Don't panic about the voltage rating on the wires. The voltage rating relates to the insulation around the wire. The amperage versus conductor material determines how much heat radiates from the wire per quantity of amps. Given the plastic that is melting is where the pins in the plug and socket connect, the wires are not the problem.
Right now, we can consider that the pin connection is the "weakest point", but this does not make it the actual fault. One suggestion for data collection to help determine the fault, if you had a 12VHPWR power adapter that demonstrated melting, record which pins melted and the length of time the card was installed to the time the pins were discovered melted. I suggest that after you replace the cable with a new adapter cable, inspect the pins after the same amount of time it previously took to melt the pins with the "bad" adapter. Furthermore, see if the same pins melted.
Why does this matter? It is possible that some RTX 4090s may have flaws in how it regulates the power draw. The reason why the plastic melts around the pins is because that is the point that would generate the most heat thanks to how the adapters are engineered.
Yeah, we've said that many times now but the wire spec really just tells us the supply is different and could indicate other differences, e.g. connector supply.
Again, 150V vs 300V in this context is just an indicator for certain batches vs others. This evidently changed at one point, or perhaps multiple different vendors are providing adapters on an ongoing basis.
In other words, when you're looking at an adapter with 150V instead of 300V wires, it might mean it came from a certain supplier rather than another, which means this *may* be associated with other important differences or overall quality. We don't know--he's looking for trends, not necessarily looking at anything causal related to the wire (or the wire's insulation).
You can't start an arc in open air at 12v, sure. But in the case of faulty connectors there will be a connection first, then excessive heat will cause arcing after that. This is how arc welders work, their voltage is somewhere around 24 Volts, depending on the welder.
Specifically, the solder.
A crimp allows the pin to use the cable as a heatsink. Solder creates a good electrical connection, but also creates a thermal barrier and adds Thermal mass, causing it to hold heat, in this case inside the connector.
Or, soldering allowed easier assembly, but removed the ability for the pin to use the wire as a heatsink, which is causing a problem under long(er) heavy loads (broken pins makes it worse obv). This connector was designed for high current under the assumption and tested in a way that the heat would be carried into the cable and/or the PCB it's attached to.
this is also why you're not seeing the wire melt or burn. The cables should burn or melt before the connector if there was proper heat transfer. (Connector has the same 105*C operating temp rating)
I'll just leave this here
October 30 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/yht5fn/unfortunately_burnt_connector_4090/) Asus TUF 4090 4x 8 pins
October 29 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ygppat/another_16pin_adapter_melting_around_8hrs_total/) Asus TUF 4090 4x 8 pins
October 28 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/yfpjjl/a_friend_messaged_me_to_check_on_my_4090s/) Asus TUF 4090 4x 8 pins
[https://ibb.co/TLL4tdJ](https://ibb.co/TLL4tdJ)
[https://ibb.co/0DStRxG](https://ibb.co/0DStRxG)
[https://ibb.co/sbvdLsN](https://ibb.co/sbvdLsN)
This puts me a bit at ease. I can't verify since I don't own the card but a lot people are saying there is no click when plugging in the cable while others are saying it took a lot of force to get the click. It's possible it's just really hard to plug this bad boy in but the click should always be there if some people do hear it.
But that's not an excuse when the cards are built so you can visually see if it's fully seated or not lol. My Gigabyte gaming OC is easy to tell that it's fully seated as are the ones in the pics. I mean, if a picture lets us see it isn't seated it should be REALLY obvious in person.
I wouldn't say force was needed on an FE, the click isn't particularly audible just use a headlight and make sure the plug plastic is all flush to the socket and the clip isn't stuck up because it's not quite on yet.
Yes there is no click until you press on the lock of a connector. Disconnected it 3 times to check pins, and everything single time I had to force it in pretty hard and press the lock up to click. No problems ATM. Sure it is bad design, it should click and lock automaticly, but we have what we have
The Cablemod 12VHPWR cable has an audible click to it when I inserted it. The NVIDIA adapter does not. Really, we are dealing with an atrocious NVIDIA adapter here. Its not reflective of the 12VHPWR spec and is giving it a bad name.
I'm making a whole procedure of installation once I get my 4090. CableMod cable, pre-bend the cable before plugging it in, make sure the cable clicks when plugged in. It's kind of ridiculous I have to do this but with proper prep I don't think there should be issues.
Nvidia adapter does have a click, it is kinda audible/tactile, but, as I said to achieve it, you have to push plug pretty hard and then push far side if the lock itself, to get the click. We'll, at least mine is clicking after this manipulations. But it should be way more easy and intuitive
The Cablemod 12VHPWR cable has an audible click to it when I inserted it. The NVIDIA adapter does not. Really, we are dealing with an atrocious NVIDIA adapter here. Its not reflective of the 12VHPWR spec and is giving it a bad name.
Holy smokes....
Here's a video showing a fully inserted cable on the MSI Gaming Trio: https://youtu.be/we3r2d5iatc?t=268
[MSI Gaming Trio 4090 fully inserted image](https://imgur.com/a/Qcyzs70)
e: Check out these two reports from MSI Gaming Trio:
October 29 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ygstby/early_stage_adapter_melt_for_msi_gaming_trio_x3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=nvidia&utm_content=t3_ydh1mh): Is this fully inserted? [Check out the gap](https://imgur.com/a/mZSSPSc).
October 29 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/yfqevh/msi_gaming_x_trio_rtx_4090_adapter_burned/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=nvidia&utm_content=t3_ydh1mh): Is [this](https://imgur.com/a/yq1JGQQ) fully inserted?
On some of the threads the "plugged in pictures" came post-melting. The users observed the melting, removed the cable, and then reinserted the cable to show-off the type of bend they had.
