PNY and the Sticker of Discord — How a Sticker on RTX 5070 Ti Contacts Caused Crashes

A new story about quality control issues has made the rounds on news sites. This time, the culprit wasn't complex electronics or scarce memory, but a simple serial number sticker on PNY graphics cards.

A Reddit user with the username ExtraCrunchy complained about the strange behavior of their brand new PNY GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. Immediately after installation, the system began experiencing random freezes and blue screens. One might think the issue lies with the driver, given the well-known software problems with RTX 50 series and NVIDIA's sluggishness in fixing them. But no, the problem is much more amusing.

Literally on the PCIe contacts of this graphics card, PNY had placed a "do not remove under threat of warranty void" sticker. It was precisely this sticker on the contacts that caused the user's problems. It was later discovered that similarly placed stickers are found on other graphics cards from this manufacturer—the problem is literally systemic.