This is an old article, but given everything we’ve learned in the past few months I figured I’d add my two cents. The fact that there is no recall doesn’t mean they’re not a fire hazard. It just means they’re not acknowledging that there is a problem. And suing over this issue could actually work against Nvidia and MSI because there would then be grounds to prove that they are a hazard.
That means bringing up the removal of two thirds of the shunt resistors (from 3 down to 1). Three was already insufficient in the previous gen 4090. It would mean bringing up the lack of power regulation, when a component that costs $5 would ensure that the right amount of power would flow to each wire in the cable. Then there was the removal of hot spot monitors. The entire GPU was designed to permit massive power overloads while being completely unable to recognize them when they occur, much less stop them. This last part actually works for Nvidia because if they included a shunt resistor for each wire then all of these overloads would be caught and the card would shut itself down. This would prove that the GPU malfunctioned. But without them, Nvidia can say “who knows what happened?” They can blame 3rd party cables, the PSU manufacturer, and of course the user. It now makes sense why Nvidia decreased the number of shunt resistors on a card that increased the power to 600 watts.
The big myth in this case is probably that users weren’t fully plugging in the cards and this caused the rest of the pins to overload. In some cases maybe. But the truth is that these cards are not regulating power properly or evenly, and overloads are causing damage to certain pins that are repeatedly running out of spec. Eventually they become damaged and then it’s just a chain reaction. The failed pin no longer holds power, so the amount of power it should hold is passed on to the rest of the pins. And considering the lack of headroom in terms of amp spec, the rest will overload and fail as well.
The myth about ‘unplugging the GPU causing damage’ is probably the result of heat-damaged pins chipping off and breaking with the smallest amount of stress. Like a wooden match used and blackened at the end, it doesn’t take much for it to break. And yet companies have perpetuated the idea that unplugging your GPU is causing the damage. The plug was already damaged. We’re just ignoring where that damage is coming from.
At best these cards will wear out sooner than they should. At worst they will catch fire. If that’s not a “fire hazard” then I don’t know what is.
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