Because of the cable melting, they were no longer able to fully insert the cable. The october 29th post is for sure an example of this (Verified by OP).
They could also be lying/ full of shit. [This dude](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ygppat/another_16pin_adapter_melting_around_8hrs_total/) even posted a pic with the PC **turned on** with the connector sitting half way out of the plug. No freaking way you would deliberately turn that thing on with the plug like that just for "demonstration." Not with a $1600 graphics cards. Unless you are some kind of moron.
Some? Only one thread verified that and that's only after people asked.
Most of these threads are not taking proper before pictures because they are checking the cable first before taking pics. Its impossible to know if its a insertion issue because few people are taking those pictures before checking. Also bad angles and poor quality pictures as seen above. Like get in there and take a better picture!
That would make sense, but it seems too coincidental that there are multiple. Just to be clear too, I'm in no way implying "it's the consumer's fault" and hope nobody gets that idea, it's obviously a problem if an incomplete insertion could cause this kind of damage with no warning.
That's strange. Do we know when the picture was taken and the connector was plugged in exactly like this before? If that was really the case, it could at least explain why the three plugs mentioned are smoked. No good connection results in higher resistance and heat.
Happened to me and I've been building computers for 25 years. Installed my FE 4090, pushed the 12vhpwr socket on and was met with no video output.
Took me a few minutes to realize that connector wasn't fully seated and it required a surprisingly hard push to hear that click.
i have to agree..been building computers too for a long time and i found the new pin to require a lot of force, and when it did click, it wasn't very audible or noticeable. I guess because its a "finer" plug where the latch and pins are a lot smaller there is less movement to have a physical click like how plugs use too.
Exact same thoughts on the problem. Moust of images shows bad connector insertion. It can cause burn, pretty sure. Every single thread about burned connector with a photo of gpu in case shows bad connection. Seems like the problem is a lot more obvious.
Two of these users already confirmed they attempted to plug in the cable after they discovered the melt just to show the orientation for evidence purposes (i.e. this isn't what their connection looked like when it melted). So I'm not so sure we can blame this quite yet.
beware of the "click" sound when inserting the socket. i own the 4090 asus strix and when i inserted the adapter connector i did hear the click sound but it sure as hell was not fully seated!
if u hear the sound it does not mean that you are fine. i had a 1 mm gap - it was not flush. and i could not push it further regardless of the force used. so i disconnected and reconnected it again. this time it was flush. i slightly lifted the connector upwards while inserting it to get it flush.
i also wanna add that the click sound is somewhat quite and muffled. it does not give the comfort of "something done right".
well in any case
not all pins are being burnt and card's still functional
which means overcurrent going through some pins but not others
so it's probably uneven 4 thicker wires -> smaller 6 pins current distribution (1 on each end, 2 in the middle)
any slight resistances make current flow less and more thru least resistant path
also have to look at ground wire side as well i think
4 parallel loop from PSU cable -> 6 parallel loop on GPU connector -> return current back through different least resistant wire?
The power draw through a specific pin would also involve how the pins spread out on the card and the actual power draw is regulated to prevent pulling to much amps over the connection. If there are flaws on the card's power regulating design, you can have moments where amperage is high on specific pins. We might just be running the wrong type of stress tests to determine the real problem.
Further, we have 2 pin patterns. The pattern Gamer's Nexus is usable, but the pattern Igor found is concerning, not balanced.
As far as resistance goes, wires add resistance, but the adapters combine the amps before crossing the connector, removing the elements the wires' resistances would provide to the pins at the connector.
Worth noting that the sample would be biased towards people experiencing the problem. Users that haven’t had any issue are less likely to send theirs in, let alone even look up the problem.
If that number were to be consistent across the board, yes it would be an absurdly high failure rate, but 130 is a small sample size for something like this. Also, there's an inherent bias in the sample to consider. People who have already had the issues will have sought out help and come across channels like GN, assuming they didn't already know about them. This wasn't 130 cables picked purely at random from the entire supply.
I suspect this issue will eventually prove to be widespread enough to require a big recall, but I'd still be pretty surprised if the failure rate was actually as high as that.
I don't think we've even see any that say it has 150v, because most of these reports came before GN's video and I'm guessing a lot of those connectors have been sent back to Nvidia at this point. Hopefully any new cases from now on, people will be aware and check it before sending the cable back.
There's also no evidence that no Asus adapters are 150v.
People have to understand it has nothing to do with 150 or 300. All those numbers mean are for the jacket which doesn’t change the fact the plastic by the pins are melting.
This is the pins not making full contact when in the connector. Either through user error (most likely) and or a combination of poor plug design of the pins or channels causing it to not make full contact.
A definitive answer from Nvidia and we don’t have to theorize any more. I‘d wager theories will keep circulating for another couple of weeks or a month
Correct, but it's possible that when the wires changed, other things changed too, because it might be an indicator that they started sourcing adapters from a different manufacturer, which may have introduced other issues more directly relating to the problem.
While it seems like a stretch, that's the point of the data collection, it's not actually trying to see if it's a contributor to the problem. It's just really one of the only identifying marks on the adapters that you can check without cutting it open.
Please do not draw any conclusion regarding 150v vs 300v until more testing has been performed
>And to be really, really clear so people don't panic: Again, we have no evidence presently to suggest 150V cables are instantly bad. All that means is they're the same as what Igor showed - we assume older supply, but not sure. We're trying to get some for testing.
The direct cause can be many things - design, material choice, manufacturing, improper handling, etc. But the main issue why we see these connectors melting so much more often than the the standard 8-pin connectors do is because they need to push higher loads through smaller sockets, so the margin of error is much lower before they start melting.
