Nvidia believes the RTX 4090’s cables came undone because they weren’t fully connected

Weeks after Nvidia said it was investigating reports that its RTX 4090 graphics card’s power cables were melting and catching fire, the company says it may know why: They weren’t fully connected.

inside Join the customer support forum Nvidia said on Friday it was still investigating the reports, but its findings “suggest” that insecure linking is a common problem. He also says there have been about 50 reports of the problem.

Nvidia’s flagship card uses a so-called 12VHPWR power connector, a new standard that is not supported by most existing PC power supplies. That’s why the box comes with an adapter, or “power supply,” as Friday’s report calls it. Initial reports from users blamed the adapter, and some said the fusion cable also damaged the $1,599 GPU.

The company’s achievements can easily be seen as a blame for users. Naturally, Nvidia fails correctly and To say It’s a user error, but it’s somewhat implied by the message. It also seems like a pretty fitting explanation, as people have been speculating for nearly a month that the problem is something more complicated, like bad soldering or wires too small to safely handle the sheer amount of power being pumped through.

wager, for gamersThe portal, which is respected in the PC-building community for its rigorous testing, came to the same conclusion earlier this week. video Posted from port on Wednesdaywho examined broken adapters sent in by viewers and conducted extensive testing and reporting of the problem, showed the connectors had wear lines, meaning they weren’t fully seated in the slot. for gamers He also says that some people appear to have lost complete contact by several millimeters. His video shows that a loose connection can cause the plug to overheat if it is badly connected and angled.

Nvidia’s post includes a picture of what the connector looks like when it’s not fully connected, and it seems like it’s easier to miss than one that’s 2mm full and held at an angle (perhaps the cables were pulled too hard during the ‘installation). It would be easier to miss a third-party RTX 4090 than the Nvidia version shown in the images below.

If you have one of these cards on your computer, you may want to double check that the card looks the same as the card below.

However, it should be noted that Nvidia may not completely No flaws here. The other thing excluded from the picture you posted is that the connector has a locking switch. In theory, this is a feature that should prevent this sort of thing from happening, as long as it provides good feedback when you plug it in. according to for gamersHowever, the adapters click silently into place even when fully inserted.

Regardless, tests from Nvidia and GamersNexus don’t appear to point to manufacturing defects as the main culprit (a video released Wednesday claimed that debris left behind during production may have been a contributing factor). In any case, an anonymous company representative did it Tell me for gamers on Fridays that “any cable or GPU burnt issue no matter cable or GPU” will be fixed for replacement.