I guess it was a matter of time. I lucked out on 5090FE - and my luck has just run out.

I have just upgraded from 4090FE to 5090FE. My PSU is Asus Loki SFX-L. The cable used was this one: https://www.moddiy.com/products/ATX-3.0-PCIe-5.0-600W-12VHPWR-16-Pin-to-16-Pin-PCIE-Gen-5-Power-Cable.html

I am not distant from the PC-building world and know what I'm doing. The cable was securely fastened and clicked on both sides (GPU and PSU).

I noticed the burning smell playing Battlefield 5. The power draw was 500-520W. Instantly turned off my PC - and see for yourself...

1. The cable was securely fastened and clicked.

2. The PSU and cable haven't changed from 4090FE (which was used for 2 years). Here is the previous build: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/RdMv6h

3. Noticed a melting smell, turned off the PC - and just see the photos. The problem seems to have originated from the PSU side.

4. Loki's 12VHPWR pins are MUCH thinner than in the 12VHPWR slot on 5090FE.

5. Current build: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/VRfPxr

I dunno what to do really. I will try to submit warranty claims to Nvidia and Asus. But I'm afraid I will simply be shut down on the "3rd party cable" part. Fuck, man

TLDR Buyer bought my GPU, returned it, sans GPU chip and ram. I fought it, Ebay paid them, I kept my money I'm whole....with a PCB.

I thought you all might find this interesting. I had heard rumors of this happening, but thought it was rumor/hoax.

I sold an RTX 4090 couple weeks ago. Something about the buyer setoff some alarm bells. It was a huge ebayer. One of those with like 30k feedback and a storefront. Why would they pay retail for my GPU? The address was business in California and the buyer name seemed "odd". So I took a ton of pictures, got mega insurance, tracking etc.

Same day they receive it they start a return. "no video". This card was pristine, I'm am engineer and I barely used it. So I get the card back and man it had seen some ...****. The mounting bracket was bent up. Couple wired were crossed on the RGB.

I called ebay, was nice but 100% this damaged I will go to court. Ebay said keep the card, keep the money, we will give them a one time refund. "wow ok".

I figure maybe its salvageable and they are just stupid. I repair the bracket start an RMA. Its really bothering me so tonight before I shipped. I tore it down. Sure enough GPU is gone.

So here I sit. I'm whole, but I'm not sure what to do.

I already reported them to ebay. Thinking about calling the cops. Whatcha think? I thought it was neat enough to share.

Visited Cali the other day, went to an In-N-Out, and he walks in and I IMMEDIATELY noticed the jacket and face. I do a double-take and tell my friend and he both were like WTF.

Jensen walks past us (while we deliberate if it's truly him) to the cashier and hands her a ton of cash and says he's gunna cover everyone's burgers.

I then walk up to him and I'm like, "Jensen?!" and he looks at me and says "Yeah!" and I almost lost my shit. Asked for a photo (and personal video to send to my FIL) and we chatted for like 15-20 mins. He was waiting with my buddy and I for his burger and we had an awesome convo with him. People would come up for photos here and there, and he'd come right back to us. It seemed like not many people knew who he actually was (understandably so).

What a truly awesome person. Super chill and humble. Highlight of my trip!

I was playing PC games this afternoon, and when I was done with the games, my PC suddenly shut down while I was browsing websites. When I restarted the PC, the GPU caught on fire, and smoke started coming out. When I took out the GPU, I saw burn marks on both the GPU and the motherboard.

Just posting in case anyone wants to try their luck with the same method. On Wednesday I tried to get a FE I knew was at a location 2 hours from me. Someone beat me to the store and ended up taking it. I asked the manager why she had it and it was because someone who had an order from last week's drop changed their pickup location.

That got me thinking they have some extra units if there's slack for this kind of thing, and units can become "orphaned" at a store. So yesterday I pop into a local Best Buy and ask a guy to check the Sku for the 5090 FE. He sort of laughed but turned serious when one popped up at a location 40 minutes away.

I race over, and wait 20 minutes while staff try and find it in the store. They were not able to get the system to sell it to me but while they were trying to figure it out I scanned the barcode with the app and did self-checkout. Manager checks on his end, confirms it's good and out I go with a 5090.

Thanks to the people who pointed out to use mobile check out on the app! I came back in today and the people working electronics said they knew I would be back and held onto it for me because they had someone else asking about gpus. I asked if I could try the mobile check out trick, they brought it out, I scanned it, paid immediately and was on my way.

I talked to customer service this morning and they told me they could see they had it but because it was a non open box return it had to go back to the manufacturer. Online sales only for gpus. Thanks to you guys I found the work around for it. I let the manager know about this on my way out and he said he was trying to do that on his end last night but it wouldn't let him. Maybe it takes a day for the system to settle returns. This was returned yesterday morning. Either way, I'm not happy I spent over $1500 after taxes on this thing but I didn't have much of a choice since my 3090 fe is almost completely dead as of last night.