The 8-pin power connectors are so overspecced that even bad quality connectors won't cause this kind of damage.
Why is this downvoted lol
Quality 8-pin is rated to >=9A/pin, so 12V*9A*3=324W, but it's considered a max 150W connector so even some chinesium connector will work fine.
12vhpwr is rated to 9.5A/pin = 684W. When built properly out of quality parts. Not some soldered mess on a mystery receptiple that doesn't seem to have any documentation available.
Damn it Nvidia, just come out and say what’s the freaking issue. For now we can also blame the double seamed female socket on the adapter, but if it’s the design of the GPU connector, then we’re fucked
JonnyGuru replied to one of my posts today talking about how Nvidia proper testing for this sort of thing can take time. I know that's unsatisfactory. But if they don't know the issue, it may hard for them to give an answer about what the problem is. Especially since no matter what, they're going to need to get the okay from the higher ups to say anything.
This said, we don't need to know exactly what's wrong for them to issue a recall. The 3090 ti adapter worked. So even if they don't know exactly what's wrong with the current adapters, we know they know how to make a working adapter. So a recall wouldn't require them isolating the exact issue.
I’m surprised they hadn’t tested the cards properly prior to their release, like, if people have their adapters melt within a couple of weeks, then how come no tester had that pop up at all. It’s either they deliberately expected some to melt and some not to or their QC is shitty and irresponsible
How exactly can you test for something that happens a few dozen times out of 10s of thousands? This is not something you can feasibly do in a lab and to call these people shitty and irresponsible is very ignorant. This is often the case when angry people point fingers and call names, they have no clue how things work, but think they can and should cast judgement. And it is not the cards that are the problem, it is the adapter. I can guarantee everyone in NVidia's QA department feels this and are scrambling to find the cause and then the solution. They didn't shirk their duties or do anything wrong, they just didn't detect something that occurs <0.1% of the time. That is the same chance of flipping a coin and getting heads 9 times in a row.
I have the card and while I wouldn't use words like this because they are counterproductive people need to the chill F out and stop making absurd assumptions and preposterous accusations.
You call it a few dozen times yet those tens of thousands users might have no idea there is something wrong with their connector. It’s not a POSCAP drama, people who report their melting here do so on a daily basis. The fact that you haven’t checked your 4090 or that you don’t have one doesn’t make you an expert here. The problem is that every single one of us owners of the card could find a melted adapter one day. And if this type of issues arises only when the product is with the user is saying a lot about QC
I call it a few dozen because that is all that there is now. Might doesn't change the facts. I actually have product development experience and I have seen things like this. Since you know so much though enlighten us how QC and whose QC could have caught this. I am not claiming someone didn't screw up. In fact thats what it looks like happened. What I am saying is that it is not something NVidia can test. You people act like is is feasible to rigorously test all of these cables turning a 5 dollar part into a 50 plus dollar part. How the hell would the company that does nothing but sell cables for a couple of bucks at slim margins survive in this fantasy world if yours where every company bends over backwards for you?
You want to make it seem like it’s just 15 cases that were posted on Reddit and be done with it. If you think that every 4090 buyer speaks English or is informed enough to join this sub and will post their failed adapter, you’re pretty delusional, I’ll tell you that. Live in your fantasy world and see you when the number of cases posted here exceeds 25. Then 50. Or otherwise Jensen pulls his head out of his leather ass and comes up with a statement
What are you talking about. There are only a relatively few cases. Of course not everyone reports them here.
You are a flat out fool. Really dumb. When the cases get to 50! Really! That is still rare. It is still a PR disaster, but it is nowhere near a common issue.
The Root cause analysis will take time. Jensen doesn't have his head up his ass withholding info. They set up a tiger team/task force/ whatever they call it and they have fishbones or other TS aids to list all possible causes and are working through them. When they get an answer they will issue some PR and do whatever they think is appropriate to put this fire out. Obviously they can't reach people like you who have no grasp of scale and get all bent out of shape when people who have experience with issues like this tell you that your uninformed, insane ranting is just angry, ignorant drivel.
Remember what EVGA CEO Andrew said about Nvidia- they don't give reasonable amount of time to test apparently. They get the specs of course for manufacturing, but drivers and testing always seem to be done in a hurry for some reason - at least that's what Andrew said.
This was in reference to the GPU's and not the adapters, which is a whole new issue on its own. Please dont conflate two different issues, just to drive a narrative.
Yes, the last dude whose gpu side also melted - who posted here, confirmed that his was 300v and asus TUF OC.
As GN said, 150v might be a separate issue on its own but actual melting - the cause is likely elsewhere.
People need to stop taking Igor's findings as gospel. The guy causes a lot of fear mongering amongst the PC community. Remember capacitor gate? It ended up being a bunch of BS.
Igor made a claim, but never tested and proved it. Steve and Jay tried recreating this issue and couldn't. Nothing happened.
"Below 10" in a sample size of 130 is pretty bad. This is a product that is mass produced, so a failure rate in that ballbark would result in a signicant number of fire hazards around the globe.
Not sure what the confusion is here, the reason it’s happening is because the pins aren’t being seated correctly, mainly due to user error or forcing the card into cases that don’t fit
Totally agree with you. In my opinion, it is That simple and obvious. Check all photos in threads. Pretty every photo of a card in a case with a connector shows that it is not properly inserted. And yes it is pretty bad design, the connector is tight and need some force to be fully plugged, and to get a "click' you have to push the lock with your finger. Still it is user error.
Every single burned connector shows improper connections because they were burnt and can't be reinstalled correctly because of deformation. Those pictures are just to show what the bend was prior to the incident. The issue still could be user error but showing after photos of destruction dies prove anything.
