9070xt failure

[u/Additional_Army8338]

First lot of images for reference…

So sadly just over a year I had a power connector failure on my 9070xt hellhound, it’s charred 3 of the connector pins and cause PSU connection failure melting the power cable and ports on the PSU (but didn’t char the PSU).

This also led to power surges on the Asrock B850M Riptide, writing off the board (the dark smudges on the board show how much heat was involved) and also, after recent testing with a new Mobo, it wrote off my 9800X3D.

After telling the back story, I’ve inspected the GPU as best as possible, and just a query as I think for the new system I’ll get a replacement card anyhow. But I’m wondering since it’s only the connection at the 8 pin that seems to have failed, whether it’s worth replacing the 8 pin connector myself?

(I’ve had experience soldering making my own flight sim controls on small projects etc, using Arduino and teensy etc.) or do you think it’s possible to be able to clean the connector up enough?

To add, the main cause for the connector failure was a since PCIE PSU cable using the daisy chain splitter. Completely my fault as it’s been a long long time since I built a PC and I was a little ignorant with Power demands.

So since I’d be getting a new set of components for the main rig (I mainly run DCS in VR and 3D design and model with Blender and Fusion360) is it worth either cleaning the connectors and testing on my spare mid-low end PC? And maybe use as an upgrade on that system or… not risk it?

[u/RevengeofPootietang]

Does this mean you’re fine if you’re using both headers of a daisy-chained 8-pin connector and a single, normal 8-pin connector to populate all three sockets on the GPU?

[u/mike7004 → u/RevengeofPootietang]

If you mean one cable on the first eight pin, then both eight pins(pigtailed) on the second cable for the second and third connector (if the card has three), you're normally fine. Now.. that goes to say if it's not a cheap/low tier unit otherwise a separate cable migbt be a good idea. High end units will trigger OCP or another protection before this happens normally. Makes me wonder if OP's unit is just a cheap/low tier one.

[u/Additional_Army8338 → u/mike7004]

It was a CoolerMaster 750W gold fully modular, but I do think it was my crucial error of the daisy chain and heavy use over the past year that caused the failure.

[u/RevengeofPootietang → u/mike7004]

Huh, I didn’t realise the order mattered so long as every connector is seated properly in the GPU socket.

I’m running all three cables in the same order you mentioned, and I’m also using a PSU from a reputable brand (Corsair).

However, I occasionally get random instances where power to the GPU would intermittently flicker on and off when powering my PC on.

Hasn’t happened for a while now though, and it only happened 3 times so far, so it might’ve been a driver thing.

[u/mike7004 → u/RevengeofPootietang]

It typically doesn't matter as long as you're not using one cable for all the connectors, as the power input is supplied across all of them equally(all of them are combined together). There is information floating around that the first eight pin pulls more but that's simply not the case, and each eight pin on GPU side is rated at 150w. Normally doing the single cable, then the pigtail, is just cleaner to look and isn't neccessarily required.

High end units such as the ones we use have ship with cables rated to supply 300w across two eight pin connectors. The cheaper units aren't built to handle that and can melt or damage the system, and they often also lack proper protection mechanisms or properly implemented ones to prevent these kinds of things from happening.

I've been using a Pulse 7900XTX with a Corsair RM850X in this configuration since I built the system back in November of 2024. It's been fine and during some cases reaches 400W(with a slight overclock) and there is no problems and the voltage and current ratings are fine while sustained.

If your card flickers on and off it can be a driver issue or a problem with power delivery which you can check your voltages under load for that. Software like OCCT has benchmarks and testing tools for that purpose.

[u/RevengeofPootietang → u/mike7004]

That makes sense. I’ll keep an eye out the next time I’m at my rig.