Question Is my 4.5~ month old 4090 failing (I would really appreciate opinions ASAP)

[KatIsYes]

Hey! So in September 6th of last year I got my ROG STRIX 4090 non-OC. I couldn't use it right away as I needed my power supply to arrive, but when I did get it the 4090 worked wonderfully. I believe I first started using the 4090 in October, and from October to January 2nd (afaik that is when issues started) things had been fine. Running the 4090 at 4K through DLDSR to a 1440p monitor. (apologies for how wordy things will get, also "tonight" is as of typing. I typed this on the 16th of January)

I didn't play much GPU intensive games for a while (got into Terraria for a while, etc) but as of December I did play [Popular drop from Flying Cartoon Bus game] since the new season launched, especially the Lego mode for hours on end a couple days. All experiences from then and earlier had no issues. I picked the Lego mode up again December 28th, where the next 3 or so days seemed fine until I noticed a single dark line appearing and going away almost instantly. Just long enough for the eye to catch it. Unfortunately these earliest moments I never captured since for whatever reason my Instant Replay through Geforce Experience was off, but later on I did have it on and did capture it happening a couple times. The single line that would appear seemed to happen after playing the game for 30-60 minutes but that is just my memory of it.

The screenshots I got from the recordings are here (white bars are just censoring identifiable game account info, dark lines are part of the issues happening):

Lego Mode, thin line above the rocks (January 5th):

https://imgur.com/a/yVtiKD6

Battle Royale, thick line on the right side of the screen (January 9th):

https://imgur.com/a/SlVSZ4I

Honestly after what happened on January 9th, I have kind of stopped using my PC as it's frankly became a source of dread knowing these issues have been happening (plus the fact I couldn't even make a post a week ago due to it being considered "spam-like" leading to me not having any external opinions). I did learn on the 9th after the second screenshot from recordings, that apparently my GPU drivers had crashed on the 2nd and 4th of January while I was asleep. I did experience another GPU driver crash on the 7th while I was scrolling a web browser, but I knew that already so it wasn't a discovery I made like I did on the 9th for the 2 earlier driver crashes. I can say that from the 7th to the 15th I didn't experience crashes on the drivers... but I also barely touched my computer at all because even being in the room made me worry about what is happening and massively spike my anxiety and stress levels.


Now onto tonight (as of originally typing, aka Jan 16th), after almost a week of not playing games on my PC:

Since early January, I would load up Portal RTX only for it to have odd intense frame spikes repeatedly even on the main menu (I originally played Portal RTX back in October without any frame spikes or frametime issues). This was made more odd because the Portal Prelude RTX didn't seem to experience this issue really.
For a while I have had my 5800X3D PBO set to -30 on all cores to lower temps, but to experiment tonight I turned my PBO on CPU back to all 0's.

After opening Portal RTX I still had the issues, but I tested manually turning off Frame Gen to see if it would do anything. After reloading the game with Frame Gen off, my Rivatuner shows that the Frametime spikes and sudden FPS spikes went away. I even turned Frame Gen on again to test and it seemed the frametime and fps spike issues didn't come back.

Knowing that after 30-60 minutes of playing [Popular drop from Flying Cartoon Bus game] I would see a random line appear and go very quickly and that Portal RTX is also GPU intensive, I decided to loosely time myself playing Portal, (I started the timer late).

Everything was perfectly fine for a while, until about 40-50 minutes in where I noticed instead of a pretty much perfectly flat frametime chart it was consistently doing small up downs very quickly and boom! The game suddenly explodes into multi-colour triangles of colours etc before crashing.

I decided to check Event Viewer again this time and it shows the nvlddmkm recovered warning and 2 "Event ID 0" errors saying:

"\Device\Video3

Error occurred on GPUID: a00"


I am honestly at a loss of what to do, as I feel like I will likely have to RMA this GPU... but I have no alternative GPU to use as my GTX 980 actually died very shortly before getting this 4090. Since the 5800X3D doesn't integrated graphics on top of my lack of backup GPU... RMAing it would mean I literally have no computer for a while, and I have read some horror stories about Asus and RMAs that I had wish I read up on before choosing their GPU. I only rushed to get the ROG STRIX non-OC 4090 because it was available local and on sale prior to the non-OCs discontinuation, as I would have likely went with a Gigabyte 4090 since my 980 with them worked well and lasted me years if it wasn't for the sale and it being local instead of shipping. I do also want to mention that I did attempt to use DDU in Safe Mode and reinstalled drivers, but the issues mentioned above with the lines still persisted as far as I remember. It's harder to remember after a week of not really touching this computer.