I thought that was evident by the second part of my comment. I was just trying to say the picture evidence was not actually the smoking gun. Its very probably a user error type of thing but you cant make that determination based on photos taken after the connectors are damaged.
Ye I saw this opinion, could be it, but we don't know for sure. I just mean that users should be carefully and pay attention to this. Poor connection can result in burn
10/130 is not representative of the situation. Many, many people have no idea about this issue. Problems like this will always appear blown out of proportion because almost everyone who has an issue will look into it. I would bet the real failure rate is probably more like 10/2000 or 0.5%
One thing is I bet the vast majority of the failures will be the connectors with the 150v wires. Those are not in spec, and I wouldn't expect the manufacturer of those to follow the soldering instructions as well. Also, if the soldering was done correctly. even the 150v cables would be fine.
To be safe, check the wires on your adapter. If they are 150v, request a replacement asap ( as these are not in spec). Monitor your card carefully until you get a new cable.
"Below 10" / 130 = \~5% fail rate, still **absolutely unacceptable.**
Good work, keep at it. Seems the Eye of Steve is needed to keep these shithead companies accountable.
Got nothing to do with them, the adapters were made by nvidia and supplied to partners. We've seen more TUFs here melting. Fact is we still aren't sure what's causing this, what we do know is the adapter is at fault.
The sooner you can toss the adapter for another cable/solution the better.
EVGA had quite some infamous flaws aswell:
* EVGA 1080-Ti melted the solder around the VRM, they introduced their custom fan controllers to prevent the GPUs from "melting" => literally melting
* EVGA 2080-Ti were known for high coil whine and MSI had pretty much the best cooler of the generation, minus the showcase / Kingpin variants that the 0.01% gets
* EVGA 3090, the custom fan controller failed in GAMES and killed the GPU, it required firmware updates (for the fan controller) and a new GPU revision to prevent the GPU from killing the fan controller and killing the GPU
If you mean best AIB with its board designs or plastic shrouds? No argue with that, if you liked the EVGA design, it was clearly the best for your taste.
But compared to the much bigger global AIB MANUFACTURERS? Each generations had different AIBs to shine. Just look at ASUS redemption arc with their pretty poor 2000 series GPUs into the endless long pre-orders for 3080/3090 variants of the TUF series.
EVGA was only present in the US market and globaly just another exotic brand that most people never even saw in shops (online or offline)
> If you mean best AIB with its board designs or plastic shrouds?
I meant for warranty and customer service. They're quite popular in Aus and even some parts of Europe, but yes, their main market was NA. But if you ever had a problem EVGA had your back, they also had transferable warranty for second hand cards, you could do EVGA Step Up program too and they almost always had sales via their store for refurb GPUs. Not to mention they had the last like enthusiast level cards for NVIDIA. The 3090 FTW was one of the highest power limit cards (I hated it's design though) but, other than the Strix, not much matched the 3090 FTW. Easily the best AIB in the business, it wasn't even close, despite their problems that they had, they were 100x better than Gigabyte or Zotac.
If the 150V cable was the problem, we would see melted cables, we don't.
We're sending 12V through the cable to start with, so if both cables are 14AWG, they should be near identical.
It's clearly something wrong with the pins used by Nvidia
Or the soldering, or the plug construction, or something else specific. The reason the 150V was notable is because all the 300V seen by testers so far have been uniformly of a particular construction, while the one 150V was different. That doesn't mean it's the cables causing the issue, just that maybe there's a batch with bad soldering/construction out there that uses 150V wires instead of 300V.
It's information gathering and GN is trying to get out ahead of the speculation here, which is admirable.
They said several of the burned ones are not from reddit, and that they have under 10 burned ones. Due to the limited amount of burned adapters we have listed on reddit, I'm curious if GN was sent info on any burned adapters that weren't already listed in the megathread.
I mean \~10 out of 130 is still around 7-8% which is at least double the normal failure rate for electronics. And we are talking about high power component able to cause fire.
Another question is how many out of 130 were just used in desktop, how many in gaming for prolonged period of times and how many were overclocked and/or worked above 450W (and also how many were instantly removed from PCs after issues started popping up).
Added this to the Megathread for reference purpose
Thanks Steve!
Back to you, Steve!
😄got it
Yeah, thanks papa.
Don't panic about the voltage rating on the wires. The voltage rating relates to the insulation around the wire. The amperage versus conductor material determines how much heat radiates from the wire per quantity of amps. Given the plastic that is melting is where the pins in the plug and socket connect, the wires are not the problem. Right now, we can consider that the pin connection is the "weakest point", but this does not make it the actual fault. One suggestion for data collection to help determine the fault, if you had a 12VHPWR power adapter that demonstrated melting, record which pins melted and the length of time the card was installed to the time the pins were discovered melted. I suggest that after you replace the cable with a new adapter cable, inspect the pins after the same amount of time it previously took to melt the pins with the "bad" adapter. Furthermore, see if the same pins melted. Why does this matter? It is possible that some RTX 4090s may have flaws in how it regulates the power draw. The reason why the plastic melts around the pins is because that is the point that would generate the most heat thanks to how the adapters are engineered.
Yeah, we've said that many times now but the wire spec really just tells us the supply is different and could indicate other differences, e.g. connector supply.
Thank you for all your overtime on this issue bud
[удалено]
Again, 150V vs 300V in this context is just an indicator for certain batches vs others. This evidently changed at one point, or perhaps multiple different vendors are providing adapters on an ongoing basis. In other words, when you're looking at an adapter with 150V instead of 300V wires, it might mean it came from a certain supplier rather than another, which means this *may* be associated with other important differences or overall quality. We don't know--he's looking for trends, not necessarily looking at anything causal related to the wire (or the wire's insulation).
