A scorching potato: GeForce RTX 4090 homeowners have often reported burned and melted energy cable connectors for over a yr. Nvidia acknowledged a couple of dozen instances worldwide, blamed the issue on consumer error, and addressed the difficulty by quietly updating the cables. Nevertheless, a California restore store disputes the corporate’s claims that it is uncommon.
Pc restore store Northridge Repair claims that way more GeForce RTX 4090 graphics playing cards endure from melted energy cables than Nvidia admits. Though the connectors in newer shipments seem to have solved the issue, the unique trigger remains to be hotly debated.
In a current YouTube video (masthead), a Northridge Repair repairman claimed that the store receives between 20 and 25 RTX 4090s with burned energy cables per week, or round 100 per 30 days. The video would not point out how lengthy the enterprise has been fixing melted GPUs, however its numbers far exceed the 50 instances Nvidia admitted to a yr in the past.
Staff Inexperienced blamed the issue on customers improperly plugging the cables into the facet of the graphics card. Nevertheless, Northridge Repair additionally disputes that presumption as a result of excessive variety of occurrences. Different prospects, together with the plaintiff in final yr’s class-action lawsuit in opposition to Nvidia, claimed to have appropriately put in their energy cables, suggesting a deeper flaw in 12VHPWR adapters.
The difficulty stems from the unique adapters Nvidia shipped with the 4090 so customers might set up 8-pin cables from older ATX 2.0 energy provide items into its 16-pin socket. In September 2022, PCI-SIG warned that the adapters might attain unsafe temperatures in particular conditions, however Nvidia stated it mounted the issue earlier than the flagship GPU’s launch.
Clients have not reported issues since Nvidia up to date its 12V-2×6 adapters in current months. Third-party checks affirm that the brand new headers preserve comparatively low temperatures even when improperly put in.
These utilizing the previous cables ought to critically think about putting in the 4090 with an ATX 3.0 PSU, which natively helps 16-pin connectors with out requiring the troublesome adapter and prices lower than probably changing the GPU. At the least one individual reported a 16-pin cable that burned whereas plugged into an ATX 3.0 unit, however the prevalence seems far rarer than the melted 2.0 adapters.
Wanting ahead, Asus is testing a extra everlasting resolution – GPUs that change exterior cables with a PCIe x16 energy connector on the motherboard. The cableless system helps at the very least 600W, and RTX 4070 GPUs using it ought to seem by early 2024.
