Hundreds of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs still vulnerable to ’12VHPWR’ connector issues, says repair shop owner

Owners of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs are still vulnerable to ’12VHPWR’ connector issues that include melting and burning, according to reports NorthridgeFix.

The popular repair channel reveals large quantities of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs that are still victims of “12VHPWR” connector problems.

The history of the GeForce RTX 4090 and its annoying 12VHPWR connector began almost as soon as the card was launched. We saw our first report followed by more cases that eventually led to PCI-SIG issuing a design change notice and NVIDIA declaring that the issue was nothing more than a “user error.”

Despite being on the market for a year now, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 GPUs are still prone to “annoying” 12VHPWR connector melting/burning issues, and NorthridgeFix has revealed that they are still getting “20 to 25 graphics cards per week” which is… Quantity shocker. Furthermore, the repairman also revealed that he buys a “customized breathing mask” when he is repairing, to avoid potential health risks due to the burning smell and exposure, as he has to deal with many similar cases, and welding all day long can lead to toxic hazards. In his store.

We get them so much that I bought myself this Hiroshima mask, so I don’t have to smell burning on those connectors. It smells ten times like fireworks. It can’t be healthy to keep smelling burnt connectors.

– Northridge Fix

The rest of the video includes descriptions of parts of the repair process, but nothing worth mentioning except the huge “volumes” of GPUs that were victims of the 12VHPWR power connector. Furthermore, the issue is not limited to a specific vendor/model, as models from ASUS, MSI, ZOTAC, and Gigabyte have all been revealed to be affected by the issue. Hence, you do not have to worry about a specific model, but rather we advise you to adhere to some precautions. We have a handy guide on how to ensure a 12VHPWR cable connector is connected here.

One of the common reasons why consumers encounter the problem in the first place is because the power connectors are not fully connected to the graphics card, resulting in poor connection strength and resulting in disruptions in the power delivery process. While adoption of the 12VHPWR standard was huge with the release of Ada GPUs, companies seem to have developed more “reliable” alternatives, the most notable of which is the 12V-2×6 power connector.

This connector is already being used with the latest production batch and on newer cards like the RTX 4070. A few RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 GPUs have even been seen with these sockets. However, the vast majority of GeForce RTX 4090 cards still use the older design, so they require more care and handling. We’ve also seen angled adapters and connectors prone to burning and melting although companies like Cablemod have released a fix that seems to be working fine at the moment. As for reports, we’ve already gotten insight from the Asian market where you’ll see burnt or melted connectors on the RTX 4090 on a daily basis.

It seems that users who have a burnt NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card have no other way but to get their cards repaired from a reputed hardware repair shop or else they will end up with an expensive paperweight.

News source: Northridge repair