News Prototype RTX 50-series power connector designed to prevent melting with current overload alarm, per-pin sensing

[Admin]

A Chinese user has developed a prototype 16-pin connector that can determine if a certain pin is drawing too much current, preventing connector meltdowns.

Prototype RTX 50-series power connector designed to prevent melting with current overload alarm, per-pin sensing : Read more

 

[-Fran-]

Imagine having to create something like this for what should be a simple "mechanical" problem to solve.

Un-friggen-believable.

Regards.

 

[Notton]

They'll have to shrink it a lot more than that because the FE 5080/5090 has the connector coming out from a pocket at 45d.

The proper way to solve this is switching to an XT-90 connector.

 

[Gururu]

Its evolved from pay to play to pain to play.

 

[CelicaGT]

Really, it's time to increase the voltage supplied to the card. In the long run it'll be cheaper than the current lipstick on the pig solutions. Bonus short term increase in PSU revenue..

 

[CelicaGT]

Its evolved from pay to play to pain to play.

Flambé to play..

 

[A Stoner]

This does not need to be placed right at the GPU connector, it should be possible to place it anywhere along the cable length since the current will be the same regardless of where it is measured.

 

[Charogne]

wow...nvidia should just make a recall and fix it. its not like they have thousands of those cards anyway; and they have the money. If I buy a lamp and it risk catching fire, there is a recall on it...how come if your PC risk catching fire there s no recall?

 

[thisisaname]

They should just recall all of the 50 series.

 

[ohio_buckeye]

Perhaps they should have gone back to the 8 pin connectors. At least those did not catch fire..

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

wow...nvidia should just make a recall and fix it. its not like they have thousands of those cards anyway; and they have the money. If I buy a lamp and it risk catching fire, there is a recall on it...how come if your PC risk catching fire there s no recall?

nVIDIA should recall it. But I highly doubt they will until a recall is forcing them to.

 

[thestryker]

You'd almost think this was something nvidia should have mandated as part of board design. I imagine these types of things will continue to appear until something is done at the board level.

 

[gggplaya]

Imagine having to create something like this for what should be a simple "mechanical" problem to solve.

Un-friggen-believable.

Regards.

Or Nvidia can just admit that they were wrong and move back to four 8 pin connectors.

 

[Konomi]

The "F it I'll do it myself" approach.

 

[jonaswox]

Never mind fixing the underlying problem. Lets make another cheap patchwork solution. How is this even legal, smh.

If you think this is fine on a 2500 dollar card, you are insane. Let me remind you that the proper implementation wouldve cost jensen maybe a couple of dollars per card.... what we dont do for margin nowadays. Its outright insane and gambling on your behalf with a lot more than your gfx card.

Let me just sat that I will not be surprised if this turns out to not really help, just like the v2 implementation which is some of the laziest engineering i have ever seen. Good thing it is cheap products else it would be .... wait ..... JENSEN!!###@@&&,,,

 

[jonaswox]

Or Nvidia can just admit that they were wrong and move back to four 8 pin connectors.

I think that would hardly help when all the power lines are gathered before any sensing. They would have a bigger buffer but they cant sustain 200watts on a single line either 😃so it would just mask the problem. Amazing that a little voltage sensing and load averaging is to much to ask.

 

[jonaswox]

Imagine having to create something like this for what should be a simple "mechanical" problem to solve.

Un-friggen-believable.

Regards.

Mechanical implies that something is moving. At least thats what I remember learning in engineering school. (It is the only thing I remember so it better be right else good waste of tax$ 😂😂😂

 

[ivan_vy]

nVIDIA should recall it. But I highly doubt they will until a recall is forcing them to.

should the The CPSC, under the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), mandate a recall for a fire hazard of an electronic product? or who should act here?

 

[jonaswox]

should the The CPSC, under the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA), mandate a recall for a fire hazard of an electronic product? or who should act here?

I am sure if this was an appliance it would be deemed unsafe, yes. It is outright irresponsible design. And that is hardly an opinion, its just common sense.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Great, another thing for some company to take and make into RGB...

 

[thisisaname]

They'll have to shrink it a lot more than that because the FE 5080/5090 has the connector coming out from a pocket at 45d.

The proper way to solve this is switching to an XT-90 connector.

If size is a problem and you have a modular power supply then you could:

• Unplug your 12 pin power cable from power supply.
• Plug this into the power supply.
• Plug you 12 pin power cable into this.
• Plug the other end of the 12 pin cable into you Graphics card
• Win

 

[lmcnabney]

The problem is that the connector is underspeced for what it is immediately being asked to do. There just isn't enough headroom in the connector and wire to safely handle fluctuations in some +12V wires carrying more amps than they are rated for.
This is not a problem for the old 8 pin because it could spread the 150W over three +12V 16 gauge wires. That means even a complete failure of two power wires on an 8pin cable would only push the maximum of 12.5A over a single wire. That is overspec for the wire, but not exceedingly so.
The new 16pin high power connector is rated for 600W which means each +12V wire and connector is carrying 100W or 8.3A. A catastrophic failure could push 50A down a single wire which is almost certainly what is causing the melting. I would also note that 16 gauge copper is rated for 13A of current. The 8 pin connection was putting a tad of 4A down 16 gauge which is only 25% of the material limit. The 16 pin is running at 64% of the wire's safe limit - and this is when everything is perfect. If anything goes wrong the GPU will continue to mindlessly pull a lot of amps unsafely from the power supply.
TLDR - if you want to pump 50 amps of power into your GPU they should have chosen a connection and wire that is more robust. Two +12V 12awg wires can handle 80A as can plenty of beefier connectors.

 

[Notton]

If size is a problem and you have a modular power supply then you could:

• Unplug your 12 pin power cable from power supply.
• Plug this into the power supply.
• Plug you 12 pin power cable into this.
• Plug the other end of the 12 pin cable into you Graphics card
• Win

The catch is, connectors, especially the 16-pin add a ton of resistance and associated heat.
The more you add, the more resistance and heat.
Which is what is so genius about the XT-90. It has low resistance.
But genius as it is, you still want to keep the total amount of connectors to ≦2

 

[YSCCC]

Never mind fixing the underlying problem. Lets make another cheap patchwork solution. How is this even legal, smh.

If you think this is fine on a 2500 dollar card, you are insane. Let me remind you that the proper implementation wouldve cost jensen maybe a couple of dollars per card.... what we dont do for margin nowadays. Its outright insane and gambling on your behalf with a lot more than your gfx card.

Let me just sat that I will not be surprised if this turns out to not really help, just like the v2 implementation which is some of the laziest engineering i have ever seen. Good thing it is cheap products else it would be .... wait ..... JENSEN!!###@@&&,,,

I agree with you but some fanboi will chime in and claim that they Nvidia engineers have done the calculation and the % of RMA is perfectly acceptable so they decide this is the best solution, it's your problem to reuse a cable

 

[dev_cyberpunk]

You don't have to be an engineer to tell the Chinese are diamond studding a piece of poop connector so it doesn't self-destruct. While sticking the up cost to the consumer.

Forever its has been known these series and type connectors have issues with current as well as maintaining low impedance connections. This of course is everywhere in electronics where these cheap connectors are used instead of just this problem child.

When I build a computer for audio/hifi, I re-pin the atx connectors and replace the 6 amp contact with a 12 amp gold alloy one to re-establish a low impedance connection as well as avoid self heating issues of the connectors. But I guess that is why we American engineers need to reel back the computer industry to the United States, or just build differently all together and let them eat their junk electronics.