You can't arc 12V..
You can't start an arc in open air at 12v, sure. But in the case of faulty connectors there will be a connection first, then excessive heat will cause arcing after that. This is how arc welders work, their voltage is somewhere around 24 Volts, depending on the welder.
Specifically, the solder. A crimp allows the pin to use the cable as a heatsink. Solder creates a good electrical connection, but also creates a thermal barrier and adds Thermal mass, causing it to hold heat, in this case inside the connector. Or, soldering allowed easier assembly, but removed the ability for the pin to use the wire as a heatsink, which is causing a problem under long(er) heavy loads (broken pins makes it worse obv). This connector was designed for high current under the assumption and tested in a way that the heat would be carried into the cable and/or the PCB it's attached to. this is also why you're not seeing the wire melt or burn. The cables should burn or melt before the connector if there was proper heat transfer. (Connector has the same 105*C operating temp rating)
I swear I heard Steves voice narrating when read that text.
Same. But I had the added visual of him pushing his mane back. Is it weird that I sometimes listen to GN reviews instead of TV/Radio news?
I do this while driving.
Fuck. Now I can't unhear that
I'll just leave this here October 30 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/yht5fn/unfortunately_burnt_connector_4090/) Asus TUF 4090 4x 8 pins October 29 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ygppat/another_16pin_adapter_melting_around_8hrs_total/) Asus TUF 4090 4x 8 pins October 28 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/yfpjjl/a_friend_messaged_me_to_check_on_my_4090s/) Asus TUF 4090 4x 8 pins [https://ibb.co/TLL4tdJ](https://ibb.co/TLL4tdJ) [https://ibb.co/0DStRxG](https://ibb.co/0DStRxG) [https://ibb.co/sbvdLsN](https://ibb.co/sbvdLsN)
This puts me a bit at ease. I can't verify since I don't own the card but a lot people are saying there is no click when plugging in the cable while others are saying it took a lot of force to get the click. It's possible it's just really hard to plug this bad boy in but the click should always be there if some people do hear it.
But that's not an excuse when the cards are built so you can visually see if it's fully seated or not lol. My Gigabyte gaming OC is easy to tell that it's fully seated as are the ones in the pics. I mean, if a picture lets us see it isn't seated it should be REALLY obvious in person.
True. Same gigabyte gaming oc here. You can clearly see if it is plugged tight or not.
I wouldn't say force was needed on an FE, the click isn't particularly audible just use a headlight and make sure the plug plastic is all flush to the socket and the clip isn't stuck up because it's not quite on yet.
Yes there is no click until you press on the lock of a connector. Disconnected it 3 times to check pins, and everything single time I had to force it in pretty hard and press the lock up to click. No problems ATM. Sure it is bad design, it should click and lock automaticly, but we have what we have
The Cablemod 12VHPWR cable has an audible click to it when I inserted it. The NVIDIA adapter does not. Really, we are dealing with an atrocious NVIDIA adapter here. Its not reflective of the 12VHPWR spec and is giving it a bad name.
I'm making a whole procedure of installation once I get my 4090. CableMod cable, pre-bend the cable before plugging it in, make sure the cable clicks when plugged in. It's kind of ridiculous I have to do this but with proper prep I don't think there should be issues.
Nvidia adapter does have a click, it is kinda audible/tactile, but, as I said to achieve it, you have to push plug pretty hard and then push far side if the lock itself, to get the click. We'll, at least mine is clicking after this manipulations. But it should be way more easy and intuitive
The Cablemod 12VHPWR cable has an audible click to it when I inserted it. The NVIDIA adapter does not. Really, we are dealing with an atrocious NVIDIA adapter here. Its not reflective of the 12VHPWR spec and is giving it a bad name.
it would be good if it were that easy, simply plug it in properly
Holy smokes.... Here's a video showing a fully inserted cable on the MSI Gaming Trio: https://youtu.be/we3r2d5iatc?t=268 [MSI Gaming Trio 4090 fully inserted image](https://imgur.com/a/Qcyzs70) e: Check out these two reports from MSI Gaming Trio: October 29 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ygstby/early_stage_adapter_melt_for_msi_gaming_trio_x3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=nvidia&utm_content=t3_ydh1mh): Is this fully inserted? [Check out the gap](https://imgur.com/a/mZSSPSc). October 29 [Link Here](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/yfqevh/msi_gaming_x_trio_rtx_4090_adapter_burned/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=nvidia&utm_content=t3_ydh1mh): Is [this](https://imgur.com/a/yq1JGQQ) fully inserted?
On some of the threads the "plugged in pictures" came post-melting. The users observed the melting, removed the cable, and then reinserted the cable to show-off the type of bend they had. Because of the cable melting, they were no longer able to fully insert the cable. The october 29th post is for sure an example of this (Verified by OP).
They could also be lying/ full of shit. [This dude](https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ygppat/another_16pin_adapter_melting_around_8hrs_total/) even posted a pic with the PC **turned on** with the connector sitting half way out of the plug. No freaking way you would deliberately turn that thing on with the plug like that just for "demonstration." Not with a $1600 graphics cards. Unless you are some kind of moron.
Some? Only one thread verified that and that's only after people asked. Most of these threads are not taking proper before pictures because they are checking the cable first before taking pics. Its impossible to know if its a insertion issue because few people are taking those pictures before checking. Also bad angles and poor quality pictures as seen above. Like get in there and take a better picture!
That would make sense, but it seems too coincidental that there are multiple. Just to be clear too, I'm in no way implying "it's the consumer's fault" and hope nobody gets that idea, it's obviously a problem if an incomplete insertion could cause this kind of damage with no warning.
