RTX 2060 TUF Gaming damaged pad
My RTX 2060 Asus TUF Gaming recently started crashing with severe vertical artifacts (resembling VRAM failure) on Kubuntu 26.04 LTS. This happened suddenly, about 3 times within an hour. Prior to this, the card had been running flawlessly for a couple of weeks on Windows after a repaste with liquid metal and thermal putty.
I tore the card down to investigate. There was no liquid metal spill. Some thermal putty had squeezed out around the memory chips, so I gave the board a thorough cleanup.
However, under the microscope, I spotted a very suspicious burned/damaged area right on the corner of the PCB, close to the 8-pin connector and a mounting hole (see attached photos). I checked some older pictures of the board from a month ago, and surprisingly, no components seem to be missing from those pads despite the obvious damage/corrosion look. I cleaned it until I could see the bare copper, but I don't know if it's safe to test it as it is.
Any insights on what this specific circuit handles on the Asus TUF PCB would be highly appreciated. Thanks!