Bought a GPU with scratched PCI-E connector. Chance it lasts?

[yoadknux]

Hello fellow overclockers,

I recently bought a GPU from an electronic repair shop (with 1 year warranty). The GPU is a 4090, and the reason it was sold cheap is due to scratches on the PCI-E motherboard connector. One of the pins even appears either stripped or soldered over (doesn't look gold-plated)
I used it for two days and it seems to be working fine, power and voltage software readings (MSI AB and HWInfo) seem fine, all standard benchmark tests score as intended, temps are excellent, no coil whine. But I'm just wondering if this GPU will have longetivity issues down the line.
Since this is the forum with most hardware experience in the entire world, I'm sure someone here ran into such things before - What do you think? Should I return it? You can see the images of the front/back:





Thanks!

 

[Nebulous]

Take it back asap, unless you bought it super cheap and want to keep it because of that. It's physical damage and you won't get a warranty from the manufacturer.

 

[BugFreak]

4090, how much did you pay for it?

 

[yoadknux]

Take it back asap, unless you bought it super cheap and want to keep it because of that. It's physical damage and you won't get a warranty from the manufacturer.

Let's put the warranty aside, since it is provided by the shop. Could it cause issues down the road?

Post magically merged: Feb 6, 2024

4090, how much did you pay for it?

It was about 65% the price of new

 

[Nebulous]

Let's put the warranty aside, since it is provided by the shop. Could it cause issues down the road?

Possibly. The way the solder joint looks, I can see a crack in the PCIE tongue. It may or may not. If it was me, I wouldn't have bought it even if the shop offers a year of warranty. If the pins short out in the slot and kill the board ( or other parts), will the shop replace those parts as well? That's a chance I wouldn't take. Up to you if the cost is worth the risk.

 

[=XAF=AfterShock]

I had a 1080ti that I somehow messed up the pins during removal to re apply thermal paste, wasn't anything close to how bad those pins are but I figured it wasn't bad and shouldn't cause any probs and it didn't for a couple months then one night watching youtube my pc shut off, I thought wtf was that and powered it back up to see a bright flash and a little bit of smoke then it shut off again, the card pretty much welded itself into the pci slot. It may work for a little while or it might last years but when it does go it will destroy the pci slot.

 

[yoadknux]

I had a 1080ti that I somehow messed up the pins during removal to re apply thermal paste, wasn't anything close to how bad those pins are but I figured it wasn't bad and shouldn't cause any probs and it didn't for a couple months then one night watching youtube my pc shut off, I thought wtf was that and powered it back up to see a bright flash and a little bit of smoke then it shut off again, the card pretty much welded itself into the pci slot. It may work for a little while or it might last years but when it does go it will destroy the pci slot.

damn that's wild. It's for sure going back after hearing this story.

 

[=XAF=AfterShock]

2 of my pins at the top looked like yours, as far as I could tell it was still attached to the pcb, maybe the heat cycles caused them to separate, but it's not worth the risk to the reset of the components IMHO

 

[yoadknux]

Thanks for the comments guys. I took it back to the shop and they gave me another gpu which has clean pins. Temps are a little higher on unit and it coil whines a bit, but everything within an acceptable range

 

[Nebulous]

Welp, if that's the best you're going to get for the price (and warranty), then enjoy it. I had a PSU that had coil whine under gaming loads. Dam thing drove me crazy.

 

[don256us]

How does that even happen? Like did they accidently brush up against a spinning grinding wheel when installing it?

Like maybe the owner was in a metal shop and took it out of the packaging and went over to show the guys and got to horseplaying and spun around just as the old guy in the shop who was actually working spun around to tell the young-un's to settle down and the grinder the old timer was using hit the bottom of the 4090?

 

[EarthDog]

Some of the tines/fingers have significant wear too... like in the middle they are roughed up but on the edges (outside of the jacked up tab) it looks 'normal'.

Maybe it was a LAN box and travelled and got jostled around a lot? No clue.

 

[yoadknux]

How does that even happen? Like did they accidently brush up against a spinning grinding wheel when installing it?

Like maybe the owner was in a metal shop and took it out of the packaging and went over to show the guys and got to horseplaying and spun around just as the old guy in the shop who was actually working spun around to tell the young-un's to settle down and the grinder the old timer was using hit the bottom of the 4090?

It's a shop that sells repaired GPUs. When I asked the owner he said that most of the 4090s he repairs are due to shipped prebuilts. So maybe during shipping it was ripped out of the socket and fell into acid?

 

[don256us]

It's a shop that sells repaired GPUs. When I asked the owner he said that most of the 4090s he repairs are due to shipped prebuilts. So maybe during shipping it was ripped out of the socket and fell into acid?

That makes sense. I could come up with that other nonsense but I would never have come up with that. Good deal.

 

[=XAF=AfterShock]

I think I fell into some acid the night I decided to rip my gpu out and re-paste it, it happens to the best of us LMAO