News RTX 4090 Founders Edition Card Falls Victim To 16-pin Meltdown

[Admin]

The first reported case of a GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card suffering from a 16-pin power adapter meltdown surfaced on Reddit over the weekend.

RTX 4090 Founders Edition Card Falls Victim To 16-pin Meltdown : Read more

 

[Phaaze88]

Oh noez...

Anyway, so I started blastin'...

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

26 incidents so far, 4x more to reach 30 incidents.

Anybody wants to take bets on when we'll hit 30?

 

[Sleepy_Hollowed]

Well... I guess I know what company's card I'll be telling friends and family to not get until this gets fixed or rolled back to the old adapter.

 

[Phaaze88]

Anybody wants to take bets on when we'll hit 30?

Might've already hit 30+; the melting can go completely unnoticed after all.

 

[Co BIY]

Maybe some of the "Micro-peaks" in power draw in excess to TDP are a little longer than previously thought.

 

[drivinfast247]

Well... I guess I know what company's card I'll be telling friends and family to not get until this gets fixed or rolled back to the old adapter.

As if they're actually available for purchase.

 

[A Stoner]

This is just straight up engineering malpractice. Even if the failing connectors are somewhat out of specifications, the general specifications should be robust enough to function with reasonable flaws that happen in manufacturing in general as well as built up damage from standard use. For which, multiple plug/unplug events should be accounted for. So far, there have not been any specific arguments that the manufacturers are in fact out of the tolerance of the specifications that I have seen.

I am hoping that AMD has a rock solid GPU launch in December, I would like to build a new rig.

 

[drtweak]

Dont mine me. Just rocking my EVGA GTX 960 4GB. No issues here lol yea after all this I have no desire to upgrade. Rather buy a second hand 3000 series now.

 

[InvalidError]

Might've already hit 30+; the melting can go completely unnoticed after all.

Now, cue 1000+ people with melted connectors because they unplugged + re-plugged their RTX4090 daily to check for melting until it actually happens

 

[GenericUser]

Might've already hit 30+; the melting can go completely unnoticed after all.

Not to mention, these are just the ones that we know about and are getting attention. There could be more people affected that haven't reported anything.

 

[Amdlova]

Its only me think this connector is cheap feels like plastic, some Kind of garbage? 600w on that thing its unbeliveble, I think max 300w.

 

[YouFilthyHippo]

And I betcha right now NVidia is in the process of looking to rectify the issue without taking a hit and without a class action lawsuit. I don't see it happening. This stupid 12-pin connector thingy should never have happened. 4 8-pins would have been fine. Right now NVidia is probably just discussing options with their lawyers and will release a statement in a week saying: "We conducted an investigation and determined the fault lies with someone who is not us because we don't want to pay for our mistakes". They will just blame someone else. It's the spiderman finger point meme again. Just take the L, get the recall over with, put the 4 8-pins on so we can put this behind us. I bet 4090 sales are quite low right now. No one wants to trade their house for a GPU. It's just not worth it

 

[bolweval]

I think it's safe to say that we have reached the power limit of video cards that the end user can be safely trusted with.

 

[PEnns]

Dont mine me. Just rocking my EVGA GTX 960 4GB. No issues here lol yea after all this I have no desire to upgrade. Rather buy a second hand 3000 series now.

I still have my GTX 960 actually.

2 years ago I replaced it with a GTX1660 Super and I must say, I haven't noticed any difference in game or settings!!

 

[ThatMouse]

Well you get what you pay for...

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Steve from GN was able to replicate the melting!
Video in the link!

Spoiler: Please watch the full GN video, otherwise, here's the TL;DW:

NOTE: ALL 12VHPWR cables can fail

Potential Causes:
1) FOD (Foreign Object Debris)
- Caused by manufacturing error
- Caused by Design Oversight (Dimples to pin contact)
- The debris could've already been in there
- The debris could've come from the end user
- e.g. Nickel/Tin plating from the connector can get scrapped off over time via repeated insertions due to bad plating process.
The exposed Copper could oxidize and cause high resistance

2) Heat generated through a parallel high resistance conductive path
- Caused by FOD
- Caused by EXTREMELY BAD User Error in combination with a taught wire
e.g. Inserted only (4 - 4½)mm out of 6½ mm of Plug Teeth exposed/Un-Socketed & sharply bent to one side
Any Burrs or debris caused by bad connection, it can lead to increased Resistance, causing heating
- It may take substantially more time for the slightly improper connection to cause melting / failure
- A TRULY bad connection will only take minutes for the melting / failure to occur

Steve from GN claim's it's not a Adapter design issue:

• Fool's errand, waste of time to go down that path
• You should feel comfortable using the 12VHPWR in general, but...

It requires you to seat the cable properly, fully, (Hearing the click of the locking tab)
There should be no gap between the plug base and the receptacle where you can see the Plug teeth
- Avoid pulling the cable taught

I wonder if the CPSC should be contacted and have a Product Recall over the 12VHPWR plug until the entire issue gets resolved.

The CPSC (Consumer Protection Safety Commission) was involved with the NZXT case recall over the adapter PCIe x16 lane adapter cable that could catch fire.

 

[blacknemesist]

Well, now a direct NVidia card with the NVidia "good" connector melted and there is no way around anymore to NVidia to hide since its their card and their adapter, sadly, it might take months before any actual action is taken like replacing the onboard connector for 4 x 8 pin and modify the chassis if needed.
So basically those of us that needed new systems are just dead in the water and invested in hardware besides the card that might not be even usable until the problem is fixed, like an 4k monitor. Cool NVidia, really cool, hopefully you guys start preparing plan B to go into action fast.

 

[Sleepy_Hollowed]

As if they're actually available for purchase.

They oddly enough are in USA, not a lot of people are buying them. They're not at MSRP, but around 300-500 over MSRP.