NVIDIA is following up on reports from multiple RTX 4090 owners who claim their 16-pin power adapters melted while gaming. The first was reported on by Tom’s Hardware yesterday who then later updated that another had come forward. This claim was made by Redditor user NoDuelsPolicy who said they had a similar experience while playing Black Desert with their ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4090. They said the screen went black, fans spun up, and they quickly powered down the system to investigate. Upon closer examination, it could be seen that the card and adapter were both damaged.
This image does share a similarity with those from the previous user in that the two corner connectors/pins in the row next to the 4-pin power-sense connectors are the most damaged while the row furthest away is largely unscathed. Tom’s Hardware reached out to NVIDIA who said they are now investigating these reports.
“We are investigating the reports. We are in contact with the first owner and will be reaching out to the other for additional information.” —Nvidia’s Bryan Del Rizzo
Multiple companies have addressed possible re-orientation for connecting to the new 12VHPWR connector and even provided guides for using the new adapter. It has been said that users should avoid bending the adapter cable within 35mm of the connector. CableMod most recently release a right-angle adapter to allow owners the means of a cleaner approach to cable management vs bending the included stock adapter/cable that comes with graphics cards. EVGA announced the PowerLink 41s power adapter, which included power filtering components, with 4x 8-pin connectors, for its RTX 3090 Ti that featured the 12VHPWR connector. One manufacturer, Zotac, has gone so far as to state that the 4x 8-pin-to-12VHPWR cable for its GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards has a limited service life of 30 connect/disconnects. Regardless of the outcome of NVIDIA’s investigation, it does appear that owners of high-powered graphics cards using the new connector should pay close attention to how they are installed.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →While my case is overly spacious I am glad Nvidia is addressing this. By the time I'm ready to get a 40 series card they will have most likely resolved this early adopter issue with their cards.
Seems like another new world issue with Nvidia and their top of stack hardware.
Too little to say for sure but I was reading through the Reddit threads and a number of people are wondering if it matters whether or not to use 3 or all 4 pin connectors. It could be that all 4 are just too much, for now, but that is highly speculative. These could also just be isolated cases due to either user error or product defects. Hopefully, we'll get answers soon before the rumors get out of hand.
Yeesh, I forgot about this. I kept thinking we'd reported on GN covering this but couldn't find it this morning.
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.gamersnexus.net/news-pc/3692-intel-arc-isnt-dead-melting-gpu-cables[/URL]
J2C made some good comments about it. And I think he right. It's such a small connector, small pins, with a rather stiff cable coming out it. With these cards being so massive you can't avoid having to bend that cable to fit it in a case. The bend is putting pressure on the connector which is causing some of the pins to lose full contact. When that happens a lot of current is being drawn through a minimal contact and it heats up, melts.
This whole 12+4 design is poor. 35mm of standoff before being able to bend the cable is ridiculous. You'd need a seriously wide case to make that work, or vertical mount the GPU. But then you'd still have this ugly cable sticking up out of the card like a fountain.
I saw in a few reviews that if you plan to leave the card stock you just use 3x 8-pin connectors for 450W mode, but if you use 4x connectors the card can be used in 600W mode for overclocking.
I dunno about nVidia's custom smart adapter, but apparently the ATX 3.0 16-pin adapter should NOT be bent: https://cablemod.com/12vhpwr/
Maybe the nVidia smart/active adapter is the same way.
Dang, if the native 16 pin plug can't be bent either, they should make it a 90 degree connector stock. Not sure I could fit a 4090 in my fractal Define 7 XL and still have 35mm of room before bending, and this case is pretty wide..
Realistically is like 60mm, since you need 35mm before it can start to be bent.
Aint that hard, Nvidia, for the 4090 its time for car battery posts and zero gauge wires. Just put the negative near the case, and the positive in the opposite end with a nice red cover, just like in many cars.
My guess - the fix for this will be moving to dual 16-pin adapters.
The uber Galax 4090, yet to come out, is rumored to have that.
Just saw this on Reddit this morning. Another one, another TUF 4090. Notice how it's the same pins as well.
I have doubts bending is the issue. That would make more sense in like a multi pin, where the pins are looser, and each is naked and not in their own plastic little channel, drastically reducing movement. More likely is just plainly too much power for the pins, such as they are bending or not.
The pin contact area should be enough assuming there is good contact. The problem here is bad contact caused by the small connector not providing enough stiffness. And when the contact gets loose things heat up. I've had molex connectors burn in the early days when GPUs used those for power.
Overall bad design, and a cutting of corners. I'd not be comfortable buying a 4xxx card until they completely replace the connector, preferably with 3x8pin PCIE connectors. I mean a pcie 8 pin connector is only rated at 150W, but I bet anyone they can handle more power before melting than this supposedly 600W connector.
I have a feeling it's poor design on that cable putting WAY too much power through that one pin.