April 8th Report: Today's hardware is all about "lights on for fun," but the omnipresent RGB craze not only leads to "light pollution" but also may result in unforeseen consequences. Multiple users have reported that RGB lighting on their memory modules has caused damage to their graphics cards.
The known victims so far include two MSI RTX 3080s, one Gigabyte RTX 4080, and even an ASUS GTX 1080 Ti, with the issue having no direct correlation to the graphics cards themselves. From the images provided by users, evident burn marks are visible on the backplates of these graphics cards, mirroring the patterns of the nearby RGB lighting on the memory modules.
One user even discovered similar traces on the surface of the GPU chip while replacing the GPU.
The specific cause remains unclear for now. One possibility is that certain RGB diodes emit ultraviolet light within the 375-400nm frequency range, which can easily affect the materials or patterns on the graphics card backplate over prolonged exposure. Another possibility is heat accumulation resulting from prolonged illumination.
It's time to open up your PC case and take a look inside.
