Testing shows that a recently reported 3rd party melted power cable used with an RTX 5090 FE may not be to blame for the meltdown. Meltgate 2.0 might be on the horizon but it is important to note that so far this is the only reported instance of a 12VHPWR cable melting while being used with an RTX 5090 graphics card. Famed overclocker and PC hardware tester de8auer happens to live close to the owner of the damaged hardware and managed to obtain the equipment. His testing shows that the 3rd party cable might not be the cause of the meltdown.
User Hardware involved:
- ASUS ROG Loki 1000W Gen 5.0 ATX 3.0 Power Supply
- 12VHPWR 3rd Party Cable – From Moddiy
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition
From mixing metal between connectors and pins to examining the 3rd party cable der8auer has expressed doubts to any user error being the cause. Der8auer adds that he often uses the same brand as the other user confirming that they are normally of high quality standards. Additional testing was done using his own RTX 5090 card that has been fitted with a water block. Testing involved thermal imaging, and Furmark to push the card to its limits, which showed two particular wires carrying unusually high loads, one peaking at 22 amps or over 260 Watts! A normal expected load should be at least a third of that at around 5 or 6 Watts.
Not a new problem?
Unless you happened to track images from previous RTX 4090 melted cables, most might not be aware that there are consistencies happening from then to now. The following images show the cable in question used with the RTX 5090, image (via VideoCardz) has been rotated to align with that of a previous image of a cable used with an RTX 4090 for like comparison. A third image shows the GPU connectors, including the same melted pin. There are likely more images to be found from past instances confirming similar melted pins.
Discussion (19 replies)
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150C at the PSU Connector looked scary AF. Something is amiss for sure and while this is only report #1 of meltage, I'm sure there will be more given time.
Agreed and if this somehow ends up being a one-off it'll be one of the weirder ones for sure.
The only reason there haven't been more reports?
There are like 12 people world-wide who actually have one.
So true and more than likely 11 were reviewers or YTubers
I'm still waiting to see if actual failures result in more than user error.
Seen a lot of end-users with iffy setups, and no reviewers / pros having issues with these.
(that's not to say that Nvidia didn't make a mistake by not picking a more idiot-proof standard...)
Nvidia may be of a mind that they are not charging enough if DIYdiots keep borking their cards.
One thing to keep in mind is that reviewers often have a short time with these. I read plenty of posts on sites where some claimed they had less than 72 hours from the time their samples arrived before the embargo lifted. However, I don't know how long a reviewer has to return a card before any punitive action takes place or if/when they may be given the option to purchase a card.
I do agree though, I've seen my share of dumb@$$ery but der8auer seemed to confirm that wasn't the case here. I also agree after watching the insane amount of testing that GN did previously with the 4090 stuff that user error can likely be a culprit but there's enough claims going on that might not always be the case.
There are 50+ that have been sent to reviewers
Yeah because the scalpers that are sitting on them with inflated prices have no intentions to actually use them.
That's soo much better than 11. 39 more cards definitely proves this wasn't a paper launch.
It does prove sentiments of consumers who feel that reviewers have access to more cards then the general public and I've seen some off them squirming to get rid of that sentiment.
One guy had a card they dropped of especially for him froma 3rd party manufacturer that did not even have a serial nr so he claism it was definatelly not a card for sale wich is bs, if the card is made and not sold it proves the contrary, just more hype for a product that's not ready to get launched at scale.
This launch was bumbled unless it is intentional scarcity. Trying to be Tariff's to the punch.
Funny thing is for the high end cards the tarrif's mean little. It's the less than 800 dollar cards the tarrifs REALLY hit hard because those were previously exempt from another 30ish percent of Tariff's that they are now exposed to IN ADDITION to the 10% bump. So for them it's a 40% cost increase.
The only thing we as consumers can hope for would be that these manufacturers build facilities in the USA to make them here.