NVIDIA Tells AICs to Collect RTX 4090 Cards with Burnt Power Connectors, Send Them to HQ

[The red spirit]

It's basically on par with most things made now due to supply issues and demand. Quality control doesn't exist anymore - the general population are the testers. Need to meet deadlines of those who sit in meetings all day...rush rush rush.

It's not like they need to be stingy.

Leather jacket guy following Apple's philosophy of searching solution for which problems dont exist yet.

If they were, they wouldn't give you adapter, but instead sell it separately for just 59 dollars. "It just works" - some guy in leather

A lot of people said similar things as you when others were trying to warn of these connectors being hazardous. They will absolutely blame you instead of themselves for a burnt connector.

Connector is fine, it's only the adapter that is underengineered

NVIDIA just notified all AIC this morning… All damaged cards need to be sent directly to HQ

Evga in this moments

Wait, that same eVGA, which overspent during scalping and now went belly up?

 

[Braegnok]

Because... 3 was fine, but 4? nooooo we can't have four! Its not like you don't have the necessary card height ( ) there to place a stack of 2x2 8 pin sockets right.

And even then, it realistically didn't or doesn't even require four to get like 90~95% of its end performance. Moreover, competition makes do with 3x8pin.

Karma is a bitch.

+1 on the Karma,..

 

[Toothless]

Wait, that same eVGA, which overspent during scalping and now went belly up?

NVIDIA is a bully and EVGA is still in business, simple as that.

 

[The red spirit]

NVIDIA is a bully and EVGA is still in business, simple as that.

And what do they sell? Cables for RTX 4090? XD

For real:

I would rather believe that eVGA got to greedy, instead of charitable. Their BS doesn't add up.

 

[ddarko]

Those marks are most likely from wrestling that strain relief boot off to expose the solder joints. Even non-molded boots like that can be a very tight fit.

The photos

I have the slight impression that those cables seem to have been bitten by a cat...

View attachment 267446

I think the pinhole and other damage to the cable housing is from a pocket knife that was used to strip it. The photo is from Igor Lab's teardown of the adapter and at the end of his writeup, he thanks Christian Rex from be quiet! for his pen knife:

 

[Kapone33]

And what do they sell? Cables for RTX 4090? XD

For real:

I would rather believe that eVGA got to greedy, instead of charitable. Their BS doesn't add up.

There is no way EVGA is greedier than Nvidia. Their warranty service compared to other vendors are exemplary.

 

[The red spirit]

There is no way EVGA is greedier than Nvidia. Their warranty service compared to other vendors are exemplary.

Only in USA, outside of it, they have been as trash as everyone else, frankly even worse, because they have even less repair offices in Europe at least. Not to mention that their cards have been historically badly overpriced.

 

[GreiverBlade]

Remember this stacked 6-pin power connector?

First Actual Picture of Reference NVIDIA Kepler GK104 PCB Emerge

The first real pic of a reference Nvidia Kepler GK104 based GPU's PCB has emerged online at PCINLIFE Forums

wccftech.com

my Zotac GTX 770 AMP! had a stacked 6+8

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

If this was APPLE, there would be some kind of cute name: Antennaegate, Bendgate, etc.

What are we calling this?

 

[pavle]

... how it failed and how they can change the design to avoid this?

Seriously, the people treating this request as if it's somehow suspicious: would you actually want Nvidia to not look closely at how these connectors failed?

It's obvious how it fails; the edges are under more stress because of 1 wire per 1 contact, while in the middle there is 1 wire per 2 contacts, so in the middle it doesn't heat up.
Goes to show you how half-baked this new connector is, or they just never meant to have adapters with it. It should have been 8 positive contacts and 8 grounds, so adapters of such sort (4x 8-pin) could be safely used and even then with such big cards 90° is the only sensible option.

 

[GreiverBlade]

If this was APPLE, there would be some kind of cute name: Antennaegate, Bendgate, etc.

What are we calling this?

Whackonnectorgate?

 

[Wasteland]

If this was APPLE, there would be some kind of cute name:

The iSplode 12

 

[zlobby]

If this was APPLE, there would be some kind of cute name: Antennaegate, Bendgate, etc.

What are we calling this?

'You are not pluggining it right! D'oh!'

