ASUS Strix RTX 3090 Has a Hidden Design Flaw That Kills the VRM, and Owners Are Finding Out the Hard Way

An ASUS Strix GeForce RTX 3090 was damaged during a thermal pad replacement after shroud screws were overtightened.

The extra pressure broke internal PCB traces and caused short circuits in the card's VRM area.

NorthWestRepair restored the GPU by repairing the traces and replacing three driver MOSFETs plus a phase controller.

The case is a reminder that routine GPU teardown work can permanently damage high-end cards if screws are tightened too much.