Nvidia investigating stories of RTX 4090 energy cables burning or melting

Nvidia says it’s investigating two stories of RTX 4090 playing cards which have had energy cables burn or soften. Reddit person reggie_gakil was the first to post particulars about their Gigabyte RTX 4090 points yesterday, displaying burn harm on the brand new 12VHPWR adapter cable that Nvidia ships with the RTX 4090. The connection on the precise card was additionally broken and melted.

A second Reddit poster replied to the identical thread displaying off comparable harm to an Asus RTX 4090 graphics card energy connector.

“We’re investigating the stories,” says Nvidia spokesperson Bryan Del Rizzo in a press release to The Verge. “We’re involved with the primary proprietor and might be reaching out to the opposite for added data.”

Nvidia initially moved to this new 16-pin energy connector for its personal RTX 3090 Ti playing cards, and it has now change into an ordinary on the RTX 40-series GPUs throughout distributors. There are issues that the 12VHPWR energy connector, which is designed for brand new ATX 3.0 energy provides, may trigger points if it’s bent a sure means.

The 12VHPWR connector and terminals are loads smaller than the earlier era, and cablemod warns that “it seems that bending the wires too near the connector may end in a few of the terminals coming unfastened or misaligning throughout the connector itself.” The location recommends not bending a connector vertically or horizontally, and as a substitute having a minimal distance of 35mm from the connector earlier than any bends happen.

That’s quite tough in apply, with Nvidia’s adapter hitting the facet panel in most fashionable circumstances. The unique Reddit poster vertically mounted their RTX 4090, which implies the cable may have bent earlier than the minimal distance.

YouTuber JayzTwoCents, who has been warning about this new connector for weeks, calls it “dangerous,” however says Nvidia doesn’t agree. “I feel you’re worrying about points that don’t exist,” stated Brandon Bell, a senior technical advertising supervisor at Nvidia, in an e-mail to Jay final month.

In early September, PCI-SIG — an business consortium liable for growing requirements round peripheral part I/O information transfers — warned that some implementations of the 12VHPWR connector “have demonstrated thermal variance, which may end in issues of safety below sure circumstances.”

Pictures equipped by PCI-SIG present a number of methods a connector may soften or burn, and are the results of excessive bends throughout testing. The melting seems to be similar to what has occurred with each of the Reddit posters’ RTX 4090 playing cards this week.

The options to those points could be to keep away from Nvidia’s energy adapter altogether, or be very cautious about the way you place or bend it. It’s a cumbersome adapter that’s equipped with RTX 4090 playing cards, and desires as much as 4 8-pin energy connectors. Energy provide distributors are beginning to ship 12VHPWR cables that ditch the cumbersome connector for a single cable that terminates into two 8-pin energy connectors on a PSU. Corsair sells its own for $19.99.

These cables ought to assist keep away from the awkward bends we’re seeing with these new connectors, significantly in opposition to the perimeters of circumstances. New ATX 3.0 energy provides will assist too, however there aren’t many in the marketplace and never many PC avid gamers will need to spend additional to switch a working PSU simply to get a local implementation of the 12VHPWR connector.