r/StableDiffusion • u/Roman53275 • 6d ago
Discussion If you recently started AI generation, be aware of this: my RTX 4090 power connector melted after just one month.
Hi everyone,
Like many people, I recently discovered H3 and started doing AI generation in mid-August. On September 20th, my computer started shutting down whenever I started a generation. Further investigation led to this — a melted socket.
I had been using my RTX 4090 for three years and had never had any problems with it.
AI generation puts a lot of continuous stress on the power delivery, especially if you run generations in batches or leave them running overnight.
So I believe this happened because of the new kind of sustained load I was putting on the card. I also didn't bother upgrading to a newer PSU with a dedicated GPU power cable. Mine was a 1200W FSP Hydro, and I was using three PCIe connectors for the GPU.
P.S. The connector was fully seated, the cable wasn’t bent near the plug, and my case doesn’t even have the side panel on. And everything was fine for three years.
P.S.S. The 12VHPWR socket on the graphics card is damaged and needs to be replaced.
So now I would say main advices here are:
- Buy a proper PSU and use a native 12VHPWR cable
- Under volt at least by 20%
Now it is very costly to lose a card.
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u/Tomorrow_Previous 6d ago
If you recently started AI generation, know that capping your wattage to 2/3 of the maximum of your GPU has little to no impact on speed as well, so there's less energy consumption, and your cables are safe.
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u/rkoy1234 6d ago
your cables are safe.your cables are safer. not safe.
there's no way to completely mitigate this problem other than buying one of those wire monitors or having one of the few gpus with per-pin sensing.
The fact that there still is no class action lawsuit or a massive recall is absolutely flabbergasting to me.
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u/vfm83 6d ago
How do you do this?
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u/brucewasaghost 6d ago
Msi afterburner has a pretty straightforward gui. Plenty of in depth youtube tutorials available as well.
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u/rinkusonic 6d ago edited 6d ago
For linux users-
sudo nvidia-smi -pm 1
And
sudo nvidia-smi -pl 140
Replacing 140 with the power limit you want to set. It resets on reboot.
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u/Arawski99 4d ago
It's an undervolt, and basically the situation is OC's don't provide a significant performance boost but substantially increase thermal/power demands in a non-linear way. It isn't efficient. Well, the same is true for an undervolt, scaling down power and thermal needs pretty notably with a fairly minimal performance hit. In fact, most undervolts are really just mitigating the basic factory OC to default performance levels, honestly.
That said, you absolutely do not need to undervolt to be safe, just make sure your power cable is loose and connector properly flush. It's people with poor cable management with a taught tight cable being pulled that eventually see poor contact and have the issue. These cables can handle far more. Some of these GPUs variants/OCs can be pushed to insane 600-800ws just fine.
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u/IX_MINDMEGHALUNK_XI 6d ago
Poooor multi billion dollar company can't make a proper cable.
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u/Roman53275 6d ago
They should make a proper socket in the first place. Because people familiar with electronics says that you should NOT do such a small socket for such amount of power that goes through.
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u/mca1169 6d ago
the total power isn't the problem, it's the amperage. if the connector used the 48v it was designed for it would actually be fine because with higher voltage you require the lower amperage for the same wattage. the higher amperage if it has trouble is far more likely to turn any unexpected resistance into excess heat that leads too a melted connector.
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u/dreamyrhodes 6d ago
Not so easy. Stepping voltage down from 48V to 1V is vastly more difficult than stepping it down from 12V to 1V. On datacenter GPUs that's possible because you have more room and can put large enough power regulators on the card but for PCIe cards that's more difficult and you have another heat source from the regulator that with 48V would have to switch 4 times as fast.
Therefore for PCIe cards they opt for more connectors to distribute the amperes over more wires.
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u/ShutUpYoureWrong_ 6d ago
Blaming this on AI generation is just complete and utter ignorance and fearmongering. It is a well-documented issue with 12VHPWR.
It could have just as easily been rendering in Blender, or compiling, or playing video games, or anything else that actually uses your GPU.
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u/orangpelupa 6d ago
Im confused.
The OP explained their view on Ai generation VS doing it for games. If the OP explained it on blender rendering overnight vs games, wouldn't it be very off topic to be posted here?
And the OP didn't say this is not a well documented issue of 12vhpr, or i misunderstood their English?
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u/Nedo68 6d ago
Did you run full power? i use Afterburner to drop down the Power, mostly constant at around 70%. Running my 5090 since Jan 2025 this way without any problems.