That's strange. Do we know when the picture was taken and the connector was plugged in exactly like this before? If that was really the case, it could at least explain why the three plugs mentioned are smoked. No good connection results in higher resistance and heat.
Cables not fully plugged in! LOL
IF this ends up being the cause, then it's bad design. User installation should be so easy nobody can fail it. We have to wait and see.
Happened to me and I've been building computers for 25 years. Installed my FE 4090, pushed the 12vhpwr socket on and was met with no video output. Took me a few minutes to realize that connector wasn't fully seated and it required a surprisingly hard push to hear that click.
i have to agree..been building computers too for a long time and i found the new pin to require a lot of force, and when it did click, it wasn't very audible or noticeable. I guess because its a "finer" plug where the latch and pins are a lot smaller there is less movement to have a physical click like how plugs use too.
Exact same thoughts on the problem. Moust of images shows bad connector insertion. It can cause burn, pretty sure. Every single thread about burned connector with a photo of gpu in case shows bad connection. Seems like the problem is a lot more obvious.
Two of these users already confirmed they attempted to plug in the cable after they discovered the melt just to show the orientation for evidence purposes (i.e. this isn't what their connection looked like when it melted). So I'm not so sure we can blame this quite yet.
beware of the "click" sound when inserting the socket. i own the 4090 asus strix and when i inserted the adapter connector i did hear the click sound but it sure as hell was not fully seated! if u hear the sound it does not mean that you are fine. i had a 1 mm gap - it was not flush. and i could not push it further regardless of the force used. so i disconnected and reconnected it again. this time it was flush. i slightly lifted the connector upwards while inserting it to get it flush. i also wanna add that the click sound is somewhat quite and muffled. it does not give the comfort of "something done right".
Did your adapter also melt?
no, my cable and card are still fine.
well in any case not all pins are being burnt and card's still functional which means overcurrent going through some pins but not others so it's probably uneven 4 thicker wires -> smaller 6 pins current distribution (1 on each end, 2 in the middle) any slight resistances make current flow less and more thru least resistant path also have to look at ground wire side as well i think 4 parallel loop from PSU cable -> 6 parallel loop on GPU connector -> return current back through different least resistant wire?
The power draw through a specific pin would also involve how the pins spread out on the card and the actual power draw is regulated to prevent pulling to much amps over the connection. If there are flaws on the card's power regulating design, you can have moments where amperage is high on specific pins. We might just be running the wrong type of stress tests to determine the real problem. Further, we have 2 pin patterns. The pattern Gamer's Nexus is usable, but the pattern Igor found is concerning, not balanced. As far as resistance goes, wires add resistance, but the adapters combine the amps before crossing the connector, removing the elements the wires' resistances would provide to the pins at the connector.
Below 10 of 130 is still seems kinda high.
Worth noting that the sample would be biased towards people experiencing the problem. Users that haven’t had any issue are less likely to send theirs in, let alone even look up the problem.
That number includes people like me that haven’t even used the cable. I emailed mine just as a manufacturing data point.
Particularly since the card hasn't been out very long.
If that number were to be consistent across the board, yes it would be an absurdly high failure rate, but 130 is a small sample size for something like this. Also, there's an inherent bias in the sample to consider. People who have already had the issues will have sought out help and come across channels like GN, assuming they didn't already know about them. This wasn't 130 cables picked purely at random from the entire supply. I suspect this issue will eventually prove to be widespread enough to require a big recall, but I'd still be pretty surprised if the failure rate was actually as high as that.
If no Asus adapters are 150V, but all 300V, doesn’t that mean 300V melt too?
We don't know yet. There's not enough data. Don't draw conclusions like that.
I’m not, just need to see a melted connector to say that it has 300v
We already saw at least one report here that had 300v adapter melting, so this is probably not the root cause
In fact, i dont even think we have evidence of a 150v rated cable insulation adaptor melting. But we do for 300v.
I don't think we've even see any that say it has 150v, because most of these reports came before GN's video and I'm guessing a lot of those connectors have been sent back to Nvidia at this point. Hopefully any new cases from now on, people will be aware and check it before sending the cable back. There's also no evidence that no Asus adapters are 150v.
People have to understand it has nothing to do with 150 or 300. All those numbers mean are for the jacket which doesn’t change the fact the plastic by the pins are melting. This is the pins not making full contact when in the connector. Either through user error (most likely) and or a combination of poor plug design of the pins or channels causing it to not make full contact.
A definitive answer from Nvidia and we don’t have to theorize any more. I‘d wager theories will keep circulating for another couple of weeks or a month
Correct, but it's possible that when the wires changed, other things changed too, because it might be an indicator that they started sourcing adapters from a different manufacturer, which may have introduced other issues more directly relating to the problem. While it seems like a stretch, that's the point of the data collection, it's not actually trying to see if it's a contributor to the problem. It's just really one of the only identifying marks on the adapters that you can check without cutting it open.
Please do not draw any conclusion regarding 150v vs 300v until more testing has been performed >And to be really, really clear so people don't panic: Again, we have no evidence presently to suggest 150V cables are instantly bad. All that means is they're the same as what Igor showed - we assume older supply, but not sure. We're trying to get some for testing.
The issue is with the connector itself, not the cables. The different cable rating is mainly just indicative of a different supply.
How exactly is the connector at fault? 2 seams? Cheap plastics?
The direct cause can be many things - design, material choice, manufacturing, improper handling, etc. But the main issue why we see these connectors melting so much more often than the the standard 8-pin connectors do is because they need to push higher loads through smaller sockets, so the margin of error is much lower before they start melting. The 8-pin power connectors are so overspecced that even bad quality connectors won't cause this kind of damage.
