What is this white stuff??

[lowfat]

I have only been using these cards for about two weeks. Definitely wasn't there when I installed them. The card have never seen anything besides stock cooling so far. Card is are Zotac GTX460 1GB.

[Sagath]

Looks like the residue of some sort of solvent to remove flux or clean the solder joints. Harmless I would think. I see this a lot in non-essential medical electronics from mass produced companies from the far east (Philipines/China/Korea/etc)

[bojangles]

Smegma.

All jokes aside, definitely harmless. I wouldn't worry about it.

[_dangtx_]

on a new part that doesnt cost 2$ in the dollar store? i would perhaps worry. either they didnt wash the thing properly and youre going to deal with it for a while till you do it yourself or the solder is reacting to something

[Snarl]

Thats what happens when you push them in and out of the PCI-E Slot too many times :)

[martin_metal_88]

Chimic crap stock on the card while cleaning it in acid bath before shipping. Nothing to worry about it's all fine:) Was invisible at first but when dust crap in it to that white and smegmatic thing. Just clean it if you can and push it out of your mind.

Edit : I just see the comply with all canadian blablabla but...these residue don't comply since they are chimical residu ahahah

[Rison]

Yeah, I wouldn't want that crap on my video card. They are clearly using a cleaning solvent that isn't 99-100% residue free like isopropanol or isopropal alcohol.
Any electronics guy will tell you flux on solder connections is not a good thing, it can eat away plastics and PCB's - however that doesn't look like flux.. flux is typically dark brown in color.
I'd grab some isopropanol and a lint-free cotton cloth / wipe / q-tip and clean that off outside the computer.

[_dangtx_]

maybe take some samples in case it gets big and they ask you for the card? just a thought ;)

[Zero82z]

Maybe one of the factory workers got a little excited while assembling your card...

[gingerbee]

outside of some form of Oxidation due to heating and some residue left on card/s. my guess would be Mycelium and this is reaching i have only seen this on very old hardware that's not in use so it makes me believe my first guess. point here is it's all just a guess

edit i am also leaning towards Oxidation due to the pattern