Photos of burnt 16-pin 12VHPWR cables continue to appear online despite NVIDIA’s suggestion that the problem is simply down to user error, with enthusiasts failing to plug in their hardware correctly. The latest alleged case comes courtesy of Humble-Brilliant-654, a redditor who took to the r/NVIDIA subreddit yesterday to share two photos that suggest even CableMod custom 12VHPWR cable owners may end up with a burnt product. CableMod has already demonstrated what appears to be excellent customer service, while many seem convinced that Humble-Brilliant-654 failed to connect the cable properly.
CableMod offers at least 10 12VHPWR PCIe cables, according to listings that can be found on the cable company’s global store. They include the Basics B-Series, Basics RT-Series, and Basics E-Series, all of which are applicable to select PSUs, including ASUS, Corsair, and Seasonic models. The company also offers 12VHPWR cable kits and extensions.
It is a one off, the cable wasn’t plugged in properly in this case. Still, we helped the user and offered our support. 🙂
— CableMod (@CableMod) January 19, 2023
Discussion (8 replies)
Join Discussion →"User error"? Come on, how hard is it to plug in a cable? It's a bad design. There was nothing wrong with PCI-E connectors... but Nvidia be like "hold my beer, lets force 1000w down into this tiny cable connector, what could possibly go wrong"?
Hopefully AMD is not having unpure thoughts like these...
At least they aren't blaming vapor chambers on the buyer.
I have one of those cables for my EVGA 1200 P2, and I didn't care for how stiff it was compared to the cable on my FSP power supply. I could easily see someone with a cramped case using the Cablemod cable forcing the side panel closed and then something like this happening (or just not plugging it in all the way). I'm more excited for their right angle cable adapter solution coming out next month.
You are vapor chambering wrong. Its just if you install it and its a little crooked, thats the issue. You need a laser level, yeah thats it.
No one really expected users to have trouble plugging the cable in all the way. No one except users that have made this mistake have had this failure mode occur either.
Note that the cable itself can absolutely handle the power draw in question. It's extremely overbuilt, just like the standard 6-pin and 8-pin PCIe cables are.
The advice I keep seeing is to plug the cable in before installing the card. I've found that a bit weird since I've never done such a thing myself, but in this situation it does make some sense IMO.
Are they really overbuilt?. I don't know, i think every connector I see in a car is bigger than 12Vhpwr. At 600w I think in a car each wire would be 12 gauge, even 10 gauge. Sure, longer runs and all that, but still. 600w is a lot of watts of dc current.
Gamer's Nexus did the authoritative testing, and part of that was destructive testing where they ran the cable with several pins sheered off.
They still couldn't get it to overheat / smoke until they backed it out of the plug significantly.
Would have been interesting if they did that testing with a thermal camera.