It's happening again, melting 12v high pwr connectors

[ShrimpBrime]

My bad. Didn't actually read them. I typed in "3090 power melt" that those came up.

You guys can dogpile all you want, I know damn well there was a problem with them as I personally RMA'd two of different cards, one EVGA and one Gigabyte. I was not alone.. The problem wasn't as widespread as the 4000 series, but it started with the 3000s.

No worries. This was talked about a bit at OCN. Worth a read maybe. But these where 8 pin connectors I mentioned 2 dozen pages back already.

CableMod PCI-E cable connector melted in my RTX3090 :(

www.overclock.net

 

[lexluthermiester]

No worries. This was talked about a bit at OCN. Worth a read maybe. But these where 8 pin connectors I mentioned 2 dozen pages back already.

CableMod PCI-E cable connector melted in my RTX3090 :(

www.overclock.net

Exactly. Saw that post. There were melted connectors & cables for both types.

 

[x4it3n]

My bad. Didn't actually read them. I typed in "3090 power melt" that those came up.

You guys can dogpile all you want, I know damn well there was a problem with them as I personally RMA'd two different cards, one EVGA and one Gigabyte. I was not alone.. The problem wasn't as widespread as the 4000 series, but it started with the 3000s.

There is definitely an issue for sure, but the 3090 Ti didn't have that issue due to the power design as far as I (and even YT channels) are aware of.

When you compare the PCBs of 3090, 3090 Ti, 4090 and 5090 you can notice the difference right away :
The 3090 Ti is the only one having 3 shunts resistors that distributed power over all the cables the other ones had 2 (3040, 4090) or 1 (5090). And 3 was the right move apparently.

The AD102 and GB202 Engineering Samples even had 4x 16-pin connectors apparently :

https://x.com/9550pro/status/1889237955665125502

Why did they not even keep 2x 16-pin on the 5090 knowing that it has a 575W TDP and the cable is rated for 600W with a very limited safety factor compared to 8-pins, go figure...
Sure the PCB of the 5090 FE should have been changed to be slightly bigger but it would have been so much safer !

 

[lexluthermiester]

There is definitely an issue for sure, but the 3090 Ti didn't have that issue due to the power design as far as I (and even YT channels) are aware of.

When you compare the PCBs of 3090, 3090 Ti, 4090 and 5090 you can notice the difference right away :
The 3090 Ti is the only one having 3 shunts resistors that distributed power over all the cables the other ones had 2 (3040, 4090) or 1 (5090). And 3 was the right move apparently.

The AD102 and GB202 Engineering Samples even had 4x 16-pin connectors apparently :

https://x.com/9550pro/status/1889237955665125502

Why did they not even keep 2x 16-pin on the 5090 knowing that it has a 575W TDP and the cable is rated for 600W with a very limited safety factor compared to 8-pins, go figure...
Sure the PCB of the 5090 FE should have been changed to be slightly bigger but it would have been so much safer !

View attachment 387118

Fair enough. You kinda highlighted the very point some of us have been trying to make. The electrical math says it should work, but only in Ideal situations where perfect connections are maintained. Real life is something else. The connector needs to be over-designed, IE leaves room for error and less than ideal conditions. That's not the case. This "new"(latest) connector leaves no room for error and the result is unsafe, melting connectors and cables which is a fire hazard..

 

[jnv11]

The whole reason 12VHPWR exists is to be a single connector. I can't see Nvidia ever allowing dual 12VHPWR. I can't see them ever fixing it though either Melting issues are unlikely to affect anyone except 90 series owners and there's so few of them, they probably don't care.

Personally I don't understand why it's not a violation of some electrical standard.

Nvidia has allowed 2 of these connectors in Galax's GeForce RTX 4090 HOF as seen in https://www.galax.com/en/graphics-card/hof/geforce-rtx-4090-hof.html .

 

[lexluthermiester]

Nvidia has allowed 2 of these connectors

"Allowed" is the wrong word. NVidia has no say in AIB board designs. They can do almost whatever they want.

However, that is a better design. This is what I was talking about with @freeagent earlier. Spreading the load is the right way to design any high current power circuit.
This is what we're talking about;

 

[pavle]

"Allowed" is the wrong word. NVidia has no say in AIB board designs. They can do almost whatever they want.

However, that is a better design. This is what I was talking about with @freeagent earlier. Spreading the load is the right way to design any high current power circuit.
This is what we're talking about;
View attachment 387121

If they were honest, they would have written 375W x 2 (750W) max. power and not some fanatic adherence to the number of a man.