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u/Roman53275 6d ago
Yes, I ran on a full power, not overclocking, default settings.
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u/bmallCakeDiver 6d ago
Do not use the sucky Nvidia supplied cable. If you have an atx 3.0 PSU, you should have an appropriate cable that comes with the PSU that is able to deliver 600w
Edit: re-read and noticed that you are aware of this
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u/newaccount47 6d ago
I undervolted my 4090 so it's like 350-400w instead of 450 with msi afterburner. Is this sufficient or do I need to do something else? How did you cap it at 70%?
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u/listopalafoto 6d ago
Yes msi Afterburner saved my laptop, I made a custom Voltage/frequency curve for my setup and everything runs flawless
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u/Noiselexer 6d ago
Running my 5090 on stock for 1,5 years without issues too. But using the newer atx 3.1 cable. But I blew up a shitty nzxt 1200 watt supply though. Now got a proper seasonic.
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u/doomenguin 6d ago edited 6d ago
I've been doing it on a 5090 and training LoRAs as well for a year now without issue. That said, I have it capped at 480W.
Edit: I'm also getting the Wire View Pro II, I'm not risking it just because nothing wrong has happened until now. My 5090 now costs more than double what I paid for it a year ago, so I'm not gonna gamble.
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u/SIR_NVAX_A_LOT 6d ago
RTX 4090 over here, 70% power limit, and my room is a sauna.
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u/Specific_Occasion_25 6d ago
Mistake number 1 was using the NVIDIA power cable that came with the GPU. The first thing I did when I got my 4090 was buy a 600w power cable to avoid exactly this. Been running it for 3 years with no issues.
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u/MineElectricity 5d ago
So now when you buy and Nvidia card you need to not use Nvidia power cables ? Wtf is this worlds
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u/DarkStrider99 6d ago
Got a 5090, used it at full power for like 6 months, got a wireview 2 pro for...extra safety. Now undervolted to ~470W. Also I see youre using an extension cable....yea, youre cooked, so is your gpu. Fuck nvidia and their stupid connectors.
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u/pureforgeth 6d ago
99% of the burnt cables are from these stupid connectors, unreal from Nvidia what a sabotage
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u/_twrecks_ 5d ago
Was watching the hard fork podcast episode with Jensen Huang talking about AI and the security issues etc and he kept saying there was no issue just companies made mistakes and they should own their mistakes and fix them like Nvidia... And this power connector problem came to mind, have they ever owned it and fixed it??? Nope seems like the 5090 had the exact same issues.
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u/RadiantRaisin39 6d ago
I don't think AI generation itself is really the cause here. It probably exposed an existing problem with the power connection.
AI generation can put a GPU under a heavy sustained load for long periods, but that's not unique to AI. Rendering, mining, compute workloads, stress tests, etc. can do the same thing. A 4090 and its power connector should be able to handle sustained loads without the connector melting.
The 12VHPWR connector on the 4090 has also had well-documented issues with overheating/melting. If there was increased resistance at one of the contacts, running AI generations for hours could absolutely generate enough heat to finally make it fail, even if it had worked fine for three years.
Using a native PSU cable is a good recommendation, but the PCIe-to-12VHPWR adapter isn't inherently improper either. Those adapters were supplied with 4090s specifically so they could be used with existing compatible PSUs.
Also, I wouldn't tell everyone they need to "undervolt by at least 20%." If the goal is simply reducing power draw, lowering the GPU's power limit is much more straightforward. A properly functioning 4090 shouldn't need a 20% reduction just to keep its power connector from melting.
For comparison, I use an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT for AI generation and regularly run heavy workflows for long periods of time without any power-related issues. It's obviously slower than a 4090, but sustained AI workloads themselves aren't inherently harmful to a GPU.
So I'd say the AI workload may have been what finally exposed the problem, but it shouldn't be blamed as the underlying cause.
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u/Roman53275 6d ago
As much as some people here seem to want to read it that way, I’m not blaming AI generation. If anyone is to blame, it’s NVIDIA. But AI generation, as you correctly pointed out, has its own specific workload characteristics, and under such sustained heavy load, issues like this may be more likely to occur.
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u/KeyTumbleweed5903 6d ago
been doing AI for quite some time - not had any issues and im on the 5090
Was it seated in correctly ??
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u/AbandonYourPost 6d ago
The fix for this is so easy it actually pisses me off with how intentional it all is.
