News RTX 4090 Arrives With Nearly 100 Ripped Pads, Oxidation Flaw

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Like with the literal bug story, "random 3rd party repairman received DOA device" always raises the question of why this 100% new straight from manufacture absolutely legit device didn't get immediately RMAed under warranty.
Other than the obvious of these [inot[/i] actually being brand new devices, but instead bodged-up high value devices stuffed back in boxes to look new and either fobbed off to buyers or used in return fraud.
 
< Samsung produced the chips. The chips were sent to TSMC (currently).

< MSI produces the board with memory and other components installed (typical for most video card manufacturers today).

< MSI then sends the cards to TSMC for GPU packaging.

"The oxide layer isn't a big issue since you can clean it with particular substances before the soldering process. In the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio 24G's case, the operator didn't remove the oxide layer from the pads".

< The above process is machine automated. There is no "operator" wiping down cards.

< Initial TSMC QC would/should flag the card as defective for packaging if it could not be cleaned or there were pad anomalies.

< Packaged cards are sent back to MSI for final QC.


Two step QC process failing doesn't seem very logical but whatever..
 
It is possible that the shipping pulled the chip off the pads as stated, assuming not perfect solder of the balls to the BGA pads), and that exposed copper underneath, which resulted in the oxidation seen. The oxidation was a consequence as opposed to a source of the problem. My guess is that this would have been one of those boards that works for a while, and then starts having issues (provably after the warranty ran out :-( )
 
It is possible that the shipping pulled the chip off the pads as stated, assuming not perfect solder of the balls to the BGA pads), and that exposed copper underneath, which resulted in the oxidation seen. The oxidation was a consequence as opposed to a source of the problem. My guess is that this would have been one of those boards that works for a while, and then starts having issues (provably after the warranty ran out :-( )
Except the RTX 4090 only came out last October and should still be under warranty. And at least according to the article, the card supposedly arrived that way in a prebuilt system. Who would send their failed graphics card in to this repair channel rather than getting it replaced under warranty?

Tony believes that the person who sent the MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio 24G may have received a refund from the seller.
And what kind of seller is going to refund a $1700+ graphics card without having the customer send it back to them? There's a lot that doesn't add up here.

It's also rather suspicious that this comes just a week after we hear about another suspiciously defective 4090 from the same youtube channel. Some of the more likely scenarios are that either these are cards someone got out of a dumpster somewhere, that may have already had failed repair work attempted on them, or this is all being faked by the youtube channel for views. At the very least, the backstory of the cards doesn't make much sense.
 
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