The Nvidia drama just got worse asTom’s Hardwarehas reported on an Nvidia RTX 4090 power connector meltdown. This comes hot on the heels of stories of theGPU’s 16-pin power adapter overheating and melting.
“Maybe the first burnt connector with native ATX3.0 cable,” redditoru/nk950357 posted, along with a photo of a melted connector. The photo shows a 12VHPWR power connector from the RTX 4090’s own native power supply. This doesn’t appear to be a case of using a cheap third-party power supply.
It’s been a bad week for Nvidia, with nearly two dozen reports of melting 16-pin power adapters hitting the headlines. One 4090 evenburst into flames. While the 4090 is a powerful graphics card, there’s clearly a problem here. AMD latched onto it anddunked on Nvidiaduring its RDNA 3 launch.
“There’s no need to for a new power adapter,” head of graphics at AMD, Scott Herkelman, said during the event.
Nvidia said itwill replace any unit with a 16-pin power adapter that has melted, but now it seems there are new components melting.
The Reddit post follows the same post on Facebook from a user called Ricky TO. Although written in Chinese, the post explains he used an MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming X Trio 24G card. He chose to go with the native ATX3.0 power supply rather than risk trouble with the 16-pin power adapter.
If you are using a GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, you are probably feeling nervous right now. You canuse an adapterand potentially void your warranty. Likewise, you may want to stick to your CPU’s integrated graphics for the time being until we hear more about this issue, and any potential fixes.
The problem could be much bigger than issues with the power supply. It could be an issue with the RTX 4090 itself, or at least something with the quality of the components that make up the 12VHPWR power connector. Nvidia hasn’t said anything yet as it continued to investigate. This latest melting component doesn’t make us feel any more confident.
