it was 100% fixed. It is too early to say that yet, though. Nevertheless, it is an astounding result considering the mess of a graphics card that we saw at the start of the video.