It's obvious how it fails; the edges are under more stress because of 1 wire per 1 contact, while in the middle there is 1 wire per 2 contacts, so in the middle it doesn't heat up.
Goes to show you how half-baked this new connector is, or they just never meant to have adapters with it. It should have been 8 positive contacts and 8 grounds, so adapters of such sort (4x 8-pin) could be safely used and even then with such big cards 90° is the only sensible option.

Yeah, their ARGB implementation sucks! It only glows in yellow and orange!

 

[ddarko]

If Igor's analysis is right and poor build quality of the adapter is the culprit, I don't see how they can avoid a recall of unsold boxed copies and a stop-sale on new cards until a new adapter is ready. They can offer a recall-and replacement program to 4090 owners who already have the adapter but Nvidia's legal department and/or product safety laws won't allow the continued sale of 4090s boxed with the adapter on the basis that new purchasers will be offered a replacement. I would think safety regulators around the world will get involved soon enough.

 

[Mistral]

And what do they sell? Cables for RTX 4090? XD

Pretty excellent power supplies.
Interesting, over-engineered motherboards.
A surprisingly stellar sound card.
Decent peripherals.

Likely, non-nVidia graphics cards in the future.

 

[sLowEnd]

I would rather believe that eVGA got to greedy, instead of charitable. Their BS doesn't add up.

Is it really greed when there's an observable decline in margins for AIB partners over the years?

EVGA won’t offer Nvidia next-gen series

Citing price increases and shrinking margins, EVGA quits Nvidia.

www.jonpeddie.com

Maybe the way they operate just wasn't sustainable with the trend.

 

[Kapone33]

Only in USA, outside of it, they have been as trash as everyone else, frankly even worse, because they have even less repair offices in Europe at least. Not to mention that their cards have been historically badly overpriced.

No one can be as bad as Asus. They make you feel like a criminal for submitting an RMA. You should try living in Canada and having to send your RMA to California. Especially during Covid.

 

[The red spirit]

Pretty excellent power supplies.
Interesting, over-engineered motherboards.
A surprisingly stellar sound card.
Decent peripherals.

Likely, non-nVidia graphics cards in the future.

1) They hardly do anything, other than to rebrand some platform
2) And completely non-competitive prices, bad availability
3) Just use a DAC, it's not 90s anymore
4) So does 1 million other brands

5) I will believe when I see it

Is it really greed when there's an observable decline in margins for AIB partners over the years?

EVGA won’t offer Nvidia next-gen series

Citing price increases and shrinking margins, EVGA quits Nvidia.

www.jonpeddie.com

Maybe the way they operate just wasn't sustainable with the trend.

And yet only eVGA croaked so far, the previous OEM that croaked was Club3D, which didn't even sell nV GPUs.

No one can be as bad as Asus. They make you feel like a criminal for submitting an RMA. You should try living in Canada and having to send your RMA to California. Especially during Covid.

I hate these posts. They offer zero statistical insight, hardly anything useful and just pure hate. The reality is that graphics card brand hasn't mattered in decade or more and they are statistically indistinguishable. It's hilarious to see people so agitated about them.

 

[Valantar]

If they make compute and / or graphics cards universal in relation of power delivery they are cutting costs but also e-waste.

The connector is'nt bad; it works. It just does'nt work when the thing is being bended. Which increases resistance and things start to get quite hot.

The amount of E-waste generated by PSUs having various multiples of PCIe power connectors is essentially zero - that's just plastic, sleeving and copper. Plastic is hard to recycle, sure, but we aren't talking PCBs, batteries, ICs and so on here. Oh, except this adapter which apparently has an IC in it, because Nvidia.

 

[Dave65]

I smellz a cover-up in the making....

They want all the cards back so they can:

1) destroy as much of the evidence as possible, and

2) debunk all the claims with some lame-assed blame-game directed at the end users.....ie "they bent the cable too close to the connector", or at the "wrong" angles, or "they shoved these giant monster cards into cases that did not have sufficient room & air flow for them" yada yads yada.....

It's what Nvidia does best, cover things up.

 

[Valantar]

It's not like they need to be stingy.

No, but they want to be stingy. This is a company that isn't happy with sub-60% margins, after all.

