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Owner Highlights Singed Connector on MSI's Yellow-tipped "Safety-oriented" 12V-2x6 Connector

T0@st

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Earlier in the year, MSI started to showcase a simple yet innovative safety measure—involving the heavily debated 12V-2x6 connection standard. In a completely serious April 1 social media post, the brand's gaming division refreshed its audience's collective mind: "did you know? MSI graphics cards come with a special dual-color 16-pin PCIe cable! If you see yellow, your connection isn't secure. Make sure to connect it properly, and game on with confidence! Note: this dual-color design applies only to the 1-to-3 and 1-to-4 dongles." TechPowerUp's news section has covered multiple instances of 12V-2x6 cables—and an especially fault-prone predecessor: 12WHPWR—being subject to unfortunate high temperature accidents. Yesterday, an unlucky owner shared details and images of their personal experience—involving their eye-wateringly expensive MSI GeForce RTX 5090 SUPRIM SOC model, the card's bundled cable, and a Super Flower 1300 W ATX 3.1-complaint power supply unit.

This incident was documented via a Quasar Zone BBS thread—circumstances were described as follows: "it's bitter. (My computer) kept turning off with a blue screen, so I checked and found out that the connector was burned. It's a shame... I played a game (Black Desert) that uses about 400 W for about two hours, and it happened yesterday...I need to file an AS complaint." Despite being firmly inserted—i.e. no yellow sections being visible—MSI's "foolproof" design did not prevent the melting and burning of this particular cable's graphics card-bound end connector. Fortunately, the SUPRIM SOC card's power input appears to be unaffected—the owner and several commenters surmised that a defective cable was shipped with this ultra-premium product. As pointed out by Tom's Hardware, the yellow-tipped safety measure is merely a "visual aid"—so underlying faults could still occur. ZOTAC's engineering team explored a more in-depth solution; their "12WHPWR Safety Light" feature debuted during CES 2025.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Usually there is uneven burning and melting arising from current not balancing evenly across conductors. That was probably done with a marker.
 
Usually there is uneven burning and melting arising from current not balancing evenly across conductors. That was probably done with a marker.

Yes, because surely we need to invent conspiracy theories now to defend the numerous cases of burning 12V2X6 connectors that are rolling is daily.
 
Dont use superflower PSU with 9-pins connectors. It will cause major load inbalance of the 12v2x6 pins


A lot will cause an imbalance on the 12V2X6 pins including simply installing the connector correctly.

According to comments in that thread using the octopus adapter fixes the issue so it's once again a problem with balancing.

The better solution is to just not buy the card.
 
A lot will cause an imbalance on the 12V2X6 pins including simply installing the connector correctly.

According to comments in that thread using the octopus adapter fixes the issue so it's once again a problem with balancing.

The better solution is to just not buy the card.

no octopus cable can help, comments screenshot still showed uneven distribution.
Superflower patented 9 pins just is not suitable for 5090.
 
How long exactly, until these companies see this is a shit connector???
 
I managed to acquire a MSI RTX 5090 Ventus 3x OC card a few days ago for damn near MSRP. I have it hooked up to a BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 13 (1600w) ATX 3.0 PSU. I purchased a right angle BeQuiet 12VHPWR cable to go with it. Most games run fight with it connected that way but for some reason, whenever I play Crysis 2 Remastered or Crysis 3 Remastered, my PC crashes within 1-20 minutes of gameplay. And its not just a crash to desktop, the entire PC shuts down and powers off for a few seconds before booting itself back up. I switched the right angle cable for another 12VHPWR cable that came with the PSU. Same thing happened when playing Crysis 2 and 3 Remastered - between 1-20 mins of gameplay I experienced a PC shutdown. No BSOD, just straight up powered itself down. The PSU actually came with two 12VHPWR cables so I swapped the first one out and tried the spare one. Same shit happened again.

So I used the squid adapter that came with the card and hooked it up to the PSU with 4 separate 8-pin power cables. No more crashing.

It got me thinking though - there's no way all three BeQuiet 12VHPWR cables could be bad right? They all worked fine with my old 4090. Fortunately there are 2 PC's in my house.

My rig specs:-
MSI RTX 5090 Ventus 3x OC
Intel Core i9-14900KF CPU (no overclocks all on Intel base settings)
64GB DDR5 RAM (6400MT/s)
Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero mobo
4TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD for OS
BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 13 (1600w) PSU
Windows 11 Pro 24H2
42" LG C2 OLED as main display

My partner's rig specs:-
Asus RTX 5090 Astral
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
64GB DDR5 RAM (6000MT/s)
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero mobo
4TB Samsung 9100 Pro SSD for OS
BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 13 (1300w) PSU
Windows 11 Pro 24H2
Asus 32" OLED (PG32UCDP) as main display

I tried putting my card in my partner's rig and the same thing happened in her's when playing Crysis 2 and 3 Remastered. So that rules out any Intel CPU issues that might have been occurring. Then I tried my partner's RTX 5090 Astral in my rig and tested all the BeQuiet 12VHPWR cables that had been used with my MSI RTX 5090.