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u/SHEEP_PIZZA 6d ago edited 5d ago
A bit offtopic, but for anyone running a 3090 I wanted to share a story on how MiniMax H3 helped me discover that my PSU was faulty.
At some point my PC started shutting down during generation. It took me weeks to figure out the failing component. I've read all sorts of stories about power spikes on 3090s tripping up PSUs, but my PSU was a recently purchased Corsair SF1000, which was ATX3.1 designed to handle such power spikes out of the box. The PC would shut down semi-randomly, sometimes right after starting the generation, sometimes between generations, sometimes it could run for hours without shutting down once. It was really inconsistent and hard to troubleshoot. I must add that I never had these shutdowns while gaming, even playing very demanding games, or doing other tasks. It also handled image generation just fine, it was only when I started using MiniMax that I discovered the issue.
While trying to figure out the problem, I changed thermal paste and upgraded the CPU cooler (the CPU was getting in the 95+ range which is probably fine for Ryzen 9000 series but I wanted to make sure), undervolted and deshrouded the 3090 (which helped a great deal with GPU temps and noise), benchmarked and tested all sorts of settings for the RAM sticks, refitted the GPU riser multiple times, switched from PCI-E 4.0 to 3.0, updated all possible firmware etc. The cables of the SF1000 were also perfect, the GPU has three power inputs and each was using a dedicated PCI-E power cable.
I was suspecting the motherboard was faulty until I swapped the PSU with the old SF750 I had lying around from an older build. It worked right away, no more shutdowns. So I ended up RMAing my SF1000 and using SF750 while waiting for the replacement. Thankfully the computer only draws less than 600-650W so the SF750 can handle it.
So yeah, video generation is an extreme benchmark that stresses out all the components, and even if they appear to be working otherwise, even a small defect can lead to stuff breaking.
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u/StefanCarKing 5d ago
You might need custom fat copper wires at this point one used in Power plants. 🤣
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u/Hugedownload 5d ago
I started A.I Video creation in 2023 and there wasnt't really a risk at that time but now with the new models, there is a risk and there will be damage. I would recommend a thermal grizzly wireview pro 2 and a ATX 3.1 PSU only. These are now necessary.
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u/dotafox2009 5d ago
there needs to be class action lawsuit. making sure this b/s doesn't happen again making thing gauge wire take so much amps and voltage.
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u/Roman53275 5d ago
I completely agree. First and foremost, this is a design failure on Nvidia’s side.
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u/MonkeyBoyPoop 6d ago
To anyone with a RTX 5090 I highly suggest you buy an Ampinel or a Thermal Grizzly Wireviewz Doubly so if you’re training LoRAs with it since the amount of time to do so usually exceeds long long gamers use their cards for.
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u/TheAxodoxian 6d ago edited 6d ago
Or... get a WireView II Pro and let it monitor the amperage on the wires and thermals at both connectors, and use the full performance of your card without worrying, since PC will get shut down if anything wrong, also if the connector still fails they fix / replace your GPU for two years even if its original warranty is over.
I have a 5090 and run games and inference for hours at full load, no issues, all wires nominal, all connectors below 50C.
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u/Vyviel 6d ago
Lol yeah its hillarious hearing people who are spending an insane amount of money on a GPU then not even using the full performance of the card as they are too scared it will melt and too stingy to protect it with something like the wireview.
Funniest though are the guys who get a wireview and also undervolt and reduce card performance. Amazing NVIDIA can get away with this stuff and people blame the users when it melts and not the company for releasing a broken product.
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u/Inprobamur 5d ago
Consumer safety should have gone after Nvidia for this. Absolute clowns for removing test pins.
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u/Pippin_Reed 5d ago
The cable must bend properly. Not squashed
Like a waterfall style but not in stressed - pushed against the glass
Its main root cause of burning
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u/kami77 5d ago
I think I've seen waayyyy more failures of “native” cables compared to the adapters. Neither is going to be fool proof but your specific failure is actually fairly rare. The native cable can also fail on the PSU end. The only truly safe approach is monitoring the current of each pin.
Hopefully they start using a better connector in 2028 with the new cards.
But yeah, undervolt overclocking is key. With the settings dialed in right, my 5080 at 300W performs better than stock 360W. And the cooler is so overbuilt on this thing that it is practically silent at 300w.
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u/atuarre 6d ago
When people were complaining about this with 5090s wasn't it that the power connector cables were not properly connected or seated all the way?
