Mike Adams exposes alleged warranty fraud by NVIDIA and PNY regarding a $9,000 RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPU suffering from power bus defects. Despite providing proof of purchase and telemetry showing crashes after 1,000 tokens, both companies refused replacement unless Adams ran Xtern SWAC, a file flagged as malware with a threat score of 79. After being passed between support agents at NVIDIA, Assurance Technologies, and PNY, Adams warns consumers against these vendors due to delaying tactics that potentially expose users to cybercrime risks, prompting him to file complaints and consider switching to Intel, AMD, or Apple. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Faulty GPU Warranty Claim00:04:55
Welcome to today's consumer alert warning video here from the nonprofit Consumer Wellness Center.
I'm Mike Adams.
As you know, I'm the founder of Decentralized.tv, the show that reaches people all about technology.
We've interviewed some of the top AI minds in the world and top people in innovation, and it's become a very popular show.
We thank you for your support.
I've got an alert for you, and I'm going to start by showing you this GPU.
This is an NVIDIA.
GeForce 6000 Pro Blackwell card.
And it's got quite a lot of little power cords here connected to it.
This card costs about $9,000.
And as you know, I'm an AI developer and the developer of the world's most prolific book creation platform, brightlearn.ai, which is also a nonprofit website.
And my organization spends probably hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
On hardware, largely from NVIDIA, some of it from HP or other providers.
And when I bought this card, it turned out that this was a faulty GPU that kind of freezes and reboots itself.
It's got a power bus problem.
And but at first I thought, well, that's no problem because NVIDIA and the specific brand that is attached to this card, which is PY, some people call it Pony.
I thought, no worries, they have a warranty, they have a three year warranty to make sure that there are no defects in the card.
Now, of course, you may know I run about 48 workstations as part of our in house nonprofit data pipeline processing.
And we are doing things like we are cleaning books to be used as reference text for our book engine and our search engines.
But we use it all in house, you know, we don't offer services like inference services to the public with these cards.
But I noticed right away that there was something wrong with this card.
And at first, when I bought it, I thought, well, it's so new because I bought it last year, I don't know, maybe six months ago.
And I thought, well, maybe the drivers just aren't out yet.
So I waited for some new drivers from NVIDIA, waited for new PyTorch and CUDA drivers and updates and so on.
And then it turned out about two months ago, I came to the conclusion that the card is just flat out faulty.
So I contacted NVIDIA.
For a warranty replacement.
And that's when the saga began that I am going to share with you today.
And the end result of this is that I can now accuse NVIDIA and PY of being engaged in warranty fraud, that they claim to have a three year warranty, but they are not actually willing to act on it.
And they have refused to replace this card, even though I have demonstrated to them over and over again that it is faulty.
So they have taken me, a A repeat customer that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, they've taken me for $9,000.
And despite my best attempts to resolve it with them through the support channels, all of those attempts have failed.
And I'm stating this as a warning to the public don't buy NVIDIA.
And certainly don't buy PY branded products because, in my experience, they will not honor their warranty.
So let me explain exactly how that happened.
But show my screen here to my producers.
Here's the NVIDIA RTX.
Pro 6000.
I may have said GeForce earlier.
That's a, that's a, say, it's a RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell.
Workstation Edition GPU.
This is very capable.
It's got 96 gigabytes of video RAM, and I actually own many of these.
It's got the GDDR7 memory.
I mean, the architecture of the card is really quite extraordinary.
And like I said, I own several of these, and I use them to run lots of things like video models and image models, and of course, text models.
Lots of inference is capable out of these cards.
You can use them to run very large models like You know, a GPT OSS or a Quentin 35 120 billion parameter, you know, thinking models, lots of things.
So these cards, even though they're quite expensive for most consumers, they are capable when they work.
And by the way, all the cards that I have of this same model number, all of them that I have work just fine, but not this one.
Proof of Purchase Requested00:03:11
This one just doesn't work.
Again, it's got a bad power bus, and it doesn't matter what workstation I put it in, it doesn't matter what operating system.
It freezes and fries itself under Ubuntu, under Windows 11, under other varieties of Linux as well.
I've tried it on three different operating systems.
So, the first thing I did is because if I look at this, it says NVIDIA right on the card.
You can't see it, it's so small, but it says NVIDIA, Santa Clara, California, and it's got the serial number there.
So, I contacted NVIDIA and I said, Look, here I'm a customer.
I'm wanting to invoke warranty repair or replacement according to your.
Warranty.
And they engaged in a message thread, and they said, Okay, send us your proof of purchase.
And I did.
And then they said, We want you to take photos of the card.
And they want you to take four photos, four sides, and then a photo of the serial number.
And then they want you to take a photo of your workstation, which I did all of that.