I just really want extra opinions on this to know for sure what to do next, as I will have to plan what I do according to that. While deep inside I know it's likely a faulty 4090 that needs to be RMA'd, I have heavy denial that wants to receive others opinions first as I couldn't find a single thing online like what I have been experiencing after many hours of searching. One thing I do worry about is that I think the heat sink has a very minor dent that was there from manufacturing that makes me worry they will try and say that is "Customer Damage" and try to charge something based on others experiences they have posted about Asus... anyways I apologize for how wordy all of this is, but I do hope someone can look through all this along with screenshots and share their opinions.

 

[Rokinamerica]

Did you recently update drivers? I would uninstall cleanly the driver and then find the last stable one you used it you did update around the time it started happening. Heck, I would do it anyway at this point. If nothing else, you can eliminate the drivers as the culprit.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Your card shouldn't be doing that because lots of people are using those same drivers with their RTX 4090 cards. I would RMA it immediately if I were you.

 

[KatIsYes]

Your card shouldn't be doing that because lots of people are using those same drivers with their RTX 4090 cards. I would RMA it immediately if I were you.

That is what I feared… I just really wanted to make sure by posting about it to ask. Delaying my RMA request more than needed honestly by having done that… I guess I will have to do that then.

What do you mean with the same drivers part, as in it’s not a card with varying skus or something? or just “many people use the same drivers and this shouldn’t be happening” thing.

Edit: also I know my issue in-game seems to happen after 30-60 minutes, that shouldn’t be a problem right for RMA?

 

[Avro Arrow]

That is what I feared… I just really wanted to make sure by posting about it to ask. Delaying my RMA request more than needed honestly by having done that… I guess I will have to do that then.

Yeah I know it sucks but 9/10 when experiencing what you're experiencing, the card itself has a hardware issue.

What do you mean with the same drivers part, as in it’s not a card with varying skus or something? or just “many people use the same drivers and this shouldn’t be happening” thing.

Yes, the second thing that you said. If the drivers were the problem, then everyone would having that same problem because everyone is using a copy of the same drivers.

Edit: also I know my issue in-game seems to happen after 30-60 minutes, that shouldn’t be a problem right for RMA?

Just call ASUS and talk to someone there about it. Tell them what's happening and they should give you an RMA number. They'll probably ask questions like what your CPU, motherboard and PSU are but it's pretty clear to me that something's wrong with your rendering engine.

 

[XxDarkMario20xX]

Where did you purchase the card from directly asus website or 3rd party like amazon and such. Because dont think ASUS will accept RMA on GPU bought on another website because the warranty is with 3rd party and such..

 

[DRagor]

The game suddenly explodes into multi-colour triangles of colours etc before crashing.

That does sound like a hardware issue ...

until about 40-50 minutes

... although typically you would see it happening immediately after starting game. Two things to check here: GPU temps and VRAM usage at the moment it happens. If it just overheats you may be able to save it by changing fan curve.

very minor dent that was there from manufacturing that makes me worry they will try and say that is "Customer Damage"

This may or may not be a problem. Depending on how evil manufacturer decides to be they can even reject your warranty at all, but since there is not much you can do about how card looks I would not worry about it now. (Lesson for the future though - if you buy electronics and see something that can be viewed as physical damage send item back immediately even if it works 100% fine).

Final thought: don't stress out yet. You still have plenty of warranty time, and if it really is hardware issue it will for sure get worse as time goes so you'll know for sure it's faulty GPU then. For now I would keep observing it and plan ahead what to do if it really is failed card.

 

[KatIsYes]

Yeah I know it sucks but 9/10 when experiencing what you're experiencing, the card itself has a hardware issue.

That makes sense, it truly sucks… I found the card amazing and felt I was lucky to not have that bad of coil whine.

Yes, the second thing that you said. If the drivers were the problem, then everyone would having that same problem because everyone is using a copy of the same drivers.

