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Check Your 4090's 12vhpwr Connectors To Make Sure They are in Pristine Condition

Twinz said:
If they are hell-bent on using this connector for asthetics, then they need the GPU's to be able to track each pair's current, and shut down when something is out of whack.
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It's not just astethics though, is it? It's the size - their boards are so tiny now in comparison to the number of components on them that they have no space for 8pin nor they have space for better design of power rails on the board and any safeguards. They really need to get back to the drawing board with the design of boards, it feels.
 
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Tinek said:
It's not just astethics though, is it? It's the size - their boards are so tiny now in comparison to the number of components of them that they have no space for 8pin nor they have space for better design of power rails on the board and any safeguards. They really need to get back to the drawing board with the design of boards, it feels.
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That's a good point, the PCBs are tiny on most of the cards. I bet they have calculated the margins on these things too, cost savings before returns.

Probably why they stripped it out of the 3000 series, see that a lot, when something is first introduced it has more safety features and then they're cut over time.
 
Tetras said:
Probably why they stripped it out of the 3000 series, see that a lot, when something is first introduced it has more safety features and then they're cut over time.
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"It'll be fine, what's the worst that can happen? We sell millions of these anyway, so even 10p savings is huge." - most likely. This always happens and that's why we have safety standards that force companies to stop cutting all cost possible on safeguards.
 
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It's sad that this device even needs to exist, but:
www.tomshardware.com

Nvidia's 16-pin time bomb could be defused by this $95 gadget — Ampinel offers load balancing that Nvidia forgot to include

Ampinel could be the salvation for 16-pin power connectors.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
ay83UcJdeHuzjHpdSmc5i8-1200-80.jpg.webp
 
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If only Nvidia built the ability into the card to balance the load across each pin in the first place, or even shut the card down when individual pins received far too much current, then most of this crap could have been avoided. They charge enough bloody money for the cards to build this in, 12VHPWR is just a **** poor design to begin with, along with pretty much zero safety features.
 
I originally wrote it off as incompatible with the FE models, but a M to F 12VHPWR extension cable would allow the device to be "mounted" somewhere in the case rather than sticking off the GPU at an awkward angle.

While cable extensions add another possible point of failure, the device should detect overcurrent/uneven loading even with an extension cable in-line with the GPU connector.
 
pastymuncher said:
I see this as a cash grab that's trading on peoples fears. A whopping 80 euros for something that the cards should already be doing, after all they cost enough to buy them. This connector needs to just disappear and go back to 8 pin cables that had nothing wrong with them.
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I fully agree with that. Having seen the photos of the melted connectors its scary
 
Still not seen any melting issues with people using both an ATX 3.1 PSU with ATX 3.1 cables.
Every melting issue I've seen they are still using ATX 3.0 spec for one of the above
 
no_1_dave said:
Still not seen any melting issues with people using both an ATX 3.1 PSU with ATX 3.1 cables.
Every melting issue I've seen they are still using ATX 3.0 spec for one of the above
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I consider this to be coincidence or even sample bias. (New spec probably has fewer examples in the wild and thus fewer opportunities to fail) I can't think of anything in the specs that does anything for the GPU side of things. The shorter sense pins in the latest connector-specs help deal with one mode of failure but do nothing to balance the load.
 
Twinz said:
he adapters with 3 and 4 8-pin-connectors give the user far more opportunities to improperly conect the 8-pin connectors than the single 12-pin, yet only one side of the adapters are melting.

The 8-pin connector has been in the wild since man discovered fire and the 12VHPWR just showed up, that's why I think the included adapters give the most relevant data point with respect to the user-error theory.

I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that only one individual at a time is plugging in *all* connectors on those adapters, and the fact that the adapters only fail on the 12-pin side is information we can (and should) use.
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I've been using my 4x adapter that came with the card since release day with only 3 plugged in.
afaik the 4th one only unlocks overclocking and everyone downvolts anyway.

never checked my cable in years :D
 
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arknor said:
I've been using my 4x adapter that came with the card since release day with only 3 plugged in.
afaik the 4th one only unlocks overclocking and everyone downvolts anyway.

never checked my cable in years :D
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I got a clamp meter and I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't recognize the adapter that comes with the 5090 FE only has 8 cables, (not 12) until I tried to write down the current going through each cable. Each pcie connector has two (thick) cables, but I never noticed until now.

The new adapter cables are thick enough that they probably more than compensate for having fewer cables than pins, but I switched back to my cablemod PSU-direct cable just so I can determine the current going through each pin in the 12-pin connector. I'm curious how the current from 8 cables gets distributed to 12 pins, so I may spend some time checking continuity to figure it out on the weekend.

*Edit* All the ground pins, are connected to each other, and all the +12V pins are connected to each other within the new adapter. So it's basically just two rails on the connector now.
 
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HX1000i with the Corsair 600W cable since day 1, have not touched it once since install and still all good.
 
So far, my Zotac Extreme Airo 4090 is still working great with the AX1600i using a cablemod extension adapter running over three 8x pin cables, though I could do it with two of them.

Cards has been powered on 24/7 for almost three years without a single issue thankfully. The cable has been removed and reinserted three times due to an NVMe upgrade, then a system upgrade from AM4 to AM5.
 
Seriously annoyed with Nvidia and this silly connector, just bring back the 8pin connector or create a better safer one. I read on here some are saying 3.1 PSU's are not having this problem but that's not true there are many examples of the MSI one with the yellow end to even help make sure the connector is in right melting, yes maybe user error or some other issue but the problem seems to still be about and we shouldn't have to buy other additions to protect the connector.

Connector needs changing and load balancing on the pins needs to be a standard safety feature on these cards. I really hope by the time they get to the 60xx series they have done something about this and what to this day still puts me off buying a 40xx or 50xx series card and of course the pricing has gone mad on the xx90 cards which I would be wanting.:rolleyes:
 
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