It's obvious how it fails; the edges are under more stress because of 1 wire per 1 contact, while in the middle there is 1 wire per 2 contacts, so in the middle it doesn't heat up.

.........

Seriously?

Do you have even the faintest idea of how you would go about engineering a fix to an actual fire hazard? A hint: the statement "It's obvious how it fails" is very explicitly not a part of that process. You investigate everything as thoroughly as possible, to not only identify what failed - which might indeed be obvious on the surface - but to uncover as many speicfic details of how it failed and what that failure looked like as possible. You check if what seems obvious is actually correct. Then you check more samples to look for variance. Then you check even more to verify your findings. Then you test and see if you can trigger the same failure yourself. Then, having identified points and modes of failure, you start thinking of how to rectify the problem - updated production process, more protection somehow, or a new ground-up design.

Goes to show you how half-baked this new connector is, or they just never meant to have adapters with it. It should have been 8 positive contacts and 8 grounds, so adapters of such sort (4x 8-pin) could be safely used and even then with such big cards 90° is the only sensible option.

... so they should have engineered the connector around an adapter that will only be relevant for a year, two at most? Yes, that sounds very sensible.

I really, really hope you're not a product designer or engineer, jeez. I'm not - nowhere close - but I guess I've absorbed enough of that kind of logic through osmosis or something to at least have some grasp of how these things work.

It's what Nvidia does best, cover things up.

Do they? I seem to remember quite a few bad things that were very much not covered up by Nvidia. Or am I somehow escaping their reality distortion field?

 

[Readlight]

Small wires

 

[Chrispy_]

I wonder if it's shit like this connector that was the final straw that caused EVGA to nope out. It does appear that Nvidia is forcing AIBs to use the connector, and that Nvidia make the only, flawed adapter. Coincidentally, I made a whole bunch (48, I guess) custom PCIe power cables for my mining rigs; I cannibalised about 15 bags of Corsair Type 4 cables and individually re-pinned the wires into new Mini-Fit Jr. plugs:



Realistically, I wanted peace of mind that I couldn't get from AliExpress/Amazon pre-made cables because I couldn't trust the crimp quality or the wire gauge used. On Corsair cables that come with their PSUs, I trust both - so I spent the time reconfiguring them to my needs. Having dismantled or reassembled multiple pins in almost 100 Mini-Fit Jr. plugs, I think it's fair to say that they are adequate but not more than that. The pins, the crimp mechanism, the receptacle, they're all fine for the ~4A per pair 12V pin they're rated for. I don't know if I'd trust them with more than 8A, and I sure as hell wouldn't be happy doing what Nvidia's done with their 600W adapter which, after Igor's lab teardown of the damn thing, seems to push up to 16.7A down two of the pairs.

I'm not sure about 8A per pin on the standard Mini Fit Jr connector. Nvidia are using over 8A on every pin of the even smaller HPWR pins. That's bad enough IMO but the fact that they've doubled-up the last two because 4 connectors doesn't integer-divide into 6 pairs neatly means that almost 17A is being asked of a pin that might handle 5, on a good day.

I think the saving grace for Nvidia is that of all the 4090s sold, the number that are regularly drawing the full 600W is small, and of that, the number drawing 600W for long periods is even smaller.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Or am I somehow escaping their reality distortion field?

If the shoe fits !

Do you, or anyone else remember the cable management trick for folding IDE cables? You would have it up with a hair dryer which allows you to bend them in half without issue ( very very rare cable breaks). I wonder of those trying to bend these cables are not using the same/similar technique and just cold bending.

 

[Kapone33]

1) They hardly do anything, other than to rebrand some platform
2) And completely non-competitive prices, bad availability
3) Just use a DAC, it's not 90s anymore
4) So does 1 million other brands

5) I will believe when I see it


And yet only eVGA croaked so far, the previous OEM that croaked was Club3D, which didn't even sell nV GPUs.


I hate these posts. They offer zero statistical insight, hardly anything useful and just pure hate. The reality is that graphics card brand hasn't mattered in decade or more and they are statistically indistinguishable. It's hilarious to see people so agitated about them.

I guess you have never had to do an RMA with them. Gigabyte is not bad, even MSI is not that bad but Asus has (as long as I have dealt with them) been less than honourable in the way they administer their Warranty service. This is not some feeling that I have but experience that I am talking about.