ZOTAC uses PCB scratches and “limited tools” excuse to refuse RTX 5070 Ti repair
A Reddit user has shared a case of a denied warranty for a 3 month old ZOTAC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. The user claims their card was rejected for “PCB damages” despite being sent in for a fan-related issue, not a board failure. User had already received RMA approval and paid around $40 to ship the card across the United States.
According to the post, the card started making intermittent mechanical noises. The user describes it as if the fan is sometimes hitting something, suggesting a possible bearing or shroud problem. The G PU itself still works and the issue appears limited to cooling hardware. After inspection, ZOTAC refused the warranty claim and also declined to offer a paid repair.
Source: Reddit
The email from ZOTAC’s service center is unusual in its wording. The company states it is “unable to do repairs due to the limited tools we have” and that damage on the PCB is “irreversible,” so the card has to be rejected under its warranty policy. The Redditor believes the marks on the board are normal handling scratches that could have occurred when removing the card and points out that the card functioned aside from the suspect fan.
This incident follows another case we covered recently involving ASUS 800-series motherboards and the “PCIe Slot Q-Release Slim” mechanism, which was reported to scratch GPU PCBs during repeated use. ASUS eventually released a new revision of the mechanism.
ZOTAC says they can dispose of the GPU
Before we published our story ZOTAC had now sent a second email to the same Reddit user whose three-month-old GeForce RTX 5070 Ti was denied warranty service. After previously saying they were “unable to do repairs due to the limited tools we have” and flagging “PCB damage,” the company has now offered to dispose of the customer’s card or return it as-is.
Source: Reddit
The Redditor says they have now contacted Gamers Nexus, which has a track record of covering warranty disputes and testing disputed hardware. The fact that the user is willing to send the card to a large outlet suggests they are confident it still operates and that the issue is confined to the cooler or fan assembly. This case lands shortly after our report on ASUS 800-series boards and the PCIe Slot Q-Release Slim mechanism scratching GPU PCBs, adding to a growing list of stories where normal physical wear around PCIe slots ends up at the center of warranty conflicts.
Source: I_Main_TwistedFate ( Update )
