RTX 5090 owners reporting that their power cables are melting

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Current Events » RTX 5090 owners reporting that their power cables are melting
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/02/handful-of-users-claim-new-nvidia-gpus-are-melting-power-cables-again/
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There needs to be a new disruptive company in molex connectors. A way out of this mess.
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The first instance involved an aftermarket PSU cable, which is asking for trouble, but the same thing happening with the one that came with the PSU is worrying.
http://i.imgur.com/szMsu.png
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Nvidia should have just gone with a bunch of the old 8-pin pcie connectors instead of the 12v one.

Or do this.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6ef590f3.jpg
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Nvidia won't even stop when gaming rigs max out a 15 amp circuit.
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Shouldn't be a problem with the right cooling set up:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b5d48f3f.jpg
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Post #8 was unavailable or deleted.
Crono99 posted...
Wasn't it the same with the 4090?
yeah i remember there was a lot of users reporting their power cable burning seriously with that huge power draw it's expected to happen and let's not forget how hot those card will get during summer heatwave that is why i don't go for high end cards last thing i need is my pc becoming a space heater that burns down my apartment
"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty." - Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
Make sure your cables are plugged in well, folks. That was the issue with the 4000 series.
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death to Nvidia
after years of waiting
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SkittyOnWailord posted...
Nvidia should have just gone with a bunch of the old 8-pin pcie connectors instead of the 12v one.

Or do this.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/6ef590f3.jpg
No. I have a card with three PCIe connectors on it and its a pain in the ass. Plus, the third one died and I had to RMA the card. One cable is infinitely preferable to 3. But Id advise an ATX 3.1 / PCIe 5.1 PSU with at least one actual 12V2x6 connector as opposed to the old one from ATX 3.0 PSUs or worse, an adapter with an ATX 2.0 PSU.

Even as is, the failures have been an extremely low percentage of users, as long as theyre fully seated. But the problem has only been with 90 level cards, and IMO theyre pulling too much power and current. There are PSUs with 2 of those connectors, so I dont know why the 90 level cards dont have two connectors to share the load. If you can afford a 5090, you can damn sure afford a fancy top of the line ATX 3.1 PSU with two of those connectors on it.
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Foppe posted...
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3389f7e8.jpg

Fires in games are producing real heat.
Bad Faith User
Foppe posted...
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/3389f7e8.jpg
lol

SwayM posted...
Fires in games are producing real heat.
pc gaming upping the bar for immersive gaming to a new godly level
"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty." - Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
Once again, hoping I don't need to repeat myself, technology needs to play catchup before we start to aim for 120fps/4k. We need to find a way to have these higher cards draw less power. Keep in mind that US plugs only go up to half what European outlets supply.
lmfao, spending like 2,000 dollars to have that shit eventually melt into the floor and building some goonies caverns to explore.
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Ivany2008 posted...
Once again, hoping I don't need to repeat myself, technology needs to play catchup before we start to aim for 120fps/4k. We need to find a way to have these higher cards draw less power. Keep in mind that US plugs only go up to half what European outlets supply.
and old house/apartment aren't safe to draw huge power like space heaters from what my brother told me it's very dangerous for any system to draw over 1000 watts cuz the breaker can't handle them safely and won't trip in most cases cuz some cheap skated only put a higher amp breaker on a lower amp power cable
"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty." - Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
Honestly, I think graphics should just stop.
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Powdered_Toast posted...
Honestly, I think graphics should just stop.

To be honest, PS5 shouldn't have been set for 4K initially. It should have taken all the bells and whistles of PS4 and just improved on them. Lower latency and load times, improve the hardware stability, and in 2-3 years from now, in 2027, that's when they could have went all out with 4K, because technology would have caught up by them, or at least should have.
The Quadro cards never had this issue and they are beefier
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PraetorXyn posted...
No. I have a card with three PCIe connectors on it and its a pain in the ass. Plus, the third one died and I had to RMA the card. One cable is infinitely preferable to 3.

