NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPU Burning Issues Reported: New 16-Pin Connector at Fault?

If you are in the market for the most powerful GPU, the RTX 4090 is the only option, at least until the launch of the Navi 31-based AMD Ryzen 7000 series. While the RTX 4090 is known as a power-guzzling GPU, a new report of RTX 4090 melting has been reported on various social media platforms.

According to a Twitter user Vectral555, "another" RTX 4090's (ASUS 4090 TUF OC) power connector has been damaged. This indicates that several users are facing similar issues on their shiny new RTX 4090, which is also one of the most expensive mainstream GPUs that NVIDIA has launched.

Is The New 12VHPWR Connector at fault?

According to the original Reddit post, the user was playing "Black Desert" with his dungeon party and his screen went black and fans started spinning at full tilt. When he powered off the PC and inspected the GPU, the power adapter showed heat-related damage.

In another similar case, a user was playing Red Dead Redemption 2, and his RTX 4090 caught on fire. Several users are reporting that the new 12VHPWR PCIe Gen5 connector that NVIDIA supplies is so huge that users are acutely bending the cable to accommodate it, especially in smaller cases.

Will Users with damaged RTX 4090 get refunds?

A faulty low-quality connector could easily melt and cause fire hazards, especially when delivering more than 500 watts of power. However, in the aforementioned cases, users claim that they are using the official cable that has been supplied with the graphics card.

This means two things could have caused these blunders. A loosely meshed connector creates an air gap between the male and female pins, which is enough to cause arcing under heavy loads. The electric arc, or arc discharge, can generate enough heat to melt the connector and cause fires.

Alternatively, if the connector is too loose, the lack of contact between some pins can force the hardware to draw all the current from fewer pins, which in turn overloads the working cables to the point that they overheat and catch fire.

Several AIB partners are now issuing do's and don'ts on RTX 4090 graphics cards, which will help users to protect their expensive graphics cards. If you have an RTX 4090, make sure that all 16-pins are making proper contact with the connector on the graphics card.

Similarly, do not bend the connector at the end. It is interesting to see if NVIDIA/AIB partners will issue a refund or a replacement card for the users with burned RTX 4090, as these cards are clearly unusable and non-repairable. While NVIDIA has acknowledged this issue, it remains to be seen if the company will accept its fault or will blame it on the users.

Via