NVIDIA has responded to growing concerns over GeForce RTX 4090 power cables possibly melting following Gamers Nexus’ investigation on the subject, providing a couple of official statements to the hardware reviewer that suggest the problem stems mostly from user error.
“Our findings to date suggest that a common issue is that connectors are not fully plugged into the graphics card,” reads a statement from NVIDIA shared by Gamers Nexus. “To help ensure the connector is secure, we recommend plugging the power dongle into the graphics card first to ensure it’s firmly and evenly plugged in before plugging the graphics cards into the motherboard.”
NVIDIA is actively investigating the reports, which includes only “about 50 cases globally,” according to the company, which goes on to suggest that future GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards may feature some sort of safety mechanism to ensure that users are attaching things properly, alongside an assurance that affected users will be taken care of:
We are investigating additional ways to ensure that the connector is secure before powering on the graphics card.
NVIDIA and our partners are committed to supporting our customers and ensuring an expedited RMA process, regardless of the cable or card used.
In another statement, NVIDIA reiterated the notion that users simply weren’t plugging their power cables in correctly:
NVIDIA has been able to test the cables that were RMA’ed by affected customers. In all of the cases, a wear line is clearly visible that indicates the cable wasn’t fully inserted into the 16-pin power connector.
Updated figures from Gamers Nexus would suggest that only 0.04% of GeForce RTX 4090 cards sold are affected.
Discussion (3 replies)
Join Discussion →The Gamers Nexus reports are actually very well done. Their initial report included extensive failure testing. It really does appear that the problem is that the connector was loose and overheated. They show it in the video. They are also able to show clearly the wear line, indicating the cable never made it all the way into the socket.
The statistics show 50 failures out of 125,000 RTX 4090 graphics cards sold to date.
Yikes......$200,000,000 if sold at MSRP
Checks out. I'm guessing somewhere around 50-60% margin on them too.
I said this from the beginning. Kudos to GN for the extensive testing and getting to the bottom of it all.