A frustrated user has taken to Reddit after Zotac denied their GeForce RTX 5070 Ti RMA for a suspected bearing issue, saying that it found “irreversible” PCB damage that cannot be repaired “due to the limited tools” the company has. According to I_Main_TwistedFate’s Reddit post, the company said the physical damage was found near the PCIe connector during a visual inspection of the card before testing. Zotac then claimed that this type of damage isn’t “caused by normal GPU operation” and instead recommended that the user “File a Damage Claim With the Shipping Carrier.”
“When your card arrived at our facility, our technicians performed a visual inspection prior to electrical testing. During this inspection, they identified a crack in the PCB (printed circuit board) near the PCIe connector. While the gold contacts themselves appear intact, the board material above the connector is visibly fractured,” the service manager told I_Main_TwistedFate.
