A recent video that a PC repair company shared shows a rather strange scenario in which a winged insect made a GPU worthless. The GPU was brought in to address a problem where it seemed to be working but was unable to provide any input to the attached display. Following a thorough examination, the technician discovered a dead bug lodged beneath the GPU core on the PCB, raising the inevitable question of how the hell it got there in the first place.
After being acquired used, an RTX 4090 Founders Edition GPU was shipped to Northwestrepair for repair. The trip to the technician’s shop was necessary because there was no warranty due to the terms of the sale. Tony looks to be the person in charge of Northwestrepair. He displays the GPU’s fan running at maximum speed during bootup in the video, yet there is no signal conveyed to the display. This prompted a thorough disassembly and voltage testing throughout the PCB. In the end, it was found that no signal was passing from the oscillator of the GPU to the GPU core.
At this point, most technicians would probably just give up and say the GPU is dead, but Tony didn’t. Then, like brain surgery for a video card, he unsoldered the GPU package from the circuit board. A closer look at the pads where the core is installed revealed an insect of some sort in the path of the traces that connect the oscillator to the GPU core. The package was fused back to the circuit board once the unfortunate bug was fixed, and testing showed that the card was now completely operational.
The film offers an intriguing glimpse into the remarkable technical expertise and tools needed to accurately identify a malfunctioning GPU. It also begs the question of how much Tony charges for such a comprehensive, expert-level repair.
In any case, it is quite unlikely that a bug could have flown into the factory that made the GPU and landed on the circuit board at the exact incorrect time to become lodged beneath the GPU core. Anything is possible, but considering the complexity of the situation, we must question how precisely this occurred. However, you now know that a dead GPU can not only be a software issue but also a real defect if you ever encounter one.