News Melted RTX 4090 16-pin Adapter: Bad Luck or the First of Many?

[Phaaze88]

Careful with cable management with these adapters...

 

[DavidLejdar]

My currently still 1050 Ti does not have/need any direct cable to the PSU. Clearly a win for team "old school" here, isn't it?

Seriously though, it sure doesn't seem reasonable in any case to be obsessed with wanting to hide cables as much as possible. The cable itself may handle it, but the socket many not necessarily handle that stress when there is a pull by the cable - as e.g. cases of damaged mainboard power socket show .

Which isn't to say that such stress was clearly the issue in case of the 4090. But personally, I'll rather leave a bit of cable loose near the socket even if some may not consider it tidy e.g. for MB power cable to be seen more than in other builds (and double-check on it being properly connected).

 

[hotaru251]

This is an isolated case that may very well have been user created.

actually it isnt.

There were melting adapter reports weeks ago (before they even launched the thigns) and reports on them "working on fixing issue"

quick google got me this. (just to show it isnt an "isolated case") its from Sept.

Melting 12VHPWR Connectors - The Real Story - Cultists Network

WCCFTECH stated that PCI-SIG sent an email warning against using non-ATX 3.0 PSUs and 8-pin to 12VHPWR adapters. Except, this was made up...

cultists.network

 

[watzupken]

If we aren't supposed to bend them for up to 35mm, they should require a guard on the cable to encourage us not to. Also, if that sticks straight up on top of the card, it means 35mm is a lot of PC case space for something like a 4090. They should make a 90 degree adapter

I agree. 35mm don't sound a lot until you realise that the heat sink is very tall. It's grown not just in thickness, but also in length and height. So for someone mounting the GPU directly onto the motherboard, you will need a really wide casing.

I think the fundamental issue is that too much power is passing through thin copper wires and funneled through that small connector. It seems that the objective of the connector is more about shrinking it so that it won't take up space, but it's not designed with safety in mind. It won't blow up, but I am sure that the cable and connector will be really hot whether you install it the properly or not. Where you have 4x8pin power on the GPU, at least the power can be distributed across the 3 or 4 cables and connectors.

 

[InvalidError]

I think the fundamental issue is that too much power is passing through thin copper wires and funneled through that small connector.

#18 wiring is good enough for 16A in a ventilated cabinet such as a PC case, so "thin copper wires" are not remotely close to being an issue at 8.5A per pin as long as they have some sort of airflow to take care of the ~1W loss per wire. It becomes even less of an issue with ATX 3.0-compliant PSUs where #16 is mandatory on HPWR cables.

The problems arise when poor contact on some pins due to sideways forces such as from bending cause a gross excess of current to go through the remaining pins. Practically all random cable failures (seemingly intact and allegedly untouched "worked perfectly fine for months") I have ever heard about have been at connectors.

 

[peachpuff]

Width of 4090 cards = 150mm
Distance from card to case panel = 20-40mm
Good luck following these recommendations, back to square 1 pci-sig, recall for everyone!

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Shocking, it's almost like the people who implemented these cable standards never bothered testing the plug by installing it in a real PC.

There really needs to be a 35mm long Aluminium block that acts as a cable strain guard and filled with Thermal Putty to act as a Aluminium Heat Sink for the wiring and attaches onto the plug head.

 

[InvalidError]

There really needs to be a 35mm long Aluminium block that acts as a cable strain guard and filled with Thermal Putty to act as a Aluminium Heat Sink for the wiring and attaches onto the plug head.

If you make 35mm straight out from the plug completely rigid, that is going to be 35mm of rigid leverage attempting to wrench the connector out of the board. It would also mean that people would need to bend the heck out of the cable right at the end of the rigid portion to clear side panels if at all possible, which could still end up ripping wires out of crimps or pins out of connectors - the wire jacket isn't welded to the copper within, an extreme bend after the reinforced connector bits is still going to pull on the copper.

Just change the octopus connector for a 90-degrees one as it should have been from the start for side-panel clearance reasons as few if any cases would be able to fit an RTX4090 with 35mm of power connector stick-out before cable bend, then you don't need to sharply bend anywhere near the connector or have a huge mess of futile attempt at strain relief from bending anymore. A few companies have already announced right-angle cables.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

If you make 35mm straight out from the plug completely rigid, that is going to be 35mm of rigid leverage attempting to wrench the connector out of the board. It would also mean that people would need to bend the heck out of the cable right at the end of the rigid portion to clear side panels if at all possible, which could still end up ripping wires out of crimps or pins out of connectors - the wire jacket isn't welded to the copper within, an extreme bend after the reinforced connector bits is still going to pull on the copper.