Yeah it would have been talked about… especially since the last driver release was on the 12 of December last time I checked. Lots of time for people to mention it if it were wide spread.

Just call ASUS and talk to someone there about it. Tell them what's happening and they should give you an RMA number. They'll probably ask questions like what your CPU, motherboard and PSU are but it's pretty clear to me that something's wrong with your rendering engine.

What about online RMA requests, and would it be different (better or worse than) doing it through phone?

Also this is more curiosity since you mentioned it, what is the rendering engine specifically. If you know, at least.

 

[KatIsYes]

That does sound like a hardware issue ...

Unfortunately seems like so..

... although typically you would see it happening immediately after starting game. Two things to check here: GPU temps and VRAM usage at the moment it happens. If it just overheats you may be able to save it by changing fan curve.

I wouldn’t really know what to look for in VRAM, but I know that I have done stress tests on VRAM in the past without any errors coming up. GPU temps honestly have been far from issue, I think the highest I can ever recall ever seeming at all is like 61. It’s also not something my brain looks at 24/7. Actually in my second screenshot it shows 57 degrees, which is about what it usually is. So it doesn’t feel like a heat thing.

This may or may not be a problem. Depending on how evil manufacturer decides to be they can even reject your warranty at all, but since there is not much you can do about how card looks I would not worry about it now. (Lesson for the future though - if you buy electronics and see something that can be viewed as physical damage send item back immediately even if it works 100% fine).

The problem is I think I only really noticed it when I had to take it out to put in my NVMe SSD in. Which was Christmas night.

Final thought: don't stress out yet. You still have plenty of warranty time, and if it really is hardware issue it will for sure get worse as time goes so you'll know for sure it's faulty GPU then. For now I would keep observing it and plan ahead what to do if it really is failed card.

Yeah.. I just know I am very prone to stress breaking down, I don’t really have a lot of energy so it doesn’t take much to just cause a lot of stress. Especially something as expensive as this!
I guess I can just say that, is it ever in some way possible that reseating the GPU could help?

 

[KatIsYes]

Where did you purchase the card from directly asus website or 3rd party like amazon and such. Because dont think ASUS will accept RMA on GPU bought on another website because the warranty is with 3rd party and such..

I bought it at my local Bestbuy when it was on sale. Though the online Asus RMA page doesn’t have any issue with going through the page to submit a request. At first it was a bit wonky but not now.

 

[DRagor]

I guess I can just say that, is it ever in some way possible that reseating the GPU could help?

Depends. 4090 is very heavy and so it's prone to sagging, which could create problems like this. But in such case just re-seating it won't help, you would need to install some kind of support to prevent sag.

 

[KatIsYes]

Did you recently update drivers? I would uninstall cleanly the driver and then find the last stable one you used it you did update around the time it started happening. Heck, I would do it anyway at this point. If nothing else, you can eliminate the drivers as the culprit.

I didn’t see your comment, I mentioned I did that later on in my post… though I know my post is a bit of word vomit! I had to re-type the entire post because of the Draft being wiped previously.

So I can say I did do that! I wanted to eliminate that ASAP as I knew it is something that could have been issues. But nope… still seems to be there. At least I believe the second screenshot was since DDU was used in Safe Mode to uninstall the drivers cleanly.

 

[KatIsYes]

Depends. 4090 is very heavy and so it's prone to sagging, which could create problems like this. But in such case just re-seating it won't help, you would need to install some kind of support to prevent sag.

The ROG STRIX 4090 (and I believe the other 40 serious of the same series) comes with a little support tool to prevent sag that I have been using since Day 1. I was mostly thinking about the fact I did have to remove it to put in the NVMe drive about 5-7 days before I noticed issues.
Was wondering I guess if dust or something could have went in the slot for the GPU and causes issues I don’t know.

 

[Avro Arrow]

That makes sense, it truly sucks… I found the card amazing and felt I was lucky to not have that bad of coil whine.


Yeah it would have been talked about… especially since the last driver release was on the 12 of December last time I checked. Lots of time for people to mention it if it were wide spread.


What about online RMA requests, and would it be different (better or worse than) doing it through phone?

Phone is always better because it's easier and faster to give full explanation.

Also this is more curiosity since you mentioned it, what is the rendering engine specifically. If you know, at least.