Not one single crash when using her 5090 Astral. All three 12VHPWR cables worked fine. I even used the per-pin monitoring software from Asus to check if any of the pins had bad connections. All of them were in the green and working fine.

There's something fishy going on with MSI's power delivery and their connectors in their 5090's. I think I'm gonna have to RMA my 5090 Ventus 3x. It's still only 3 days old. Why it only works without crashing when using the squid adapter, I cannot fathom :confused:
 
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I brought a MSI A1000G PCIe 5 PSU early this year and it did come with those yellow cables.
 
I managed to acquire a MSI RTX 5090 Ventus 3x OC card a few days ago for damn near MSRP. I have it hooked up to a BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 13 (1600w) ATX 3.0 PSU. I purchased a right angle BeQuiet 12VHPWR cable to go with it. Most games run fight with it connected that way but for some reason, whenever I play Crysis 2 Remastered or Crysis 3 Remastered, my PC crashes within 1-20 minutes of gameplay. And its not just a crash to desktop, the entire PC shuts down and powers off for a few seconds before booting itself back up. I switched the right angle cable for another 12VHPWR cable that came with the PSU. Same thing happened when playing Crysis 2 and 3 Remastered - between 1-20 mins of gameplay I experienced a PC shutdown. No BSOD, just straight up powered itself down. The PSU actually came with two 12VHPWR cables so I swapped the first one out and tried the spare one. Same shit happened again.

So I used the squid adapter that came with the card and hooked it up to the PSU with 4 separate 8-pin power cables. No more crashing.

It got me thinking though - there's no way all three BeQuiet 12VHPWR cables could be bad right? They all worked fine with my old 4090. Fortunately there are 2 PC's in my house.

My rig specs:-
MSI RTX 5090 Ventus 3x OC
Intel Core i9-14900KF CPU (no overclocks all on Intel base settings)
64GB DDR5 RAM (6400MT/s)
Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero mobo
4TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD for OS
BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 13 (1600w) PSU
Windows 11 Pro 24H2
42" LG C2 OLED as main display

My partner's rig specs:-
Asus RTX 5090 Astral
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
64GB DDR5 RAM (6000MT/s)
Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Hero mobo
4TB Samsung 9100 Pro SSD for OS
BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 13 (1300w) PSU
Windows 11 Pro 24H2
Asus 32" OLED (PG32UCDP) as main display

I tried putting my card in my partner's rig and the same thing happened in her's when playing Crysis 2 and 3 Remastered. So that rules out any Intel CPU issues that might have been occurring. Then I tried my partner's RTX 5090 Astral in my rig and tested all the BeQuiet 12VHPWR cables that had been used with my MSI RTX 5090.

Not one single crash when using her 5090 Astral. All three 12VHPWR cables worked fine. I even used the per-pin monitoring software from Asus to check if any of the pins had bad connections. All of them were in the green and working fine.

There's something fishy going on with MSI's power delivery and their connectors in their 5090's. I think I'm gonna have to RMA my 5090 Ventus 3x. It's still only 3 days old. Why it only works without crashing when using the squid adapter, I cannot fathom :confused:
This is why I avoid any "entry-level" 5090s as I don't believe any of the companies put forth any real effort to make a good product. The profit margins are so thin...
 
Usually there is uneven burning and melting arising from current not balancing evenly across conductors.

And to burn only one side of the connector and not the other also sounds fishy - current has to flow both ways, I could accept it being unbalanced on one side and not the other, but one side fully burned and not the other? Hmmm..

According to comments in that thread using the octopus adapter fixes the issue so it's once again a problem with balancing.

If the card is designed like the FE 5090, sinking all 6 pins into the same pcb pad, there's no way for the octopus adapter to fix anything, the only fix is faith and the power of prayer :respect:

Looking at the photos on the gpu database it looks like the MSI is like the FE, the power pins are all joined in the gpu with no current balancing whatsoever. Not a great plan :shadedshu:
11972-pcb-back.jpg


Not one single crash when using her 5090 Astral

Say what you will from Asus, but their 5090 Astral is one of the few that has proper current sensing on each 12v pin of the power connector to do current load balancing and detect and prevent problems. No surprise that it works better than the other tbh.

11993-pcb-back.jpg
 
If the card is designed like the FE 5090, sinking all 6 pins into the same pcb pad, there's no way for the octopus adapter to fix anything, the only fix is faith and the power of prayer

It might not fix the lack of current balancing but I would not rule out it fixing an esoteric issue that pertains to this specific PSU and GPU combination. It could be an entirely different issue manifesting, and that is just the nature of PC gaming and infinite possibilities.
 
