A Chinese repair shop has received an Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti that was surprisingly still partially functional despite a severely bent cooler. Apparently, the card was stored in a car that got rear-ended and survived thanks to its small PCB, which only got slightly bent.
The card was received by repair technician Brother Zhang in a poor state, including broken fans and an extremely bent heatsink plus backplate, as if someone was using it as a Power Twister. Thankfully, after opening the card to check for internal damage, the technician found just a slightly bent PCB. So, after flattening it a bit and verifying there were no electrical shorts, the card was reassembled using the original fin stack plus two 120mm case fans. Surprisingly enough, the card booted to Windows, though it was not for long, as a black screen ensued shortly after.
While the card was able to boot, it seems that there was some issue that prevented it from running correctly. To find the culprit, Brother Zhang used diagnostic software, which reported that both the GPU and VRAM chips were good. With no concrete evidence about the root cause, Brother Zhang decided to reopen the card and reballed/resolder the VRAM chip that was closest to the bent section of the PCB. Lo and behold, the RTX 5060 Ti was back in action with no black screens.
To make sure there were no other hidden issues, the technician put the card through some stress testing and benchmarking, all while verifying aspects such as PCIe link speed, VRAM capacity, and temperatures. All went well with the GPU reporting 67°C and VRAM at 68°C.
Now, the owner only needs to find a replacement cooler, which shouldn’t be an issue in China. That said, the card is fully functional with the MacGyvered case fans, so there is no need to change anything, assuming the owner doesn’t mind the scrappy look. This was quite a lucky turn of events for this person, as any part replacement would have cost too much to be worthwhile on such a mid-range card.
Graphics cards are tougher than you think!