The rendering engine is the part of the video card that actually does the rendering. That black line could easily be a part that it's not rendering properly. It could also be a VRAM error where that part of the screen isn't being stored in VRAM properly. Either way, I'm sure it's a hardware problem.

 

[Eximo]

Would you be averse to buying a lower end GPU to test your system in the meantime?

Best Buy has an RX580 for $130 which is a full x16 card that you could use to verify your motherboard and CPU are working.

You could buy a more modern card to tide you over, but you would need an RTX3060 or RX5600 to get an x16 card, everything else is 8x and wouldn't be a proper test.

 

[KatIsYes]

Phone is always better because it's easier and faster to give full explanation.

Ah okay, I will have to think about that then. I don’t entirely mind calls, though it would put me on the spot!

The rendering engine is the part of the video card that actually does the rendering. That black line could easily be a part that it's not rendering properly. It could also be a VRAM error where that part of the screen isn't being stored in VRAM properly. Either way, I'm sure it's a hardware problem.

Ah okay, and makes sense.
I can say I did do some VRAM tests before, but not for as long as it seems to take for my issues to show up. At the same time though VRAM testing pushes it more than any game has at least by quantity, speed being the same though.

 

[KatIsYes]

Would you be averse to buying a lower end GPU to test your system in the meantime?

I wouldn’t be averse to it other than the money part of it…

Best Buy has an RX580 for $130 which is a full x16 card that you could use to verify your motherboard and CPU are working.

Best Buy Canada doesn’t have it, well they do by technicalities of a 3rd party seller trying to sell one for 1.6k! But it really shouldn’t be an issue with motherboard or CPU (I mean I sure hope not since I very much don’t have the money!) as everything was fine before and in that area still shows nothing. Only GPU crashes or visual errors.

You could buy a more modern card to tide you over, but you would need an RTX3060 or RX5600 to get an x16 card, everything else is 8x and wouldn't be a proper test.

I mean the idea is appealing except when looking at price tags! Not exactly having tons of extra money to just toss in for a card that I will end up not using unless very needed. Much different if someone was going to use it after, but not really the case.
While I have had the highest end consumer GPU with a 4090, it’s definitely not a sign of any sort of wealth! Just saved up money since I am a long-haul PC build/upgrade user where I stick with what I have finished for a while, like how my GTX 980 stuck with me for 9 years in use (power supply too, but that wasn’t dying on me. 980 was). I wish it were easy for me to just walk in and out of a store to get a temp GPU on a whim!

 

[KatIsYes]

Phone is always better because it's easier and faster to give full explanation.

The rendering engine is the part of the video card that actually does the rendering. That black line could easily be a part that it's not rendering properly. It could also be a VRAM error where that part of the screen isn't being stored in VRAM properly. Either way, I'm sure it's a hardware problem.

I do actually have a question about shipping for an RMA. How should I ship it? Like for it to be safe etc. I know I have the original GPU box, but also if that would work how would one pack it beyond that so it isn’t just “ROG STRIX 4090” box out in open?

 

[Eximo]

I do actually have a question about shipping for an RMA. How should I ship it? Like for it to be safe etc. I know I have the original GPU box, but also if that would work how would one pack it beyond that so it isn’t just “ROG STRIX 4090” box out in open?

ASUS provides specific instructions, including not using the original box. They do not retain the shipping boxes.

When you package something heavy, just make sure there is at least one inch between the object and any outside surface and be sure the object can't move around inside the box. Packing materials can crush, so take that into account.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I wouldn’t be averse to it other than the money part of it…

Come on, you bought an RTX 4090 so you're not going to convince anyone that you're poor. 😉

Best Buy Canada doesn’t have it, well they do by technicalities of a 3rd party seller trying to sell one for 1.6k! But it really shouldn’t be an issue with motherboard or CPU (I mean I sure hope not since I very much don’t have the money!) as everything was fine before and in that area still shows nothing. Only GPU crashes or visual errors.

Oh jeez, don't go to Best Buy! That's the McDonald's of tech! If you want to buy anything in Canada, you're better off at Memory Express or Canada Computers. If you want to order online, use Newegg. The last time I went to Best Buy, it was for a USB WiFi dongle and they wanted $60 for one. I said to myself "$#%! that" and went to Canada Computers to get one for $15. Best Buy is where clueless noobs buy tech.

