Melting GeForce RTX 4090 power cables: A timeline of events

Nvidia’s wonderful GeForce RTX 4090 wowed reviewers and set a brand new bar for simply how stupidly quick a graphics card might be. Unfortunately, the launch of the $1,600 GPU has been marred by a number of stories of melting 12VHPWR connectors used within the playing cards damaging each the connector and the GPUs at instances.

The new 12VHPWR connector is a compact power connector that mixes the potential of a number of older 6- and 8-pin connectors into one tiny plug. It was initially adopted with the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Founders Edition and is now used within the GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition in addition to customized variations of the RTX 4090 constructed by the likes of Asus, MSI, et cetera. The 12VHPWR connector was additionally utilized in newer RTX 40-series graphics playing cards just like the RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti, although not in AMD’s Radeon RX 7000-series GPUs.

Update: The newest updates we’ve added to the saga of the melting 12VHWPR connectors revolves round Intel barely revising the ATX 3.0 power provide spec to advocate particular sorts of inside connectors for added reliability.

With this fast-moving, complicated, and in addition very critical state of affairs, PCWorld has determined to spherical up the details you must know to assist separate truth from fiction. Nvidia officers have declined to remark whereas it investigates, however the newest improvement appear to level to unhealthy 12VHPWR adapter cables. There’s additionally the chance that not absolutely inserting the cable might trigger elevated resistance and sufficient warmth to soften the connectors. We’ll replace this story as new data is launched.

• Sept. 10 Hassan Mujtaba of WCCFTech stories of an alert issued from PCI-SIG to members of a “thermal variance, which could result in safety issues under certain safety conditions.” The member alert advises distributors to “work closely with their connector vendors and exercise due diligence in using high-power connections”

• Sept. 14 The full e-mail and extra particulars from the PCI-SIG are reported by Stephen Burke of Gamers Nexus and notes that “failures have been observed in certain cable routing conditions from PSUs and test boards that generate side load on the interface.” Burke mentioned the report—apparently created by Nvidia—from PCI-SIG confirmed three completely different producers have been examined with 10 pattern assemblies with failures manifesting from 10 hours to 30 hours with melting. It’s value stating that the interior report appears to consult with the connection on the PSU aspect—not the GPU aspect. In normal, nevertheless, ATX 3.0 power provides PCWorld have seen point out the cables to be equivalent on each ends.

Brad Chacos/IDG

• Sept. 22 VideoCardz’s editor WhyCry stories that GPU maker Zotac’s steerage on the brand new 12VHPWR connector is rated for 30-insertion cycles which raises alarms as to the lifespan and sturdiness of the brand new connector. VideoCardz later amends its report back to say that whereas 30 cycles seems very low, many Molex connectors launched during the last 20 years have had related mating cycles.

• Oct. 24 The first report of a melted 12HPWR connector is posted on the Nvidia sub-reddit. The GPU seems to be a Gigabyte 4090 Gaming OC utilizing an Nvidia-branded 12VHPWR adapter cable. Both Nvidia and Gigabyte attain out to the proprietor who stories a substitute card has been acquired. A second report of a melted dongle is acquired as properly on that day with harm to the adapter cable and an Asus RTX 4090 TUF Gaming OC Edition occurring. The Reddit publish instantly goes viral on the high-profile graphics card with many assuming the brand new connector to be at fault.

• Oct. 24 A few hours after the preliminary melting report on Reddit, famend power provide reviewer and the precept behind PSU certification firm Cybenetics, Aristeidis Bitziopoulos, makes an attempt to copy the melting 12VHPWR connector by subjecting it to 600 watt masses for greater than 90 minutes. He is unable to wreck the cable whereas seeing solely a small thermal variance. It needs to be famous that the check used a local 12VHPWR cable on an ATX 3.0 power provide relatively than Nvidia’s adapter. Bitziopoulos concludes the 12VHPWR connector doesn’t appear to be a difficulty in his testing.

• Oct. 24 Overclocker Buildzoid of Actually Hardware Overclocking, posts a video criticizing the brand new 12VHPWR connector noting that the brand new connector drastically reduces the quantity of pins and wires carrying power.