It might not fix the lack of current balancing but I would not rule out it fixing an esoteric issue that pertains to this specific PSU and GPU combination. It could be an entirely different issue manifesting, and that is just the nature of PC gaming and infinite possibilities.

Sure, just pointing out this is not a random issue, this is the cost of cost cutting. It's not about infinite possibilities of pc gaming, it's manufacturers designing poor products that instead of working in any different combination require very specific conditions - not to mentions this is happening on their premium, high end and high margin halo product.
 
Dont use superflower PSU with 9-pins connectors. It will cause major load inbalance of the 12v2x6 pins

The 12pin connector is just one bulk 12v slab , it is not balanced by nature.
 
Interesting to see how only the top rows were burned. It is as if the cable's sag was the culprit from the looks of it.
 
Interesting to see how only the top rows were burned. It is as if the cable's sag was the culprit from the looks of it.
The top row are live wires, bottom row are ground
 
All six of the 12V pins have got hot! One pin less so but they are all showing heat stress. That means all six is faulty, that's a record. No amount of dreamer's "load balancing" will fix that.
Presumably the GND pins are just as bad but they are saved by GND path through the PCIe slot.
 
How long exactly, until these companies see this is a shit connector???

Companies must not have learned from all the extra cost spent replacing burnt 4090 cards, cables and power supply's,.. they decided to double down with the 12-pin connector and use it on the 5090.

Good to see AMD still using the 8-pin connectors on most cards,.. I have seen a few AMD 9070 cards with the 12-pin connector.
 
Companies must not have learned from all the extra cost spent replacing burnt 4090 cards, cables and power supply's,.. they decided to double down with the 12-pin connector and use it on the 5090.

Good to see AMD still using the 8-pin connectors on most cards,.. I have seen a few AMD 9070 cards with the 12-pin connector.
Everything needs context: 12v 6x2 has a peak power tolerance of 600W (675W for H++). RTX 5090 has a TDP of 575W, meanwhile the Nitro+ 9070xt has 330W, way below the tolerance of the 12v 2x6.

Maybe the solution to this problem using two connectors on the pcb instead of only one.
 
How is that this product is not withdrawn from sale? Any product which is a potential fire hazard should be dealt with by the safety regulator.
 
Ehehehe, yes well, what can one say?

Some advice; When I finished installing my GPU, I made very sure to take high-resolution pictures of both the cable-bend and the connector, for if something goes wrong, it will show that it's not user error, but their crap design.
 
I wrote it ages ago. Regarding 8D Report this was never a solution or a fix. how should a colored connector fix anything? I questioned at that time the sanity of those people who claimed this was a proper fix in the first place

I expect more of those topics with the same content in the future. I also expect some people saying my graphic card works. whataboutsim: same with those people who write below every windows issue topic that their windows work flawless. Or the user does it wrong.

I read that news article ages ago. A computer is not a battery circuit. Igors Lab explained it quite well where the real ground is. and that is definitely not the GND cables on the nvidia graphic card connector with an easy name to remember. such opinions show clearly the people do not really read news pieces. That topic is many years old. Igor made measurements and showed the GND from some other points is used quite more often as the "expected" gnd from the nvidia gpu connector. As the graphic card companies are lazy and do not use opto couplers for every pin on the PEG connector that does not need any further explanation or analysis. That post above also shows a lack of understanding or knowledge. A computer is not a battery. A graphic card is not a battery with just two connectors for power, like a battery. What did Kirchhoff wrote about .... ?

I'm also not sure if I want to see 50 degrees centigrade with a thermal imaging camera on the cables itself. There was a thermal imaging picture recently in the news. Anyway there are only nvidia graphic cards on the purchase market so the topic does not really matter for the consumers
 
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The top row are live wires, bottom row are ground

Doesn't matter, same current flows through both, unless...

Igor made measurements and showed the GND from some other points is used quite more often as the "expected" gnd from the nvidia gpu connector. As the graphic card companies are lazy and do not use opto couplers for every pin on the PEG connector that does not need any further explanation or analysis. That post above also shows a lack of understanding or knowledge. A computer is not a battery. A graphic card is not a battery with just two connectors for power, like a battery. What did Kirchhoff wrote about .... ?

That's an interesting point I hadn't thought of, if there's a ground loop between power connector - pcie slot - motherboard - psu that's sure to be a huge source of electrical noise and system instability, especially with the levels of current the 5090 is pulling.
 
Doesn't matter, same current flows through both, unless...

Unless the whole thing uses one common ground plane and some of them went to the PCIE slot ground pins...
 
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