And then they said, Well, we want you to write this case number.
On a piece of paper, and then put the piece of paper next to the serial number and take a photo of that and send us that photo.
And I said, okay, there's a lot of photos, but okay, I did it.
I sent them that photo.
And then they said, well, we want you to run this utility now, this system dump utility under Windows 11.
We want to get a full system dump that shows all the specs, making sure you have adequate CPU, adequate resources.
I said, okay, I can do that, no problem.
So I ran the utility with the card installed, and then I took that file, which is actually quite large, it's like 30 megs or something, and I sent that to NVIDIA.
And then that team said, okay, now we're going to turn you over to, I think they called it the replacement team or the returns team.
And I said, great.
I thought, okay, they're going to replace the cart.
The replacement team then starts the whole process over with me and says, oh, give us proof of purchase.
And I sent the last team proof of purchase.
They said, well, we're a different team.
We're the replacement team or whatever they call themselves.
And so I sent them proof of purchase.
And then they said, we want you to send some more photos.
I'm like, I've already sent a bunch of photos.
So they needed more photos.
I sent them more photos.
And then they wanted me to run additional utilities.
And so I'm like, seriously, I've already run this whole utility.
They said, yeah, we want you to run these other utilities.
And so I did that too, thinking, oh, this must be the last step to get the warranty replacement.
Because here I am, I'm a paying customer, I'm a repeat customer.
Surely they're going to replace this card.
And then they said, we're not going to replace it.
You have to talk to the reseller or the retailer.
Reseller Refuses Replacement00:02:15
From whom you bought this card?
And I'm like, wait a second.
You're passing the buck now because this is an NVIDIA card, right?
Because it says NVIDIA right on the card.
And they said, no, you got to talk to the reseller.
So I said, okay.
So the reseller is a company called Assurance Technologies out of Dallas, Texas, or near Dallas.
And so I talked to Assurance, and they're the reseller.
And I'm like, hey, Assurance, Can you do the warranty replacement on this card?
Because I bought it from you.
And I think it's their founder or their president named Shang Shu, I think is his name, Chinese name.
And he said, Well, you know, we can help you replace this card, but you need to download and run this specific utility.
Oh, and he also asked me for proof of purchase and some other things.
I'm like, Okay, I already have that ready.
But he said, You need to download and install this.
Utility called Xtern SWAC.
So if you look up the Xtern SWAC executable, then, and here's just a brave search showing you that Xtern SWAC is a file identified as malicious, despite claiming to be the Swiss Army knife developer tool by NVIDIA Inc.
That it's a security scanner classified as malicious, reporting malicious activity and hybrid analysis, assigning a threat score of 79 out of 100.
It performs VM detection via all this.
It hides debugging tools.
It modifies registry keys and it hooks system DLLs to evade detection.
And it goes on.
You can read more about this malicious code.
Well, the Assurance Technologies company had apparently been given this link by PNY, apparently the maker of the card, even though their name doesn't appear to be on the card.
And so Assurance told me, they gave me a Google Drive link.
They said, download this file and then.
You have to change the name to.exe.
Like, that's a red flag.
And then you have to run it as administrator on your system.
Malware Hiding Telemetry00:14:10
Like, wait a second.
You want me to download this file from Google Drive?
It's not even from your company.
And you want me to change it to an executable file.
And you want me to run it as administrator so we can have all rights to hoover up everything and modify everything and change everything.
They're like, yeah, you got to do that.
And I said, no, I'm not doing that.
I'm not running your malware.
And they said, no, it's not malware.
I'm like, well, you know, clearly it's malware because if you search for this executable on any search engine, it says it's malware.
And so, no, I'm not going to do that.
I said, I'll tell you what I will do.
I will write a script using Claude code to do a full telemetry analysis of running this card and recreating the failure.
And then I'll share that with you.
How's that?
But by that time, Sheng Shu of Assurant Technologies, which, to his credit, he is seemingly trying to help me get this resolved.
And I think PNY gave him that executable link.
So that didn't come from his company.
But by that time, he had sent me over to PNY.
So, you got to work with PNY now to get a replacement of this card.
I'm like, wait a second.
I started with NVIDIA.
They kicked me over to Assurance.
And then Assurance says, no, you got to work with PNY.
It's like, oh, great.
OK.
So, how many more chains are there going to be in this warranty scam?
So, I start talking to Bruce P., the PNY technical support supervisor.
And then here's what I send him.
You can show my screen.
This is, I did ECC mode and non ECC mode, full telemetry testing.
Of this GPU using Claude code written scripts that monitor everything temperature, the wattage usage, everything.
And the telemetry, the key findings are that memory is definitively ruled out as the root cause, but the GPU is getting worse.