I'd rather have more cables that might need to be RMA'd than one that can melt and then need to be RMA'd anyway.
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They spent all that time shrinking the FE cooler and they're still pushing too much power through their new cables.
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Again?
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Post #28 was unavailable or deleted.
Lets be honest, graphics didnt need to evolve past MGS4
This is just going to get worse and worse with every successive generation of cards
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Melting rigs. Games and videos that take up a third of your disk drive. Maybe time to evolve and master what we have for a while
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LividDK posted...
Shouldn't be a problem with the right cooling set up:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/3/30c1f637.jpg
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when i buy a GPU, i expect it not to melt other parts of my PC.
Post #34 was unavailable or deleted.
SkittyOnWailord posted...
I'd rather have more cables that might need to be RMA'd than one that can melt and then need to be RMA'd anyway.
At least with the one you immediately know what the problem is. The third PCIe connector dying was a ball ache to troubleshoot. I tested with a friends power supply (which only had two connectors) and things spun up but it wouldnt post, so I RMAed my power supply first, then the replacement I bought did the same thing. Thats when I finally figured it out, and returned the replacement to Amazon, let EVGA know the PSU wasnt the problem, and RMAd the card.

Im not aware of a single report of failure on the 80 and under cards, only the 90s. I agree they should have done two connectors on the 90 models to divide the current load.
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monkmith posted...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb5YzMoVQyw

so nvidia intentionally fucked their power connector on 5090 cards? by design the cards dont current balance, so in best case you're never going to see even draw on any of the wires. and in worse case, say if one of the pins doesn't perfectly seat or theres some corrosion, it's just going to pull from one or two wires and melt them.
yeah this seems bad
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So much power
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Ratchetrockon posted...
So much power

Nvidia:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/2966e3d7.jpg
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It's not just 5090s, 5080s are also melting connections. Yikes Nvidia.
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Nvidia and their partners need less pristine labs for this kind of testing. This is disturbing.

I would really like to see atx12vo and connectors enhanced by an industry consortium to end this madness. If you can't power a card through the PCIe slot itself, we need an idiot proof and fault tolerant single cable solution that can.
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Starks posted...
Nvidia and their partners need less pristine labs for this kind of testing. This is disturbing.

I would really like to see atx12vo and connectors enhanced by an industry consortium to end this madness. If you can't power a card through the PCIe slot itself, we need an idiot proof and fault tolerant single cable solution that can.
What Im curious about is whether this is possible to replicate with a ATX 3.1 / PCIe 5.1 PSU and an AIB card. The FE seems riddled with problems because of the 3 board ribbon cable design, plus its much louder than AIB cards like the Suprim.

But they could have used two EPS cables. Those are rated for 300 W each.
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monkmith posted...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB75fEt7tH0

video really emphasizes the design flaw here. nvidia designed their power solution without any safety buffer. it cant tell how much power is being drawn down the 6 power lines, hell it cant even tell if all but one of the power lines is cut. if there's anything messed up with the power line or plug, maybe a manufacturing defect or a badly kinked wire, then the card will just pull more power from one of the other lines regardless.

it really just looks like nvidia has shit engineers designing their card layout. they went with something that looks nice, a unified 12 pin plug without any load balancing capability, over just sticking with the multiple plugs that previous generations used.

i think the best take away from this is that if you've got a 50xx card you should ignore whatever 12pin cable might have come with your psu and just use the nvidia dongle that converts 3/4 8pin plugs into the 12pin plug. the 8pin plugs from your psu are very likely bulletproof, just hope that you didn't get a defective dongle with a slightly sunken pin connector that doesn't perfectly seat the pin. also a good idea to make sure your case has good air flow.
yeah the flaw is the card design itself
"You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty." - Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
I am sure that Nvidia will own up to this, in 10 years, when all the cards are out of warranty.
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Current Events » RTX 5090 owners reporting that their power cables are melting