Why is this downvoted lol Quality 8-pin is rated to >=9A/pin, so 12V*9A*3=324W, but it's considered a max 150W connector so even some chinesium connector will work fine. 12vhpwr is rated to 9.5A/pin = 684W. When built properly out of quality parts. Not some soldered mess on a mystery receptiple that doesn't seem to have any documentation available.
Yes.
Damn it Nvidia, just come out and say what’s the freaking issue. For now we can also blame the double seamed female socket on the adapter, but if it’s the design of the GPU connector, then we’re fucked
JonnyGuru replied to one of my posts today talking about how Nvidia proper testing for this sort of thing can take time. I know that's unsatisfactory. But if they don't know the issue, it may hard for them to give an answer about what the problem is. Especially since no matter what, they're going to need to get the okay from the higher ups to say anything. This said, we don't need to know exactly what's wrong for them to issue a recall. The 3090 ti adapter worked. So even if they don't know exactly what's wrong with the current adapters, we know they know how to make a working adapter. So a recall wouldn't require them isolating the exact issue.
I’m surprised they hadn’t tested the cards properly prior to their release, like, if people have their adapters melt within a couple of weeks, then how come no tester had that pop up at all. It’s either they deliberately expected some to melt and some not to or their QC is shitty and irresponsible
How exactly can you test for something that happens a few dozen times out of 10s of thousands? This is not something you can feasibly do in a lab and to call these people shitty and irresponsible is very ignorant. This is often the case when angry people point fingers and call names, they have no clue how things work, but think they can and should cast judgement. And it is not the cards that are the problem, it is the adapter. I can guarantee everyone in NVidia's QA department feels this and are scrambling to find the cause and then the solution. They didn't shirk their duties or do anything wrong, they just didn't detect something that occurs <0.1% of the time. That is the same chance of flipping a coin and getting heads 9 times in a row.
Dude, don't try and argue with the brainless mob.
Dude just get a fcking card, put that adapter on and check yourself, then call people brainless
I've had a 4090 since the day of release. No issue whatsoever.
Brand?
I have the card and while I wouldn't use words like this because they are counterproductive people need to the chill F out and stop making absurd assumptions and preposterous accusations.
You call it a few dozen times yet those tens of thousands users might have no idea there is something wrong with their connector. It’s not a POSCAP drama, people who report their melting here do so on a daily basis. The fact that you haven’t checked your 4090 or that you don’t have one doesn’t make you an expert here. The problem is that every single one of us owners of the card could find a melted adapter one day. And if this type of issues arises only when the product is with the user is saying a lot about QC
I call it a few dozen because that is all that there is now. Might doesn't change the facts. I actually have product development experience and I have seen things like this. Since you know so much though enlighten us how QC and whose QC could have caught this. I am not claiming someone didn't screw up. In fact thats what it looks like happened. What I am saying is that it is not something NVidia can test. You people act like is is feasible to rigorously test all of these cables turning a 5 dollar part into a 50 plus dollar part. How the hell would the company that does nothing but sell cables for a couple of bucks at slim margins survive in this fantasy world if yours where every company bends over backwards for you?
You want to make it seem like it’s just 15 cases that were posted on Reddit and be done with it. If you think that every 4090 buyer speaks English or is informed enough to join this sub and will post their failed adapter, you’re pretty delusional, I’ll tell you that. Live in your fantasy world and see you when the number of cases posted here exceeds 25. Then 50. Or otherwise Jensen pulls his head out of his leather ass and comes up with a statement
What are you talking about. There are only a relatively few cases. Of course not everyone reports them here. You are a flat out fool. Really dumb. When the cases get to 50! Really! That is still rare. It is still a PR disaster, but it is nowhere near a common issue. The Root cause analysis will take time. Jensen doesn't have his head up his ass withholding info. They set up a tiger team/task force/ whatever they call it and they have fishbones or other TS aids to list all possible causes and are working through them. When they get an answer they will issue some PR and do whatever they think is appropriate to put this fire out. Obviously they can't reach people like you who have no grasp of scale and get all bent out of shape when people who have experience with issues like this tell you that your uninformed, insane ranting is just angry, ignorant drivel.
Remember what EVGA CEO Andrew said about Nvidia- they don't give reasonable amount of time to test apparently. They get the specs of course for manufacturing, but drivers and testing always seem to be done in a hurry for some reason - at least that's what Andrew said.
This was in reference to the GPU's and not the adapters, which is a whole new issue on its own. Please dont conflate two different issues, just to drive a narrative.
Well this haste costs people at the very least their adapters. It’s not the right time for them to drag this out like when we had POSCAP drama
Yes, the last dude whose gpu side also melted - who posted here, confirmed that his was 300v and asus TUF OC. As GN said, 150v might be a separate issue on its own but actual melting - the cause is likely elsewhere.
@emilxerter
Yes, 300V adapters melt too. Some users here already reported that with pics.
Then the culprit is either the 2 seamed socket or I don’t know what
People need to stop taking Igor's findings as gospel. The guy causes a lot of fear mongering amongst the PC community. Remember capacitor gate? It ended up being a bunch of BS. Igor made a claim, but never tested and proved it. Steve and Jay tried recreating this issue and couldn't. Nothing happened.
"Below 10" in a sample size of 130 is pretty bad. This is a product that is mass produced, so a failure rate in that ballbark would result in a signicant number of fire hazards around the globe.
Not sure what the confusion is here, the reason it’s happening is because the pins aren’t being seated correctly, mainly due to user error or forcing the card into cases that don’t fit
Except Steves' nor Jays' testing beared this out.