It fails even during idle light use.
Recommendation this GPU should be RMA'd.
That's the recommendation from Claude.
The combined evidence package, two test reports, 216 driver errors.
Five BSODs, zero ECC errors, and VBIOS corruption make a strong case for hardware defect in the power delivery VRM subsystem, which is exactly what I was describing to NVIDIA and describing to Assurance and then describing to PNY.
And here's the crash report.
I'm going to show my screen here just for the record.
Here's the dump file, log events, you know, everything.
And then Claude says this GPU has a clear hardware defect.
This report includes recommendations.
Starting with analyzing the mini dump, et cetera.
We also did a power cap test at 450 watts.
And then I told them that the PSU is a high end, you know, it's a Z8 G4 workstation PSU.
So it's got plenty of power.
And then the cloud code goes on and it talks about the abrupt termination, the GPU script detected zero XID errors, et cetera.
But it had an instantaneous hardware level failure rather than a progressive software visible degradation.
Primary hypothesis, GPU, hardware defect, et cetera.
Okay.
It goes on.
It's actually very long.
It's like 30 kilobytes of full telemetry, which I have saved as files.
I can make it available if anybody's interested.
So I send this over to Scott at PNY.
And Scott says, Well, that's not good enough.
Oh, and by the way, I think earlier Scott also asked, Where's your proof of purchase?
Where's, you know, we need this and that and these other things.
And what's the serial number and this and that, which I had already provided twice to NVIDIA and also again to Assurance.
So Scott says, We're not going to accept that.
You have to download and run this other thing that we want you to run.
And I'm like, Dude, I've already run.
I ran stuff for NVIDIA twice.
I refused to run the malware that you wanted me to run.
I'm not going to run malware.
And you're asking me to run another thing after I've provided how many times proof of purchase, how many times photos, handwritten notes.
I wrote custom code through Claude Code.
I did full telemetry, tested it on multiple workstations, multiple operating systems, multiple environments.
And I'm not a noob, I'm not a gamer, I'm a professional.
I run these things every single day as part of our nonprofit operation.
I own multiple cards like this.
I have multiple.
I've got 48 workstations that do the data pipeline work.
I know what I'm talking about on these cards.
And no matter what I said, PNY and NVIDIA refused to honor the warranty.
And so at the end, I said, Look, are you going to honor the three year warranty or not?
And he said, We're not going to honor it.
I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said, We're not going to honor it unless you run these other utilities.
And I said, You're asking me to jump through another hoop.
I've already jumped through 20 hoops.
I'm not going to jump through hoop number 21.
I've already proven to you, and any reasonable engineer, any reasonable company, I've proven to you that this doesn't work, that it's defective.
It's well within the three year warranty.
It's a six month old card.
And I'm not asking for my money back.
I'm only asking you to honor your warranty, which is to replace it or repair it.
Either one, I'm fine.
I'll send it to you, fix it, send it back.
I'm happy with that.
Their answer is no, they won't do it.
So, my warning to you as a consumer of any kind of GPUs or hardware is don't buy NVIDIA because they won't honor their warranty.
They will kick the can down the road to somebody else.
Don't buy PY because, in my experience, they won't honor their warranty.
They will continue to demand that you jump through more and more hoops.
And it's clear that it's just a delay tactic.
It's just to kind of string you along.
They don't need any other information to know that the card is defective.
I already showed them that.
I already gave them all the files.
I already ran the full telemetry.
We did AI analysis of the card's behavior in multiple workstations, which is different power supplies, by the way, different physical workstations, different operating systems.
They didn't accept any of that.
So, the bottom line is if you buy GPUs from NVIDIA or PNY, and if there's something wrong with it, they will make sure that they are never satisfied with your demonstration of a fault in their hardware so that they never have to honor their warranty claim.
It's a total fraud.
It's obvious.
It's a total fraud.
And again, the only reason I'm doing this, I mean, yeah, I'm out $9,000.
You know, they're not going to replace the card.
So what am I going to do with it?
Use it for target practice or something?
Maybe.
I'm out $9,000, but I don't want you to be harmed by this.
I don't want you to be hurt by this.
And, you know, NVIDIA loves to blame, oh, it's a driver problem or it's an operating system problem or it's this and that.
That's a delaying tactic to string you along so that they don't have to replace their faulty GPUs.
And you might wonder, well, what makes it faulty?
Well, there's something wrong with the power bus on this card.
But you know, UV lithography is not perfect.
And that's why they're supposed to test these cards before they ship them.
But do they test them enough?
Do they test them under load?
This card will begin to respond with inference.
It will return about 1,000 tokens of any kind of inference, whether it's text or something else.
And after 1,000 tokens or so, it croaks.