Just change the octopus connector for a 90-degrees one as it should have been from the start for side-panel clearance reasons as few if any cases would be able to fit an RTX4090 with 35mm of power connector stick-out before cable bend, then you don't need to sharply bend anywhere near the connector or have a huge mess of futile attempt at strain relief from bending anymore. A few companies have already announced right-angle cables.

Why didn't they build/pack-in a Right-Angle connector from the beginning?
It makes you wonder if the idiots who gave you that adapter ever built a proper PC Rig?
It's almost like they didn't do any testing!

Ok, let's not make the strain relief completely rigid, but there are polymer strain reliefs that have been built into other power plugs in history.
This is hardly the first time that this has occured in Power Plug design history.
So why wasn't there 35 mm of Strain relief built right into the base of the plug?

If this is such a important safety design factor, you'd think they would mandate it into the plug's base design and call it a day.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Why didn't they build/pack-in a Right-Angle connector from the beginning?

Nvidia took the "universal" approach, since some cards have the orientation of the 16-pin connector reversed. For example, on the 4090 Founders Edition, the clip is toward the center of the card. That's also the case on the MSI 4090 Suprim Liquid X, a Gigabyte 4090 Gaming OC, and a Colorful 4090 Vulcan OC. I think most RTX 4090 cards have the connector in this orientation, but the Asus RTX 4090 ROG Strix flips the connector around. Why? No freaking idea. LOL. I'm sure Asus won't be the only manufacturer to take that approach, which means you need two different types of right angle adapters. And some bean counter probably decided that was unnecessary. If you do buy a right angle adapter, make sure to get one that works properly with your card.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Nvidia took the "universal" approach, since some cards have the orientation of the 16-pin connector reversed. For example, on the 4090 Founders Edition, the clip is toward the center of the card. That's also the case on the MSI 4090 Suprim Liquid X, a Gigabyte 4090 Gaming OC, and a Colorful 4090 Vulcan OC. I think most RTX 4090 cards have the connector in this orientation, but the Asus RTX 4090 ROG Strix flips the connector around. Why? No freaking idea. LOL. I'm sure Asus won't be the only manufacturer to take that approach, which means you need two different types of right angle adapters. And some bean counter probably decided that was unnecessary. If you do buy a right angle adapter, make sure to get one that works properly with your card.

nVIDIA better "PRAY REALLY HARD" that nobody sets their house on fire or dies from a fire caused by their GPU.

If they don't voluntarily recall this plug right away, this could open them up to ALOT of law suits in the future should something go wrong.

nVIDIA, Intel, PCI-SIG, the adapter manufacturer could all be on the hook for pushing this potentially dangerous plug.

 

[InvalidError]

Ok, let's not make the strain relief completely rigid, but there are polymer strain reliefs that have been built into other power plugs in history.

Not going to help: the problem with bending ribbonized or tightly sleeved straight cables is that when you do a 90 degrees bend no matter the radius, the outermost wires need to be longer by about two connector row distances to make the bend without straining the wires.

I can think of three ways around this:
1- use loose individual wires so the excess wiring on the inside row of the bend can go wherever it wants
2- twist wires together so all wires take turns being on the inside and outside of a bend to make overall path length constant regardless of bend similar to how most AC power cords are made
3- instead of using six separate wires for 12V and ground, make all six pins out of a single bus bar, then use two #10 wires (55A cabinet rating) to carry all of the power - fine-stranded wires with silicone jacket are still plenty flexible

Nvidia took the "universal" approach, since some cards have the orientation of the 16-pin connector reversed.

A right-angled connector would have been plenty universal enough if the PCI-SIG and Intel/ATX 3.0 had foreseen the issues and specified right-angle connectors from the start. Then everyone would have designed their RTX4xxx GPUs accordingly just like they designed them now in accordance with traditional straight connectors since they weren't instructed otherwise.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Not going to help: the problem with bending ribbonized or tightly sleeved straight cables is that when you do a 90 degrees bend no matter the radius, the outermost wires need to be longer by about two connector row distances to make the bend without straining the wires.

I can think of three ways around this:
1- use loose individual wires so the excess wiring on the inside row of the bend can go wherever it wants
2- twist wires together so all wires take turns being on the inside and outside of a bend to make overall path length constant regardless of bend similar to how most AC power cords are made
3- instead of using six separate wires for 12V and ground, make all six pins out of a single bus bar, then use two #10 wires (55A cabinet rating) to carry all of the power - fine-stranded wires with silicone jacket are still plenty flexible

Either of those 3 solutions sound good IMO.
Question is will other Plug Manufacturers be implementing any of those solutions?

 

[InvalidError]

Either of those 3 solutions sound good IMO.
Question is will other Plug Manufacturers be implementing any of those solutions?

AFAIK, loose individual wires are still prevalent in cheaper PSUs. Dropping the tight sleeving and ribbonized cables isn't exactly a big investment for higher-quality PSU manufacturers either. So the first option would be a very low hanging fruit as long as potential buyers can be convinced to forgo cosmetics for the sake of bends not ruining connectors.

