Nvidia’s RTX 50-series graphics cards — the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 — have been flying off the shelves ever since their release. Despite some flaws identified in the RTX 5080 during early reviews, gamers were eager to secure the new GPUs for their builds. However, some early buyers have encountered a major problem: their RTX 50-series cards have become bricked, making them completely unusable.
According to Tom’s Hardware, these issues stem from a driver and BIOS problem that seems to affect both Founder’s Editions and AIB partner variants, including the China-only RTX 5090D. The bricking seems to be triggered after installing Nvidia’s most recent driver update, which introduced DLSS 4 to a range of GPUs. The update has caused GPU initialization failures, black screens, and PCIe 5.0 instability, which prevents the GPU from booting properly in PCIe 5.0 mode. While some users have been able to roll back the drivers, others report that their cards are no longer recognized by motherboards or Windows, making it impossible to do so.
This issue is primarily affecting RTX 5090 cards, although one Reddit user reported similar problems with the RTX 5080, which only worked in PCIe 2.0 mode after the driver update. Speculation is that the rushed timeline for driver preparation may be to blame. Roman “8auer” Hartung, a known figure in the PC hardware community, suggested that some companies had only a week to prepare, which is far too short for something as critical as this release.
Nvidia has yet to issue an official statement regarding the issue. If you’re facing this problem, you might want to try rolling back the drivers, but if your card is permanently damaged, you’ll have to request an RMA. However, with RTX 50-series cards already out of stock and delays of up to 16 weeks for resupply, don’t expect a replacement anytime soon.