Nvidia issued a statement regarding the RTX 4090 GPU and the ongoing investigation into power supply meltdowns.
Team Green notes that a common problem with reported 12VHPWR adapters melting is that they were not plugged in properly, and the company estimates there have been about 50 such cases worldwide.
Nvidia he wrote (opens in a new tab): “We are actively investigating the reports. We know about 50 cases worldwide. Our findings so far suggest that a common problem is that the connectors are not fully plugged into the graphics card.
“To ensure the connector is secure, we recommend that you first connect the dongle to the graphics card to ensure it is well and evenly connected before connecting the graphics card to the motherboard.”
Nvidia concludes: “We are exploring additional ways to ensure the connector is secure before powering on the graphics card.”
Team Green also provided several images showing the adapter being seated correctly and another where it is not fully plugged in.
Analysis: Scale of the problem
Those affected by the melting adapter issue will benefit from an “accelerated RMA process, regardless of cable or card used,” so replacement RTX 4090 cards will be issued quickly to all affected users.
That’s good to hear, as a user error here is implied that the adapter wasn’t fully plugged in – but even if it was, Nvidia will replace the faulty graphics card because Gamers Nexus (GN) explained (opens in a new tab). Nvidia told GN: “Anyone who has a problem [with the melting adapter] will be taken care of. We’ll expedite the RMA.”
GN has also received the approximate number of RTX 4090 units sold so far (from management partners) and estimates it to be around 125,000 units, which if 50 graphics cards were found to have a problem according to Nvidia’s official figures, that’s 0.04 % RTX 4090 users are affected (add your own spices but this gives you some idea the problem is not widespread).
Nevertheless, the situation remains worrying and we’ll be interested to see what Nvidia can advise on the mention of “extra ways” to secure the PSU connector.
Since we started hearing about the adapter not seated properly as a possible cause of cables melting, the obvious concern is that even if the thing is properly connected to begin with, if it’s under any kind of load – and bent around to fit in, for example, a side panel – there is a danger that it will eventually run loose and cause problems.
Hopefully Nvidia will have further advice on hand soon.
By Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab)