Sam Matskovets
A few weeks ago, some early adopters of Nvidia’s new RTX 4090 flagship GPU began reporting that the cards’ power connectors were overheating and melting their plastic casing, sometimes damaging the insanely fast and expensive GPUs.
For Nvidia’s part, the company is still looking into the failures. “We are continuing to investigate the reports, however we have no further details to share yet,” according to an Nvidia spokesperson who spoke to KitGuru earlier this week. But the YouTubers over at the Gamers Nexus channel have conducted their own in-depth research, and in short, they believe that the problems are mostly caused by improperly placed power sockets. “Foreign object debris” inside the slot can also cause problems, but Gamers Nexus believes this type of damage is much rarer.
The failure that Gamers Nexus was able to recreate in their labs involved connecting the 12VHPWR power connector to an RTX 4090 without fully inserting it and then bending the cable to one side, making the connection even worse. After just a few minutes of testing, the loose connector’s high power resistance generated heat in excess of 250°C, causing smoke and visible bubbles as the connector melted into its socket.
Zoom / Screenshot from the Gamers Nexus test video. An apparently loose connection combined with a wire bent at a hard angle caused the temperature to rise rapidly and eventually smoke and melt.
Gamers Nexus describes the problem as “a combination of user error and design oversight”. In other words, the cables are melting because they have not been inserted all the way. But the lack of a tactile “click” sound or a stronger retention mechanism makes this kind of error more likely with the 12VHPWR connector than with the older 6- and 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The size of the 4090 and 4080 cards also exacerbates the problems. Cards can fit tightly even in relatively roomy ATX computer cases—you may have to bend the cable one way or another to close your case, and that kind of bending can cause the loose connection that contributed to overheating and melting in the Gamers Nexus tests.
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In particular, the failures can affect any cable or adapter that uses the 12VHPWR socket—this applies to both the kinds of adapters that Nvidia and its partners use in 4090s so far, as well as the “native” 12VHPWR cables that run directly to a power supply without an adapter in between. Previous analysis showed that adapters from a certain manufacturer could be more prone to failure than others, but Gamers Nexus didn’t find that it made a difference. This also means, presumably, that the 12VHPWR adapters that ship with the RTX 4080 cards could also have the same issues.
For now, the best you can do is make absolutely sure your power plug is firmly in place – if it is, you should be able to pull it fairly firmly without pulling it out (we were able to test this firsthand ). You should also be careful to avoid any kind of hard bending of the power cord in any direction. We’ll be watching for an official statement from Nvidia to see if it has any further recommendations or plans for any kind of recall or replacement of affected cards.