It completely croaks.
And then sometimes the whole operating system reboots.
Other times, a subsystem of the OS reboots, but it trashes everything.
So it'll start to work.
So it makes me wonder does PNY have any kind of actual testing that is rigorous?
Or do they just plug it in and say, oh, yeah, it works for two seconds.
So we're going to ship it to the customer.
If the customer has a problem, we'll just deny.
We'll just deny there's a problem.
We'll say, you didn't run the right utilities or you didn't install the malware that we wanted you to install.
So we're going to deny your warranty replacement.
Well, that's not acceptable, is it?
That's not acceptable.
That's why I'm going public with this.
And that's why I'm filing complaints with attorneys general and, you know, Better Business Bureau, et cetera.
Because you and I, as customers, we deserve to be treated better than this.
We deserve to be treated better.
And no, I never told them who I was because I wasn't going to, you know, play that card.
I never told them who I was.
But I guess they're going to be surprised when they see this video because.
I have a significant reach among people who might be consumers of this kind of hardware.
And if they're ripping me off, they could be ripping you off.
If they refuse to do a warranty replacement for me, they could do the same thing for you.
And I'm very technically advanced compared to most consumers.
I know how to use AI tools to run telemetry.
I know what I'm talking about.
I, again, I have 48 workstations.
I can try it on different operating systems and different hardware.
I can try it under all kinds of different circumstances.
So I'm a more advanced user.
And even I couldn't meet all of their insane demands for photos and forms and telemetry and install this, install that, and malware.
And just from a security perspective, am I going to install something that is flagged as malware, even though they require it?
They require you to install what AI engines call malware as a condition of them honoring their warranty.
Well, I'm sorry, that exists outside of consumer law.
So, what PNY is doing and what NVIDIA are doing is called by definition fraud.
They claim to offer a three year warranty, but they make it virtually impossible to actually get that honored, even for someone like me who is very technically advanced.
So, there you go.
And by the way, if you buy any kind of hardware and you're trying to troubleshoot it with the manufacturer and they ask you to download and install something, You should check what is that file.
You should run it against like antivirus malware checking software because it might be malware as what was flagged when they told me to download this program.
That could have compromised my whole system.
It could have, you know, hoovered up all my passwords, all my API keys.
It could have stolen everything across my network.
And they insisted that I install this.
So, you know, that's a cyber crime to kind of hijack a customer's support.
A conversation where I'm in good faith trying to resolve a defective GPU, and then they want me to install what is identified as malware, that's a cyber crime.
Okay.
I mean, that qualifies at the state level and the federal level as a felony violation of cyber crime laws.
And that's what they asked me to do.
And I'm not okay with that.
And I think everybody needs to know this.
And that's why I'm sharing this publicly.
So I normally don't go out of my way to talk about problems like this.
But look, most companies resolve issues.
If I have a problem with HP, HP resolves it.
If I have a problem with Dell, Dell resolves it.
If I have a problem with Amazon, Amazon resolves it.
And at least this Assurance Technologies company, they were trying, I think, to help resolve this.
But PY and NVIDIA, It's like talking to a brick wall of just fraud.
They're not willing.
They're not willing, in my experience, to make good on their warranty.
And so I'm warning you about this.
So here's the website for PNY.com.
Here's their product, NVIDIA RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition.
And in case you're wondering, if you scroll down to the bottom, here's their three year warranty right here.
Boom.
To obtain service during the warranty period, contact, which I did.
And then they just walk you through endless loops.
Okay, so warranty is a lie.
And then here we are on NVIDIA, right here.
And NVIDIA also has a similar, almost identical warranty as well.
But all they do is pass the buck between these two companies and refuse to replace the card that you purchased in good faith as a customer.
So, what am I going to do?
Well, like I said, I'm already out $9,000 because of this.
I guess I'm going to be looking at, well, Intel's got a new GPU.
It's not that fast, but I'll be looking at it.
AMD's got some GPUs.
Apple has unified memory Mac models.
And there are some other companies out there that have unified memory models that are coming out in the next couple of months.
I'm going to be looking at those because now I know NVIDIA won't honor their warranty and PY Pony won't honor their warranty.
And so I'm going to take my hundreds of thousands of dollars of business somewhere else.
And you should too.
So.
That's my experience as the director of the nonprofit Consumer Wellness Center and the founder of Decentralized.tv and the founder of Brightlearn.ai, the founder of Brightvideos.com, and so much more.
And I'm going to remind people from time to time not to buy NVIDIA and not to buy PNY because they won't honor their warranty, in my experience.
They won't honor it at all.
And they might just get your computer infected with malware.
Thanks for watching today.
I'm Mike Adams, Executive Director of the Consumer Wellness Center.