NVIDIA’s launch of new RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs has so far been rocky, and it doesn’t appear to be getting any better. Amid RTX 5000 stock shortages, mediocre performance gains, and sky-high prices from scalpers, some cards could be outright failing after updating to NVIDIA’s latest drivers.
As reported by Wccftech, it appears that some owners of the RTX 5090D — a variant of the RTX 5090 made for Chinese markets — are struggling with their new GPUs following the recommended NVIDIA driver update. These reports come from Chinese forums and social media hotspots like Baidu, Chiphell, and Bilibili; it looks like Colorful, Gigabyte, and Manli brands are affected.
However, the issue doesn’t appear to be exclusive to the 5090D variants. A member of the r/ASUS subreddit made a post two days ago with the title “RTX 5090 not detected” with an issue similar to the one experienced by Chinese users. The Reddit user, unable to find a solution, sent the RTX 5090 back to NVIDIA to hopefully get some answers.
NVIDIA RTX 5090/D symptoms to watch for
Users who took to forums to detail their RTX 5090/D issues all have the same common complaints. Following an update to NVIDIA’s latest driver that unlocks DLSS 4, some cards refuse to output any video or even be recognized by Windows. Swapping between HDMI and DisplayPort outputs doesn’t seem to fix anything.
It remains unclear if all RTX 5090 and RTX 5090D GPUs are affected by the problem, but I feel like we’d be hearing more reports if this were the case. Despite a severely limited launch in which many major retailers had only a handful of cards to sell, plenty have made it into the wild.
What’s interesting is that reviewer der8auer mentions PCIe issues in his RTX 5080 Founders Edition review. Testing the GPU with the PC’s BIOS set to PCIe 5.0 resulted in frequent crashes and black screens, which sounds eerily similar to what folks are experiencing with the RTX 5090 and 5090D. Changing the motherboard’s BIOS to force PCIe 4.0 alleviated der8auer’s issues, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right fix for whatever is happening to the RTX 5090/D cards.
Windows Central Senior Editor Ben Wilson tested the RTX 5090 Founders Edition on PCIe 5.0 successfully, though it was with an advance version of the drivers. Furthermore, using standard release drivers after launch, he’s had no issues expanding RTX 5080 testing for DLSS 4 in Cyberpunk 2077.
This all seems to point to some sort of driver issue on NVIDIA’s end that only affects some hardware. While it’s usually AMD receiving flak for its underbaked GPU support system, NVIDIA’s rush to launch its new Blackwell hardware appears to have resulted in some unfixed bugs. I wish I could offer a solid fix right now, but we’ll have to wait and see if NVIDIA addresses the problem and what it suggests as a solution.
RTX 5000 GPUs are sold out everywhere
The last thing early RTX 5090/D adopters want to discover is a major bug like this one apparently affecting some users. Dropping $2,000+ on a single piece of hardware, only to discover that it’s not functional, will undoubtedly tarnish NVIDIA’s reputation (assuming these issues are valid and widespread).
And it all comes on the heels of a shaky release that some are referring to as a “paper launch” due to a lack of actual inventory to sell. It could be several months before any meaningful RTX 5090 numbers hit shelves, and it’s not looking much better for the RTX 5080.
NVIDIA is still planning to launch its RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5070 in February, and AMD’s RDNA Radeon GPUs are expected in March. If you didn’t manage to snag a new RTX 5090 on launch day, I wouldn’t worry too much. You might be avoiding some next-gen blues while saving your money for something that better fits your system.
You can always check out my roundup of pre-built RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 PCs should you not want to wait for a restock on standalone cards.
