One of the most horrifyingly burned graphics cards that we have seen has been featured in a components salvage video. Software developer and hobbyist graphics card repairer Patryk runs the DIY Repair Hour YouTube channel, where work on this seriously charred Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 was uploaded.
It is worth highlighting that this isn’t a GPU from a house fire or other external ‘act of God’ style catastrophe. The card apparently set on fire in a working PC which suffered from a power connector issue. Patryk was told that the PSU in use was from a mining rig, and this PSU didn’t have the luxury of overcurrent protection (OCP), so the combustion of the power connector and ensuing electrical mayhem didn’t cut the power delivery. From the video comments, it seems to be that the RTX 4070 owner was alerted of the burning card by “the horrible smell.”
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Patryk’s conclusion is that the burning “certainly started at or near the 12V PCIE connector.” So Nvidia’s compact, concentrated power connector isn’t completely blameless here. However, using a PSU without basic safety features like OCP was an obvious issue, allowing this unfortunate event to go much further than it should have. In fact, we can’t even see any remnants of the controversial power connector, as the combustion was so intense.
As this Palit RTX 4070 was so far gone, Patryk and the graphics card owner had no illusions about its repairability. From the start, the mission here was to simply salvage any good components that remained on the PCB.
Fast forwarding to the end of the video, you will learn that the biggest and most expensive component here, the GPU die, is claimed to be “healthy.” The TechTuber verified this with a multitude of multimeter measurements. Sadly, we didn’t see the GPU put onto a working PCB to confirm it was AOK, though.
Other components salvaged from this charred mess include a selection of memory chips, power stages, video BIOS, some ports, and other things. Patryk didn’t verify all these bits were 100% good, but assumed they would be fine as they were further away from the fire zone than the GPU core.
If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it is that yes-indeed pay attention to your tricky Nvidia GPU power connector – but don’t neglect using an appropriate and high quality PSU.
