An RTX 5090 Founders Edition owner says NVIDIA rejected a warranty claim because the serial number on the card's metal bracket had faded past readability. According to a Reddit post on r/NVIDIA from user Willing-Avocado-4830, the card began throwing black screen crashes under heavy load, so the owner returned it to NVIDIA for an RMA. After roughly a month of waiting, NVIDIA reportedly rejected the claim with little explanation, and a follow-up email revealed the reason: the printed serial number was apparently too faded to confirm.

The owner claims to have never removed the bracket and still has the original box and matching invoice. That raises an obvious question, since the same serial number is printed on the card's modular PCIe connector too, and can reportedly be pulled from Windows using NVIDIA's SMI tool, at least while the GPU still boots.

Unfortunately, this isn't an isolated case. Other Reddit users have reported similar fading on RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 Founders Edition brackets, with a few facing the same pushback from NVIDIA. One user apparently got their claim approved after sending photos matching the card to its retail packaging, so NVIDIA's handling doesn't seem entirely consistent. Older Founders Edition cards reportedly used laser etching, while the RTX 50-series switched to ink printing, which may explain the fading. NVIDIA hasn't commented publicly on this incident.