Northwest Repair is back with another repair video, this time featuring an Asus ROG Strix RTX 4090 that came in after a customer bought it used from eBay, but it turned out to be one of the most sophisticated fakes we've ever seen. The GPU chip and the VRAM were all fake; it had been shaved down to remove the markings and then laser-etched with fake information.
The seller claimed it was part of an Amazon pallet deal, but it turns out that the card was emblematic of a much larger scam. It wasn't being recognized in any test bench, and opening up the GPU revealed a rather clean-looking PCB that didn't show any obvious points of failure. That is, until you look closer to figure out its true nature.
