Wow. I would definitely return it to the retailer and see if they can just swap it for another, this laptop is just too pricey to accept that. It could have been some wiring in the display that grounded out somehow behind that grill. I wouldnt chance that for sure. Sorry to hear about that, this being one of their flagship products, normally 703's are cream of the crop and have good QC. Maybe something in shipping compressed the box? These are pretty well packaged tho. Sounds like possibly an internal issue maybe QC didn't catch.
(ROG has simply become too expensive compared to the competition with same specs... 😞 )
MSI GE75 Raider 10SGS - i7 10750H - RTX 2080 Super - 32GB Ram - 1TB WD NVMe - 2TB 960 EVO - 300Hz 17inch Display
RETIRED: ALIENWARE R17 R5 - i7 8750H - GTX 1070 @ 1.9Ghz - 16GB DDR4 - NVMe 970 EVO 1TB - SSD 960 EVO 1TB
SOLD: ASUS G703VI-XH74K, RETIRED: ASUS G752VY-DH72, RETIRED: ASUS G750JH DB71 , RETIRED:ASUS G74Sx DH72