• Oct. 25. With failures now reported at three,  Nvidia officers inform the Verge’s Tom Warren that “we are investigating the reports” and are in touch with the homeowners of the impacted playing cards. 

• Oct. 25 Former HardOCP editor Kyle Bennett stories AMD’s upcoming RDNA3 GPUs won’t use the 12VHWPR connector in its reference designs. Neither Bennett, nor his sources at AMD point out when the design determination was made to skip 12VHPWR.

• Oct. 25 Showing what a distraction the 12VHPWR has turn into, AMD’s Scott Herkelman publicly confirms the brand new Radeon playing cards will skip 12VHPWR and receives responses corresponding to “That is a HUGE relief, happy with that news.”

• Oct. 26 The official Reddit megathread itemizing displaying documented failures now numbers 5 broken 12VHWPR connectors.

• Oct. 26 Jason Langiven, aka JayzTwoCents, who has lengthy been essential of the connector being “dangerous,” makes an attempt to copy the failure on a local 12VHWPR cable and is unable to induce a failure on the cable below heavy masses.

Brad Chacos/IDG

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• Oct. 27 Igor Wallossek of IgorsLab.de conducts a tear down and failure check of a 12VHPWR power adapter and concludes that the difficulty doesn’t seem like the 12VHPWR design itself nor the much-touted insertion cycle concern raised beforehand. Instead, Wallossek concludes it’s the design of Nvidia’s adapter itself, which he describes as “inferior quality (and) can lead to failures and has already caused damage in single cases.” Wallossek mentioned he believes bending and kinking of the adapter may cause weak solder joints and bridges to interrupt and enhance the resistance inflicting the melting.

• Oct. 28 Ronaldo Buassali of TecLab.web.br posts his personal failure exams, together with swinging a power provide utilizing simply the connector and subjecting to a stress check of 1,532—properly past its rated sustained wattage of 600 watts.

• Oct. 29 The quantity of confirmed broken connectors on Reddit now numbers 15.

• Oct. 30 Stephen Burke of Gamers Nexus makes an attempt to copy the melting failure by deliberately damaging a 12VHPWR adapter just like what IgorsLab.de had reported and subjected it to a 99 % load for 8 hours with no melting noticed. Burke additionally notes that his 5 adapters all seem like constructed the identical—and but otherwise than the adapter IgorsLab had. Burke mentioned his 5 12VHWPR adapters use wires labeled for 300 volts versus the 150 volts the adapter Wallossek had. Burke concludes that we simply don’t know what the difficulty is, however it’s a actual downside on some adapters—however not all of them. He additionally mentions a concept being floated that the smaller connector might not simply seat in addition to the bigger conventional power connectors. He additionally factors out that opposite to what many shoppers imagine, a local connector that plugs instantly right into a power provide may additionally fail the identical manner if the native cable is constructed the identical because the failed adapters. Burke additionally asks homeowners of RTX 4090 playing cards to report which cable adapters they’ve.

• Oct. 30 With information that there seem like completely different 12VHPWR adapters being offered, Stephen Burke of Gamer’s Nexus stories through Twitter that of the 130 emails he has acquired, 7 % of homeowners report they’ve the 150V cabling that was utilized in IgorsLab’s adapter cable. Burke notes that whereas the cable marking might say 150V, that solely means it makes use of the identical obvious spec cables—and doesn’t point out they’re might have the low-quality solder joints that IgorsLab discovered. Burke additionally notes that of the 130, “not many are burned.”

• Oct. 30 Andreas Schilling of Hardwareluxx.de conducts his personal ballot of discussion board members who’ve bought RTX 4090 playing cards. He stories that 12 have a 4-pins-to-12VHPWR adapter marked “300V.” One has a 3-pins-to-12VHPWR marked “150V,” and two individuals have 4-pins-to-12VHPWR marked “150V.”

• Nov. 1 Ronaldo Buassali of TecLab.web.br posts an extended video of testing from the unique dwell stream with further explanations of how he examined the 12VHPWR. Unlike most of the testing thus far, which used precise GeForce RTX 4090 playing cards, Buassali bodily removes the 12VHPWR connector from the GPU and wires it up for stress testing. This lets Buassali push the connector meeting properly previous the 600 watts referred to as for, together with masses of 900 watts, 1,200 watts and 1,500 watts. Buassali’s conclusion? The 12VHPWR connector itself is “well sized, so much so that it supported much more than its specification.” However, Buassali concludes that despite the fact that the connector can deal with greater than it’s rated for, a poorly inserted connector that creates resistance might certainly be behind the melting of the connector. Buassali additionally doesn’t rule out a batch of unhealthy cables, however that means a producing concern, not a design downside.