Twisting wires would make the bundle thicker and stiffer, which could be problematic. It would also make the thing more difficult to handle during assembly and increase the chances of wires ending up in the wrong row.

Bussing all of the same-rail pins together to use only two thicker wires would be my preferred option. No worries about load balancing between individual wires and the thicker wires make it quite a bit more obvious when you are attempting a bend they disagree with.

Ideally though, the PCI-SIG and Intel should just "unlaunch" the HPWR connector, switch it out for a modified XT60 and people stuck between the two can simply use adapters as usual.

 

[Eric Schwartz]

I had a Lian Li Strimer cable connected to my 3080. It melt the cable so both cables had to be replaced. I replaced it and have not had any issues. Bottom line is you might get a bad cabble....nothing is 100% gurantee,. No issues after replamcent.

 

[Colif]

just use the old connectors and hide them on end of the card if the main reason for the smaller connector was for looks. It doesn't improve efficiency why use it? If power at end you can hide it pretty easy
Nvidia: Everyone wants their PC to look good inside, lets put the power connector in middle of card and have a jangle of power cables that they have to hide.

if the cable can't be bent sideways or within 35mm of the connection, why not make them solid cables or something? Pre bent, i don't know... has to be a better way than this.

Glad I wasn't looking to buy an Nvidia card this time around. At least AMD aren't doing this (yet)

 

[alceryes]

Basically, the 12VHPWR connector drastically cuts the power variance safety margin that exists in the old 8-pin connector. This design flaw (burnt connectors) is the result.

 

[Colif]

Buildzoid has got a good/funny rambling on this. Basically, the 12VHPWR connector drastically cuts the power variance safety margin that exists in the old 8-pin connector. This design flaw (burnt connectors) is the result.

video already linked on post 2 of thread

 

[InvalidError]

if the cable can't be bent sideways or within 35mm of the connection, why not make them solid cables or something? Pre bent, i don't know... has to be a better way than this.

Glad I wasn't looking to buy an Nvidia card this time around. At least AMD aren't doing this (yet)

Multiple cable/PSU manufacturers have announced 90-degrees cables in recent weeks. As for AMD, I'm sure plenty of 7000-series models will have HPWR connectors since I bet most AIBs were too far along their custom PCB and HSF designs to change their mind about the connector. If there is a mass exodus back to 3x8-pins, it won't happen until the refresh wave some point next year.

 

[DRagor]

. As for AMD, I'm sure plenty of 7000-series models will have HPWR connectors since I bet most AIBs were too far along their custom PCB and HSF designs to change their mind about the connector.

Well then, this seems to not agree on the matter:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/a...nt-use-hot-16-pin-power-says-industry-veteran

 

[InvalidError]

Well then, this seems to not agree on the matter:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/a...nt-use-hot-16-pin-power-says-industry-veteran

We'll see soon enough. I have no interest in 200+W GPUs, so I'd be quite happy with not needing an unnecessary adapter for an unnecessary connector.

 

[evdjj3j]

I question why somebody "simply playing Red Dead Redemption 2" would know the power load on their GPU. Most overlockers don't even know how much power their card is using, outside of a broad "the slider won't go higher because the card is capped at xxx watts". Somebody who knows (or think they know) how much power their card is using probably cares because they've been messing around with the card's power delivery.
It's also questionable why fuses on the board didn't blow before the connector melted, which is most likely bad design. Still, it's not unheard of for extreme overlockers to deliberately bypass fuses.
But it's Reddit, which is one of those platforms where users are strongly encouraged by "an algorithm" to generate viral clickbait sensationalism. So maybe this person really had this problem, or maybe they made up the story to try and return a card with a voided warranty, or maybe this person doesn't even own a 4090 and just wants attention, or maybe the person isn't even a person and is just some kind of spam bot. There's no way to be sure. It's reddit.

I am science minded and like to know things for the sake of knowledge. That being said I often play games with Afterburner and Rivatuner running in the background so I get an overlay in the game showing me Temps, CPU and GPU frequency and power usage and hard drive activity. So don't draw conclusion on whether someone is telling the truth just becasue they do something that you can't imagine doing.


Edit: When I got the RTX version of Metro Exodus I spent several hours benchmarking different settings because I find that as much or more fun than playing a game .

 

[evdjj3j]

The sag on the GPU in that image....

I noticed that too, but I think it looks that way because of the angle of the shot.

 

[hannibal]

You are bending it wrong!

Is this Apple product by the way?

😉

 

[bloodroses]

One thing I've learned after that whole fiasco/lawsuit with the defective 8600m nvidia graphic cards in laptops back in 2010 is when it comes to Nvidia, it's buyer beware.

Maybe if enough AIB partners end up going after Nvidia over this issue, we may see it corrected.