The PCB, if you don’t know, is based on fiberglass overlays. A series of copper tracks are “printed” that connect all the elements that are installed on it. All electronic circuits incorporate it.
On this component is installed, on a graphics card, the VRAM, the GPU, the VRM phases and the rest of the electronic components. This element must be of quality and support vibrations, tensions and temperatures.
Gigabyte has a problem with its graphics cards
Several users are reporting cracks in the RTX 30 and RTX 40 Series graphics cards made by Gigabyte. Among some of the ones that are cracking are some of the most expensive models on the market.
All these cracks, they appear near the PCIe lock tab. The origin of this problem would be in the brutal size of the new generations of graphics cards. The increasing lengths and weight would be behind this problem.
Modern graphics cards are getting longer and wider. The heatsink has also grown, to the point of seeing graphics cards with 4.5 PCIe slots. But this size would be part of the problem.
A Twitter user named 0xcats, who would have experience in PCB design, has given information about it. He indicates that Gigabyte has used a taller cutout on the PCIe anchor tab on the PCB. The anchor point is greatly reduced, which is a problem.
This is apparently a voltage surge on the PCB spanning the PTH section (Plating Through Hole). According to 0xcats it is not a new problem and precisely a stranger. As he indicates, this problem is very well documented among PCB designerswho already know about your existence for years.
It is not known why Gigabyte has chosen a higher cut than usual. But 0xcats establishes a theory that it would be given to compensate for the higher PCIe anchor tab.
The interesting thing is that all the photographs presented have one thing in common. The crack is very close to the mounting area of the lower area of memories. Specifically, those that would be further inside the chassis of our computer.
What else could cause these cracks?
This is a problem, but there are other problems on the PCB. These are very thin, meaning that any curvature may affect their integrity. In addition, it is a component that suffers high temperatures, something that also generates wear.
User 0xcats highlights that the stress in the area of the GPU and the PTH of the heatsink has grown in a corner cut zone. He has given a very interesting example in this regard. He indicates that it would be like scissors, since the further the hole is, the greater the displacement.
This user indicates that the first thing that should be done is to reduce the cutting area as much as possible. On the one hand, the size of the narrowest part of the printed circuit should be increased. In addition, the PCB should be strengthened.
Something that users can do to avoid the problem is to install support for the graphics card. This causes the stress on the graphics card to be reduced and consequently it can bend and crack.
On the other hand, we will be attentive to see what Gigabyte says about it. It should be noted that, recently, the company has already been affected by serious malware problems on its motherboards.