• Nov. 2 Jon Gerow, director of R&D at Corsair and previously of Jonnyguru.com, posts outcomes from deliberately broken 12VHPWR cable adapters below load and is unable to induce melting as properly. Gerow was capable of supply a number of 12VHPWR adapter cables for damaging testing, and regardless of breaking off solder joints, he was unable to induce melting or a failure. He did observe that some of the adapters weren’t constructed very properly however even the worst of the batch handed stress testing with out failing. Gerow concludes that some of the issues might have occurred when the homeowners didn’t absolutely seat the 12VHPWR adapter cables and in addition posts photographs of put in PCs the place even a small hole of 1 mm might end in elevated resistance.

• Nov. 3 AMD formally proclaims its RDNA3-based Radeon 7900XT and Radeon 7900XTX and proudly notes that it didn’t use 12VHPWR connections. However, the corporate factors out that the final notion that it modified its designs solely after the melting issues cropped up just a few weeks in the past is just not right. AMD made the choice to stick with typical 8-pin power connectors greater than a 12 months in the past.

• Nov. 4 A new publish within the Nvidia subreddit, taken from a Facebook publish of a Hong Kong-based RTX 4090 proprietor, is the primary reported broken 12VHPWR cable from a local cable plugged instantly right into a power provide. Previous to this report, all of the reported points had solely occurred in 12VHPWR adapter cables, not native cables. The following day, one other individual stories a melted connector utilizing a local 12VHPWR cable from an ATX 3.0 power provide. This seems to sprint hopes {that a} native plug would resolve the issue.

• Nov 7 The quantity of confirmed failed connectors now numbers 23 on the Reddit megathread, with points unfold amongst many graphics card makers. Oddly, there aren’t any Nvidia Founders Edition playing cards listed with failures. There are additionally 5 unconfirmed instances listed from different board makers as properly.

• Nov. 7 VideoCardz editor WhyCry stories that an individual on Reddit has been advised his or her Gainward GeForce RTX 4090 will likely be delayed till the center of November because it waits for substitute 12VHPWR adapter cables. The e-mail, despatched from Australian PC firm Techfast to a buyer, mentioned “While investigations are still continuing and Nvidia has not released a public statement, Gainward has told us that cables shipped with their cards will (are) being replaced. As a result, they are holding shipping of all cards until this has taken place. We also understand this cable replacement will not be limited to Gainward alone.” PCWorld reached out to Techfast who confirmed the authenticity of the e-mail.

• Nov. 8 Despite Australian PC builder Techfast confirming an e-mail despatched to clients saying some RTX 4090 playing cards can be delayed whereas Gainward ships substitute cables and implying different GPU makers would do the identical, Gainward’s EU Facebook web page says that’s not the case and has issued a clarification. “There is incorrect information suggesting Gainward is delaying the RTX 4090 shipment to replace the cables lately. Here we would like to clarify that—Gainward is not holding any RTX 40 shipment to replace the cables, and has no plan to do so. The cables Gainward currently used on the RTX 40 have been inspected by NVIDIA team and found no issues. All Gainward shipment is being made as usual. Please don’t hesitate to grab the Gainward graphics cards if you plan to buy one!”

• Nov. 11 UK {hardware} website KitGuru receives an replace from Nvidia that it’s persevering with to analyze the state of affairs. “”We proceed to analyze the stories, nevertheless we don’t have additional particulars to share but. NVIDIA and our companions are dedicated to supporting our clients and guaranteeing an expedited RMA course of for them,” KitGuru says through Twitter.

• Nov. 13 There are actually 26 confirmed GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs with melted connectors documented within the Nvidia subreddit together with for the primary time, a report of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition with a melted connector.

