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My R9 290's VRM just burnt out a phase WTF?

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I use my R9 290 in 2 different computers. When I go to my grandma's I bring the GPU with me and use it in my AMD rig. However after I brought it back to my main computer it wouldn't get picked up in windows so decided to leave it without a PCI-e connection(using the dip switches on my MB) for a few days. Then today I switched the dip switches into the on position as I reset the BIOS and I hear a crackling noise and smell electric smoke coming from the GPU. After I pulled the GPU I looked for what burnt up is the driver chip and a resistor for the 3rd phase of the Vcore VRM.

The card still gives an image but it isn't recognized by windows as an R9 290 just as an unknown display adapter which is what it did before. Does anyone have any idea what could have caused this because I haven't done anything physical(outside of moving it) to the card since I last used it on the 17th of August.
Also does anyone have any suggestions on how I should deal with the card basically being dead.
 
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Fill out rma asap.
 
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Fill out rma asap.
OK I'll bring it to where I bought it from because when I had problems with this same card model in the past they gave me my money back the day I brought it in. Th
 

fullinfusion

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That sucks, what do you wrap the card in when transporting it?
 
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I think lots of people have been complaining in the past month for this particular card, I think I saw this on Newegg
 
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OneMoar

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if you flicked the dip switch with the system powered on that might have done it .. extremely unlikely tho
more likely there was a short in the PCB that was causing windows to not detect it
 
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He didn't have the problem with the AMD Box. It's the one in his system specs.
 
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I think i remember someone else i chat to telling me the same. happened a couple months after purchase, randomly.

RMA it, i wouldnt try using it as the phase may not work or cause more issues. Plus the others would be doing more and out of sync.

Maybe its a design problem with certain cards... who knows?!
 
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if you flicked the dip switch with the system powered on that might have done it .. extremely unlikely tho
more likely there was a short in the PCB that was causing windows to not detect it
Except I've done this at least 10 times to both of my cards and until now both were perfectly okay except that the R9 290 was flaky with being recognized.

Either way Alza is really nice about RMAs. They replaced my last R9 290 and my Siberia V2s without any fuss about the details of how and why they died. They are also about 2-10% more expensive than any other e-store but I guess that goes into solving RMA this quickly.
 
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