Thursday, October 27th 2022
NVIDIA Tells AICs to Collect RTX 4090 Cards with Burnt Power Connectors, Send Them to HQ
NVIDIA is responding to reports of the 12+4 pin ATX 12VHPWR power connector of its new GeForce RTX 4090 "Ada" graphics cards being unreliable, and posing a potential fire hazard. The company has reportedly instructed its add-in card (AIC) partners, companies that sell custom-design graphics cards; to collect all retail graphics cards with burnt power connectors, and send them over directly to NVIDIA HQ for investigation. Reports of the 12VHPWR connectors overheating due to improper terminal contact aren't new, but this is the first time a retail product implementing the connector is experiencing reliability issues.
It came to light when a Reddit user posted pictures of a melted 12VHPWR connector from an NVIDIA-supplied adapter that converts four 8-pin PCIe to one 600 W-capable 12VHPWR. There is also charring on the female connector on the card, but the user claims that the card is functional. Later this week, another Reddit user posted similar pictures of a burnt connector for their RTX 4090 card. NVIDIA director of global PR for GeForce, Bryan Del Rizzo, in a statement to The Verge, said that the company is in touch with the first owner who reported this problem, and is reaching out to the other, as part of their investigation.
The GeForce RTX 4090 isn't just a thick graphics card, with air-cooled custom-design cards typically being 4 slots thick; but is also a "tall" card, with heights typically in the neighborhood of 150-160 mm. Add the 35 mm minimum clearance recommended for the 12VHPWR to not bend in order to function safely; and you have a total effective add-on card height requirement of 180-190 mm, which can be a very tight fit for most ATX mid-tower cases that offer a maximum CPU cooler height clearance of around 160-170 mm. A bending of the connector is almost a certainty.
Sources:
The Verge, Igor's Lab, VideoCardz
It came to light when a Reddit user posted pictures of a melted 12VHPWR connector from an NVIDIA-supplied adapter that converts four 8-pin PCIe to one 600 W-capable 12VHPWR. There is also charring on the female connector on the card, but the user claims that the card is functional. Later this week, another Reddit user posted similar pictures of a burnt connector for their RTX 4090 card. NVIDIA director of global PR for GeForce, Bryan Del Rizzo, in a statement to The Verge, said that the company is in touch with the first owner who reported this problem, and is reaching out to the other, as part of their investigation.
124 Comments on NVIDIA Tells AICs to Collect RTX 4090 Cards with Burnt Power Connectors, Send Them to HQ
10 years ago, a friend of mine, who was a Power Color representative and we used to buy video cards from him, opened every single card and took out all the power adapters from inside! One day I asked him why there were none in the boxes of the cards bought by him, and that's how I found out that he does it... He explained that to some extent he prevents the use of cards with power supplies that are not intended for them... At that time adapters were Molex to PCI-E and with them you was able to power whole 6 pin PCI-E connector with 2x Molex connectors which is unacceptable...
As for the pin counts, remember that the PCIe 8-pin only uses three pairs for 12V, with the two last pins being sense pins.
On a fundamental level there isn't any real problem with doing this - but the implementation needs to be properly done, technically competent, mechanically sturdy, well executed, etc. Nvidia's adapter fails this miserably.
www.techspot.com/news/96709-nvidia-delivers-official-statement-melting-4090-power-cables.html#commentsOffset
Here's the link to Nvidia's official response:
nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5413
Yeah this is an interesting responseDo they not know the power cable does not connect to the mother boards they connect to the psu :kookoo:
Poor wording
You install a gpu you don't "plug" it in.
Using worst-case limits from that video (so maximum safety margin assuming lowest-quality parts permitted in the entire chain) you get 72W per 12V wire pair with the classic MiniFit Jr.
That means that by modern safety standards, the 12V 4+4/8-pin EPS is good for 288W, an 8-pin PCIe is good for 216W, and a 6-pin is good for 144W. In theory if the PCI SIG introduced a "proper" 12-pin that used the standard-sized MiniFit Jr connector and had 5 12V wire pairs, you'd end up with a 360W cable, allowing for safety margins.
Let that sink in. A chunkier connector based on those safety standards can only handle 360W, so what the hell are Nvidia doing trying to force 600W down a cable half the size? Even 450W cables with dedicated sense wires are exceeding what would be max safe recommendation for 6 wire pairs on the much larger traditional connector. It's no wonder they are still melting left, right, and centre...
What's wrong with two 8-pins? That's 432W which in addition to the PCIe slot is >500W and IMHO that's far more power that should ever be consumed by a regular graphics card fit for 99.9x% of the market.
I frequent repair videos and burned up 4090s and 4090s / 4080s with snapped PCBs from the weight are commonly seen in repair shops.
Customer. Due. Diligence.
No single company is here to help you
Also yet another strike for Nvidia. Top quality? Nah. Just greed.
Repair shop continues to replace 200 RTX 4090 power connectors each month