• Nov 14 Igor Wallossek of Igorslab.de confirms there are at the least two producers of the Nvidia equipped adapter plugs with one of the adapters seemingly utilizing a rougher casting making insertions harder. Wallossek, who mentioned he has spoken with Nvidia’s director of engineering Gabriele Gorla, doesn’t blame finish customers, however does imagine the rougher castings might presumably have lead some clients to to rock the 12VHWPR connector into the socket which can be why so many stories present melted connectors ranging from one aspect of the connector with few to none melting from the middle. The resolution, Wallossek mentioned, might point out the PCI SIG must concern steerage on hold out zones to provide shoppers higher entry to the socket to instantly inserting it relatively than rocking the connectors in from one aspect. Wallossek additionally notes that of the 2 adapter cables used equipped by Nvidia, one design solely grabs pins on two sides whereas the opposite design grabs pins on all 4 sides.

• Nov. 16 In an exhaustive investigation counting on third-party failure evaluation utilizing X-ray examination in addition to electron microscope examination, in addition to reproducing the failures, Gamers Nexus’ EIC Stephen Burke concludes particles contained in the connectors from manufacturing or from insertion in addition to improperly seating the cables is basically behind most of the failures seen. Burke additionally cites numbers from a vendor that the chance of failure is from 0.05 to .1 % at this level. Although improperly seating the cables whereas placing it below pressure appears to get most of the blame, Burke additionally wonders if the design of the connector shouldn’t have anticipated the problems.

• Nov. 16 Tom’s Hardware stories {that a} GeForce RTX 4090 proprietor has filed a class-action within the US District Court for the Northern District Court of California over the melting connectors. Filed by Lucas Genova on Nov. 11, the go well with alleges 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,” in keeping with the Tom’s Hardware report.

• Nov. 17 Looking to pour somewhat salt into the injuries of its competitor, AMD officers have been touting their fortune of not implementing the brand new 12VHPWR connector in its upcoming Radeon 7000-series of playing cards.

• Nov. 18 After weeks of principally silence, Nvidia lastly points a press release that it has acquired 50 recognized stories of melted connectors and after analyzing the returned cables, has largely discovered improper insertion to be the possible trigger, in keeping with a report by Gamers Nexus. The firm additionally poured chilly water on constructing concern that use of third-party 12VHPWR cables would void warranties. The firm advised Gamers Nexus EIC Stephen Burke that it could honor warranties associated to the problems and would expedite the RMA course of. While improper insertion would point out consumer error throughout set up of the the playing cards is guilty, Nvidia additionally advised Gamers Nexus it’s methods to enhance the connectors that was homologated by the PCI-SIG.

• Nov. 18 The official Nvidia Reddit megathread closes out its logging of reported incidents which seem to drop off after Gamers Nexus video and Nvidia’s official discover. However, one Reddit consumer posts a picture of a melted RTX 4090 12VHPWR connector within the PCMR subreddit on Nov. 24.

• Dec. 1 With concern over melting 12VHPWR connectors significantly subsiding after stories that improper insertion is probably going the first trigger, the PCI SIG releases a press release reminding those that its spec addresses interoperability, not security, and every member is answerable for their very own merchandise. “PCI-SIG wishes to impress upon all Members that manufacture, market or sell PCI-SIG technologies (including 12VHPWR connections) of the need to take all appropriate and prudent measures to ensure end user safety, including testing for the reported problem cases involving consumers as alleged in the above-referenced lawsuit. Members are reminded that PCI-SIG specifications provide necessary technical information for interoperability and do not attempt to address proper design, manufacturing methods, materials, safety testing, safety tolerances or workmanship. When implementing a PCI-SIG specification, Members are responsible for the design, manufacturing, and testing, including safety testing, of their products.”

• Feb. 2023 Intel releases a minor replace to the ATX 3.0 spec that recommends that power provide distributors use inside connections utilizing spring-type relatively than dimple-type connections. Intel mentioned it did this because the suggestion of connection firms themselves because the spring-type design presents extra floor space. The completely different connection suggestion, nevertheless, does not mandate it for all, and older dimple-style connectors can continued for use if a power provide vendor chooses to. Existing power provides utilizing dimple-style connectors additionally don’t must be changed—they work as anticipated if inserted appropriately.

Author: Gordon Mah Ung, Executive Editor