u/SporadicSpaceMan

My friend's ASRock Challenger OC RX 7900 GRE started acting up during a normal gaming session a couple days ago. First the GPU stopped showing up in Task Manager, then Device Manager started showing Code 31 errors and his second monitor stopped working. We did DDU in Safe Mode, reinstalled drivers, checked cables and it seemed like it was working again.

Then during a GPU load test the PC crashed he said he heard a pop, saw a small spark and smelled burning. He immediately unplugged it and when he opened up the card the PCB was burnt.

The rest of the system seems stable now running on integrated graphics. Had him run OCCT CPU and RAM tests and it passed with good temps. The PSU is a Cooler Master MWE Gold V3 750W and the GPU was using separate PCIe power cables, not daisy chained.

The system has a Ryzen 5 7600, 32GB DDR5-6000, and an ASRock B650M Pro RS motherboard.

Has anyone seen this kind of component failure before on AMD cards or specifically the 7900 GRE?

Specs: Ryzen 5 7600
RX 7900 GRE
Cooler Master MWE Gold V3 750W (Using 2 separate PCIe power cables/not daisy chained)

What happened: Yesterday his PC crashed hard during a session of Slay The Spire 2, his PC has never crashed before after he built it. When he got his PC running after the crash GPU disappeared from Task Manager Performance tab and his second monitor stopped working. In Device Manager originally showed Code 31 Reinstalled AMD drivers and it temporarily fixed it and we went got logged off for the night. Next day he starts his PC and his second monitor wasn't working again, PC running slow and not showing the GPU in Task Manager. This time I had him do a full DDU clean install in Safe Mode and reinstalled drivers offline GPU came back in Task Manager and Device Manager was showing “This device is working properly” Both monitors were working again. I then had him run 3DMark Time Spy while logging HWiNFO sensors. While he was doing the test he made it most the way through but toward the end his PC crashed and he said he heard a sound and smelled something “burnt” coming from GPU area. Temps right before crash were showing as normal/No obvious overheating in HWiNFO log. He removed the GPU and inspected the PCIe power connectors cables and GPU pins and there was no obvious melting or burn marks that we can see in the pictures. At this point what do you guys think is the most likely issue? failing GPU VRM/power delivery? PSU transient issue? still somehow software related? something else? Would you trust the GPU after this? Is it possible to RMA if it's under 2 years?

I've force stopped the app, cleared cache and app data, re logged in and no bots are appearing