Following last week's report of excessive wear on a graphics card's contact pins, suggested to be the result of using an Asus motherboard's quick-release PCIe slot, Asus has released a statement. In it, the company suggests no actual damage is likely to occur as a result.
The issue, as one PC builder explained on bilibili, was that the PCIe Q-Release Slim slot on one of Asus' latest motherboards had caused a large amount of wear to the gap in between contacts on a connected GPU.
Above: the mechanism in action.
The specially designed slot lets you remove a card by pulling on the IO side of the GPU first, releasing the card, which then pushes the card onto the retainer clip that holds the card in place.
Following its own testing and evaluation of an "extremely small number of cases reported", Asus says it does not expect any damage to occur when using motherboards with its PCIe Q-Release Slim slots.
Here's the important bit of the statement it sent to Wccftech:
"In our internal testing and evaluation of the extremely small number of cases reported, we found no damage to the motherboard or graphics card that would affect functionality and or performance. However, it is important to emphasize that any type of PCIe add in card will exhibit signs of usage and wear marking after 60 continuous insertions and removals. Additionally, if the installation and removal are not performed according to the manufacturer's recommendations, the likelihood of scratches and or wear may increase.
"Despite this, we have found no impact on the functionality of either the graphics card or the motherboard."
The 60 insertions and removals is a good number to know. In our Andy's original report, he questioned the number of cycles a PCIe slot is rated to, and how many would be required to cause some sort of wear. It clearly took a lot of cycles to wear a PCB as shown in the bilibili post, but how many is too many? 60 seems like a relatively decent number, as most PC gamers are unlikely to get anywhere close to that in the lifetime of a gaming PC.
What's slightly more reassuring is that Asus, in this statement, claims it will take "full responsibility" for any "specific issues or abnormalities" that may occur from the quick release slot. Remember that, if you ever need to make a claim.
Though Asus is keen to point out that you should follow its guidelines every cycle and not apply excessive force to ensure coverage… though how it proves any of that by the time a claim rolls around, I don't know.
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What I'm wondering is whether Asus plans to shake up this design with future motherboards. I have an older Z690 motherboard in my test bench that has a quick-release PCIe slot, though this uses a simple metal wire and pulley system.
It works like this: When you press the button the metal wire tugs on the retainer clip, which releases it and allows the graphics card to come away with a light tug. It seems to work just as well, to be honest, and as far as I can see wouldn't wear the graphics card in any way beyond the normal wear and tear—of which there will be some.
In all my years benchmarking the same graphics card over and over again, I've never seen any noticeable signs of wear on the contact pins. Maybe some light scratching from dust in the slot, but nothing I would consider detrimental to the card's longevity.
So, hey, I probably wouldn't worry about this too much, not unless you're planning to replace your GPU every other day.
