A Bilibili user has shared his unfortunate experience with a seemingly defective MSI RTX 5090 graphics card, which spewed flames and smoke the moment it received power. Thankfully, the user had the good idea to record the incident, which will come in handy during the RMA process.
According to the owner, this was the first time the card was powered on, coming brand new straight out of the box. While at first glance you may assume this was caused by a badly made custom 12V-2×6 cable with mixed 12V and ground lines, the owner ensured that he used the official cable bundled with the PSU. And considering said PSU carries a 1,300W capacity, the cable is likely rated for 600W too, so no issues from that side either.
The user later confirmed that this was a faulty graphics card and that no other component was damaged. Somewhat lucky, actually, considering the voluminous sparks, fumes, and flames emanating from the card during startup. You can clearly see the residue left by the flames and smoke on the motherboard chipset. The owner’s fast reaction, combined with the hardware power protection, saved the rest of the system. Suddenly, melting 12V-2×6 cables seem less of a deal.
Since the rest of the system is still functional, the user installed an RTX 5060 temporarily, until he clears the situation with the seller. If you are wondering, why not simply leverage the warranty? Well, the RTX 5090 isn’t officially available in China, meaning he got it from a third-party that may or may not honour the warranty.
Officially, China only has access to the RTX 5090D and RTX 5090D V2 models, offering 32GB and 24GB of VRAM, respectively. Considering the small difference between the RTX 5090 and RTX 5090D, I personally would opt for the latter to ensure proper warranty support, but hey, no one expects their card to barbecue itself during the first launch.
Our unlikely owner had the good sense to film the first boot just in case something untoward happened. He indicated that he records the first startup of every major hardware upgrade, which could save him a lot of trouble this time around. Unless the seller is malevolent, the video shows clearly that the defect originated from the area near the power stages, and not the power connector, as you would expect from a cable defect.
On the bright side, of all the countries in which this unfortunate incident could happened, China is probably the one where you have the greatest chances of finding a repair shop capable of fixing it, as long as the GPU is still alive. Looking at the video, the damage is likely too severe to keep the original PCB, meaning the GPU and VRAM must be transplanted into another PCB/donor card. A straightforward task for competent hands.
