A GeForce RTX 4090 user has decided to sue NVIDIA after paying $1,599.99 for the flagship graphics card from Best Buy and later discovering that its 16-pin power adapter had melted, according to a new case spotted on legal resource Justia (Genova v. NVIDIA Corporation) that lists Lucas Genova as the plaintiff.
Filed in a California federal court on November 11, the lawsuit alleges that NVIDIA “marketed and sold the RTX 4090 with a defective and dangerous power cable plug and socket, which has rendered consumers’ cards inoperable and poses a serious electrical and fire hazard for each and every purchaser,” according to filings seen by Tom’s Hardware, which noted that the class action lawsuit appears to be brought on behalf of Genova himself and anyone else who purchased a GeForce RTX 4090.
User feedback and photographs that stem from the “16 Pins Adapter Megathread” on r/NVIDIA can be found in the document to support Genova’s claims. The thread, which has received over 3,200 comments thus far, lists 26 “confirmed” cases of power adapter problems that involve various custom GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards from the likes of ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI, and ZOTAC. A link to an incident dated November 13 shows a GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition with its adapter burned.
From a Tom’s Hardware report:
The lawsuit states that Genova is suing Nvidia for unjust enrichment, breach of warranty, fraud, and violations of New York’s General Business Law.
The complaint narrates that the plaintiff purchased a GeForce RTX 4090 from Best Buy for $1,599.99. He is reportedly “experienced in the installation of computer componentry like graphics cards” and installed the graphics card following best practices. After installation, Genova eventually discovered that his 16-pin power adapter had melted.
The lawsuit says that “thus, Plaintiff and class members have been hit with a costly double-whammy: a premium purchase price (the MSRP is $1,599) for a dangerous product that should not have been sold in its current state.”