Could this be the cause? Is this just the vendor trying to screw me? GPU RMA

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Dear Forum members,

I could really need your help/advice.

I recently built a system for a friend of mine and the GPU got damaged. We think during shipping. We still tried to get it RMAed at the Vendor (galaxus.de) since we didn’t see any damage on the GPU.
It would throw corruption artifacts, similar looking to faulty vram inside the BIOS/UEFI, but boot fine into Desktop, without any artifacts. But then randomly hardlock the OS. Like making it fully lock up. Or sometimes not even posting at all.
pictures of the damage, claimed by galaxus

I know every GPU manufacturer is different, but I cant imagine, how a crack in the finger could cause this kind of behaviour? Do 7900GRE have important traces there?

I now requested a detailed report from the RMA center and I reached out to DHL for compensation, since the PC was insured for 5000€ shipping (And the system was extensively packed with foam, sealed air foam inserts inside the case and more)

Any other advice I could do? People I could reach out to? Ways I can refute galaxus’s refusal? If nothing works, a german repair shop that might get this fixed? Any help is appreciated :slightly_frowning_face:

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I see nothing wrong in those images. The GPU would work even without that part. Have you tried contacting the manufacturer of the card?

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So you think Galaxus is trying to weasle themselves out of fixing a bigger fault with the gpu itself? Kind of like ASUS did with Gamers Nexus’ ROG Ally?

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Well its possible that they are trying to weasel their way out of it. Or you got someone that just doesn’t know how to spot actual damage.

However from the pictures that just looks like normal manufacturing flaw. That would pass most quality checks.

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I will try and refute the RMA refusal then once they come back with the detailed report. I am annoyed. That friend was really looking forward to her new PC…
She can luckily still use the igpu of her chip, but this still sucks

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Well if you can’t get your money back. I would check with whoever made the card. And see if they can help. If not maybe a repaste/repad could fix it as a last option.

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I have now reached out directly to amd for comment/possible RMA. Will see how it goes and update.

the card is a Sapphire 7900GRE Nitro+ (some also call it the vapor x?)

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Maybe give this person a try https://www.youtube.com/@KrisFixGermany. I remember derbauer contacted him for some repair stuff consultation.

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To me that doesn’t look like just a crack in the finger but like the card has almost been broken in half! Seriously, it’d take someone almost stomping on the card to create such a crack through, what, 10 layers of fibreglass PCB, dislocating and pushing out diamond-shaped parts of the layers. (I have cut & broken off many pieces of lab board so I know it’s not easy!) The damage will surely extend deep into the card and likely cause connectivity issues perhaps on lots of internal traces.

Question is, what could have caused such damage? Possibly shipping if something heavy has been weighing on the card while it has been vibrated/bumped around for hours - or if someone has thrown the package around (again with some kind of load on the card or the card not well supported).

Either way, the sender is responsible for making sure the item arrives safely. You shouldn’t have to speak to DHL - the seller packed the computer and bought the shipping from DHL. It’s their responsibility to make you whole and (if they want) try to reclaim damages from DHL.

(Unless you are the one who sent the computer to someone else. Then you’d have to talk to DHL and claim insurance.)

That damage cannot be repaired: it’s internal to the traces within the PCB stack.

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BTW, if that damage was caused by shipping the GPU mounted in a motherboard slot I would be quite worried about the state of that slot as well.

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I uploaded a picture of the UEFI artifacts and the way I packaged the gpu for shipping with sealed air foam bags

Additionally the pc was double boxed, insured for 5K, marked as bulky and fragile (had to fork over extra money for that too)

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The funny thing is. We used a different GPU she had to verify if the motherboard was damaged. Works fine. No issues at all. Only the GPU got hurt.

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Wouldnt that cause consistent misbehaving? The crashing, the UEFI artifacts were wildly all over the place. We at times had the pc run perfectly for an entire day. Then it didn’t even post.

I haven’t had that type of gpu failure before, so my experience is limited

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Good that the motherboard seems to be fine!

Those foam bags look like they could give good physical support, but without actually putting my own hands into the case and jiggling things around it’s kinda difficult to comment. The damage certainly looks like shipping damage to me - especially after looking at pictures of the card in question - it’s quite long and looks heavy. I would worry about ESD damage though with that packaging material inside the case. Perhaps it’s okay?

I’m not surprised. It the card has been flexed a lot there is likely to be intermittent problems - things like thermal expansion, vibration and such could easily affect its behaviour.

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Update

After more back and forth with galaxus and an absolutely miserable support experience with AMD, galaxus now decided to take back the GPU and fully refund me, due to being a “valued customer” due to my extended purchase history with them.

So I guess. Happy End after all. Shame to miss out on the GRE, but at least I get the money back.

Still baffled at how absolutely miserable AMD support was.

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