Broken Radeon RX 6000 cards are said to be caused by moisture damage

during the past week I reported on the German repair shop Krisfix They recently received 61 Radeon graphics cards, of which 48 suffered broken graphics and short circuits. The driver was the common denominator between the graphics cards and then the store suggested it as a possible cause. Now Krisfix returns with a new theory.

Through a combination of testing and networking with influential clients, repair shop Krisfix settled on another theory. said about Moisture damage that must be due to improper storage From one seller over a longer period. Krisfix thinks it might be one Mines Who stopped mining cryptocurrency when it was no longer profitable.

To investigate the problem, the shop collected eight copies of the Radeon RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT, four of which were new reference design copies and the rest were used partner cards. The original BIOS versions are installed for all versions. The graphics cards were then tested for a few days in the Furmark stress test using different graphics drivers. At the same time, voltage was measured on two voltage regulators using, among other things, the memory and graphics circuit to detect changes.

Seven of the eight graphics cards worked correctly regardless of the driver and no changes were found. One of the new reference design cards was a sample Monday that constantly crashed regardless of the test scenario, and the behavior persisted even when the card was tested in another computer.

With these test results, Krisfix contacted customers with questions about when and where the 48 graphics cards were purchased. He also asked the store why they turned to a repair shop that had products still under warranty. Just under half answered, and only two of them had access to proof of purchase. Several graphics cards that were purchased at the beginning of December last year have been found to have the problem appear just days after they were installed.

The fact that several graphics cards were purchased during the same time period made Krisfix suspicious, who also noted that the graphics cards were too clean and dust-free to use, while the damage was similar to moisture damage. If the theory is correct, accumulated moisture from long-term storage with high humidity and low temperature could be the cause of the catastrophic damage, which then occurred when unsuspecting users installed graphics cards without sufficient moisture removal.

Like the previous report from Krisfix, this is about unconfirmed information and theories that have not been confirmed or proven by any other source. So it’s reasonable to take the information with a grain of salt while waiting for any possible updates or suspension from AMD, something that is still missing at the time of writing. It remains to be seen if the story ends here.