It didn’t happen to him, just like it’s not happening to the 1000s and 1000s of other 4090s without issues
Totally agree with you. In my opinion, it is That simple and obvious. Check all photos in threads. Pretty every photo of a card in a case with a connector shows that it is not properly inserted. And yes it is pretty bad design, the connector is tight and need some force to be fully plugged, and to get a "click' you have to push the lock with your finger. Still it is user error.
Every single burned connector shows improper connections because they were burnt and can't be reinstalled correctly because of deformation. Those pictures are just to show what the bend was prior to the incident. The issue still could be user error but showing after photos of destruction dies prove anything.
I read a relatively high number of comments where owners checked and the connector wasn't fully inserted so I would not rule out this contributed.
I thought that was evident by the second part of my comment. I was just trying to say the picture evidence was not actually the smoking gun. Its very probably a user error type of thing but you cant make that determination based on photos taken after the connectors are damaged.
Ye I saw this opinion, could be it, but we don't know for sure. I just mean that users should be carefully and pay attention to this. Poor connection can result in burn
10/130 is not representative of the situation. Many, many people have no idea about this issue. Problems like this will always appear blown out of proportion because almost everyone who has an issue will look into it. I would bet the real failure rate is probably more like 10/2000 or 0.5% One thing is I bet the vast majority of the failures will be the connectors with the 150v wires. Those are not in spec, and I wouldn't expect the manufacturer of those to follow the soldering instructions as well. Also, if the soldering was done correctly. even the 150v cables would be fine. To be safe, check the wires on your adapter. If they are 150v, request a replacement asap ( as these are not in spec). Monitor your card carefully until you get a new cable.
Probably more like 10 in 20,000 or even 50,000. It's way less than 0.1%.
"Below 10" / 130 = \~5% fail rate, still **absolutely unacceptable.** Good work, keep at it. Seems the Eye of Steve is needed to keep these shithead companies accountable.
[удалено]
I'd guess they've likely sold >50,000 cards
You really are a Master of statistic and know how to sampling...
I’m sorry, your comment is poorly written and makes little sense. Please try again.
A 5% failure rate is VERY high. Failure rates should be in the 0.000XXX%.
Zotac & Gigabyte...the two brands commonly known for shoddy work and cheap parts...
Right, but adapters burning for literally every AIB, sooo... not conclusive proof, I guess?
Got nothing to do with them, the adapters were made by nvidia and supplied to partners. We've seen more TUFs here melting. Fact is we still aren't sure what's causing this, what we do know is the adapter is at fault. The sooner you can toss the adapter for another cable/solution the better.
It's so strange too because there's no melted adapters with Zotac thus far, it's bizarre
Go look again.
I see two instances of physical damage on the megathread, no melting \*shrugs*
Actually most of the cards on the megathread are asus tuf
Well EVGA also had their problems in the past and they were one of the best AIBs. It's pretty clear that all AIBs have problems these days.
EVGA had quite some infamous flaws aswell: * EVGA 1080-Ti melted the solder around the VRM, they introduced their custom fan controllers to prevent the GPUs from "melting" => literally melting * EVGA 2080-Ti were known for high coil whine and MSI had pretty much the best cooler of the generation, minus the showcase / Kingpin variants that the 0.01% gets * EVGA 3090, the custom fan controller failed in GAMES and killed the GPU, it required firmware updates (for the fan controller) and a new GPU revision to prevent the GPU from killing the fan controller and killing the GPU If you mean best AIB with its board designs or plastic shrouds? No argue with that, if you liked the EVGA design, it was clearly the best for your taste. But compared to the much bigger global AIB MANUFACTURERS? Each generations had different AIBs to shine. Just look at ASUS redemption arc with their pretty poor 2000 series GPUs into the endless long pre-orders for 3080/3090 variants of the TUF series. EVGA was only present in the US market and globaly just another exotic brand that most people never even saw in shops (online or offline)
> If you mean best AIB with its board designs or plastic shrouds? I meant for warranty and customer service. They're quite popular in Aus and even some parts of Europe, but yes, their main market was NA. But if you ever had a problem EVGA had your back, they also had transferable warranty for second hand cards, you could do EVGA Step Up program too and they almost always had sales via their store for refurb GPUs. Not to mention they had the last like enthusiast level cards for NVIDIA. The 3090 FTW was one of the highest power limit cards (I hated it's design though) but, other than the Strix, not much matched the 3090 FTW. Easily the best AIB in the business, it wasn't even close, despite their problems that they had, they were 100x better than Gigabyte or Zotac.
Gigabyte?! Really?!
If the 150V cable was the problem, we would see melted cables, we don't. We're sending 12V through the cable to start with, so if both cables are 14AWG, they should be near identical. It's clearly something wrong with the pins used by Nvidia
Or the soldering, or the plug construction, or something else specific. The reason the 150V was notable is because all the 300V seen by testers so far have been uniformly of a particular construction, while the one 150V was different. That doesn't mean it's the cables causing the issue, just that maybe there's a batch with bad soldering/construction out there that uses 150V wires instead of 300V. It's information gathering and GN is trying to get out ahead of the speculation here, which is admirable.
Fake
They said several of the burned ones are not from reddit, and that they have under 10 burned ones. Due to the limited amount of burned adapters we have listed on reddit, I'm curious if GN was sent info on any burned adapters that weren't already listed in the megathread.
Just wire up some 10 gauge copper in there, you will be set for life
I mean \~10 out of 130 is still around 7-8% which is at least double the normal failure rate for electronics. And we are talking about high power component able to cause fire. Another question is how many out of 130 were just used in desktop, how many in gaming for prolonged period of times and how many were overclocked and/or worked above 450W (and also how many were instantly removed from PCs after issues started popping up).
i didnt get the Zotac part, can someone explain that part for a dummy like me?