ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 16 (2025) RTX 5090 – TDR Errors and Driver Issues, Should I Return It?

Hey everyone,

I recently received the new ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 16 (2025) – model SCAR16-G635LX, equipped with an RTX 5090, Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX, and I installed two brand-new Samsung 990 Pro SSDs in RAID 0. I’m still within the return window and trying to decide whether I should keep it or send it back.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• Cloned the original ASUS OS using AOMEI Backupper (bootable media) onto the RAID 0 array.
• Ran several benchmarks:
  • Cyberpunk 2077 maxed out: GPU temps never exceeded 79°C
  • CPU peaked at 97°C occasionally, but was mostly around 88°C during gaming
  • 3DMark Time Spy Extreme: over 97.5% stability
  • PUBG ran fine for 30 minutes with no issues

However, I’ve encountered some concerning issues:

1. After updating to the latest NVIDIA drivers, I experienced reproducible reboots when the screen entered sleep mode (not full system sleep). Every time I woke the screen by moving the mouse, it would go black and the system would reboot. The dump pointed to VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT_DETECTED.
2. I rolled back to the ASUS-provided NVIDIA driver, and the issue disappeared. Games worked again, and no more reboots on screen wake.
3. But then, while watching a video in my browser, the screen turned gray, audio continued, and the system recovered the driver without rebooting. The video playback stopped. In Event Viewer, I found several critical errors like: CodeEvent ID 153 - nvlddmkm \Device\Video7 UCodeReset TDR occurred on GPUID:100 and CodeEvent ID 14 - nvlddmkm \Device\0000012b CMDre 00000001 00000200 00000000 00000005 0000000a
4. I also experienced a gray screen right after logging into Windows, similar to the browser incident. Again, the system recovered without rebooting.
5. A couple of times, after exiting PUBG, the screen flashed white briefly. These last two issues were random and hard to reproduce, but still concerning.

These seem to point to TDR resets and possible driver or hardware issues. I’ve read that it could be driver-related, but also that it might indicate a faulty GPU, VRAM or power supply.

Given that I’m still within the return window, I’m torn. The performance is amazing, but these errors are worrying, especially on such an expensive machine.

Has anyone else experienced similar issues with the SCAR16 2025 or RTX 5090 laptops? Would you recommend returning it or waiting for future driver updates?

Thanks in advance for your insights!