If you just want a card as a placeholder so that your PC is usable, you'll have to decide whether you want a card that can game or a glorified video adapter.

For a card that can game, get an RX 6600. I recommend this because you can turn around and sell it without losing much money. You'll have to reduce your settings to 1080p but it's sure better than a blank screen.

If you're comfortable ordering from Newegg:

ASRock Radeon RX 6600 Challenger D 8GB - $277​

Or if you prefer to buy it in-store Canada Computers still has it for $300:

ASUS Radeon RX 6600 Dual 8GB - $300​

If you just want a video adapter (like an IGP would be) to run windows, surf and watch videos, then you could use pretty much anything from the past fifteen years. This GT 1030 from Canada Computers should do just fine:

GIGABYTE GeForce GT 1030 Low Profile D4 2GB -$100​

The drawback to this card is that you'll have a hard time re-selling it if you don't want to keep it because the GT 1030 is extremely weak as a gaming card.

 

[KatIsYes]

ASUS provides specific instructions, including not using the original box. They do not retain the shipping boxes.

When you package something heavy, just make sure there is at least one inch between the object and any outside surface and be sure the object can't move around inside the box. Packing materials can crush, so take that into account.

Ah okay, thanks! I am sure I will see more info with time. I have been really caught up recently so I haven’t looked into it more. I would have sent in the request already but because of the recommendation to call instead of using their site I have yet to do so.

I would assume too that I should use the included anti-static bag that the 4090 was in when packaging it, the rest of what you mention I will have to do as I go! I will try my best to keep it from getting damaged in shipment!

 

[KatIsYes]

Come on, you bought an RTX 4090 so you're not going to convince anyone that you're poor. 😉

Haha, that would be the usual assumption. For me it was more like a massive treat to upgrade my 9 year old PC after saving up for a while to upgrade almost every part in it! I am not living-on-the-street poor, but I definitely am far from having good money! lol

Oh jeez, don't go to Best Buy! That's the McDonald's of tech! If you want to buy anything in Canada, you're better off at Memory Express or Canada Computers. If you want to order online, use Newegg. The last time I went to Best Buy, it was for a USB WiFi dongle and they wanted $60 for one. I said to myself "$#%! that" and went to Canada Computers to get one for $15. Best Buy is where clueless noobs buy tech.

I purely bought from them because of the sale that was on ant the time and its local availability, I know I would have went elsewhere if otherwise! I bought my PC case from Canada Computers and my newer RAM from NewEgg… but not my very expensive graphics card! Though in the case of the graphics card, it was still normal prices you would find anywhere unlike that WiFi dongle you mentioned!

If you just want a card as a placeholder so that your PC is usable, you'll have to decide whether you want a card that can game or a glorified video adapter.

For a card that can game, get an RX 6600. I recommend this because you can turn around and sell it without losing much money. You'll have to reduce your settings to 1080p but it's sure better than a blank screen.

If you're comfortable ordering from Newegg:

ASRock Radeon RX 6600 Challenger D 8GB - $277​

Or if you prefer to buy it in-store Canada Computers still has it for $300:

ASUS Radeon RX 6600 Dual 8GB - $300​

If you just want a video adapter (like an IGP would be) to run windows, surf and watch videos, then you could use pretty much anything from the past fifteen years. This GT 1030 from Canada Computers should do just fine:

GIGABYTE GeForce GT 1030 Low Profile D4 2GB -$100​

The drawback to this card is that you'll have a hard time re-selling it if you don't want to keep it because the GT 1030 is extremely weak as a gaming card.

Thanks for the recommendations! I will have to see about it when the time comes, though I might end up just doing something else while I wait that is away from the computer! I could also see if someone I know that just went from a laptop to desktop for gaming minds if I borrow their laptop since it would work fine for the games I want to play in the meantime.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Thanks for the recommendations! I will have to see about it when the time comes, though I might end up just doing something else while I wait that is away from the computer!

Sure! Just grab your stick & skates and go look for a game of pond pick-up (depending on where in Canada you live of course). It's the best thing to do in winter, eh? 😉👍

Whenever it gets cold enough, I always try to find a game like that. They never say no to me because I'm a goalie. 😊