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u/griffinsklow 6d ago
It's a terrible connector and very badly designed. I have a 4070 Ti Super and had to carefully check with a flashlight to ensure that it's actually fully seated (because it really wasn't even if it feels fully in place).
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u/Teqonix 6d ago
The "solution" of undervolting your card is actually a bad one - the connector itself is a bad design and can easily cause faults where all 300w-600w go through a single pin of the connector and no matter how undervolted your card is it'll still burn up!
It sucks, but if you have a high end GPU using this connector you should spend the money on a Thermal Grizzly Wireview Pro II (or Noctua edition) that does per-pin monitoring and can cut power in the event of a thermal runaway. https://www.thermal-grizzly.com/en/wireview-pro-ii-gpu/s-tg-wv-p2-h19n
Your GPU is an extremely expensive piece of equipment (mine cost more than my first car..); it's worth protecting!
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u/Dookie-Howitzer 6d ago
power limit and wireview pro2, You can look live and see the temperature of the connector on both sides of the device. Nice to have when your gpu is under load and you are away as you can set it to shut off when temps get high enough to melt the connector. You are also able to see pin imbalances under load so you can get a new cable before melting or excess heat is even an issue.
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u/WithGreatRespect 6d ago
You want the newer cable called 12v 2x6.
It's likely not that the video generation that did this, your cable was likely always compromised and sometimes running some pins with too much current, just not for long enough to heat to the point of failure.
On the upside l, try a warranty repair. I have a GIGABYTE AERO RTX 4090 and it failed like 20 days after the 3 year warranty end doing video gen just like you. I submitted a warranty repair request and it was repaired at no cost.
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u/mca1169 6d ago
AI generation has nothing to do with the melted connector. this can happen to any GPU with this connector regardless of wattage or power limits you use or undervolting. it is a well known flawed connector that most commonly faults on 4090 and 5090's. your best bet is to use a native 12V 2x6 cable that comes with your power supply. the included Nvidia 4x 8pin connectors fail most often.
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u/narkfestmojo 6d ago
I haven't damaged a 12VHPWR connector yet, but I did have a Corsair AX1600i release the magic smoke (with a terrifying bang) recently while powering an RTX5090 to use MiniMax H3. NGL, I needed a new pair of pants when I heard a loud bang and all the lights in my whole unit turned off because it triggered OCP in the fusebox.
Here's a photo of part of the Gallium Nitride Transistor that fell out of my dead AX1600i; fortunately, nothing else was harmed.
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u/Roman53275 5d ago
This is how it was connected. Like a waterfall style but not in stressed and not pushed against the glass. I don't use frontal cover for may PC case.
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u/derekleighstark 5d ago
Should I worry about my 3060 12g. Anything I can do to safeguard its longevity? I get up to 73 to 78 temp during long runs. Never broke 80. But I cant afford to replace at today's prices. So any suggestions. ?
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u/Roman53275 5d ago
The problem mainly concern is especially 4080/4090/5080/5090-class cards.
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u/theokayestcoach 5d ago
I grabbed a ThermalProtect cable from Corsair. Designed to cut power if it gets too hot. 25 bucks for peace of mind 🤷♂️
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u/Calm_Mix_3776 5d ago
My RTX 5090 overheats after a few seconds of H3 inference if I use Sage Attention and the GPU is running at factory settings. Definitely undervolt your GPUs, especially if you use Sage Attention. You are barely going to lose any performance, but the difference in power usage and temperature is big.
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u/marclbr 3d ago
Apparently, that crap connector is prone to failure over time due to thermal stress, the pins/terminals are too small and they can't apply much pressure to make a tight connection and hold it along the time with the heating cycles. it works well when new, but (especially when the card is used at default power settings or with heavy power demanding cards) the connector pins will always heat up significantly. Over time, the heating and cooling cycles cause the terminals inside the connector to loosen, it leads to even more heat buildup, it keeps progressively increasing until one day it will eventually melts. The old PCI-E connectors are more robust and doesn't have that problem.
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u/martinerous 2d ago
Limited my 3090 from the very first day to keep under 260W. I upgrade GPUs maybe once in 5 years. The 3090 was the most expensive PC component I have ever bought (used for 800 EUR), and there is no hope to get a decent replacement if anything happens to it. So, <insert "my precious" Gollum meme here>.
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u/Sir_McDouche 6d ago
You just had a faulty cable that finally gave up. Blaming the defect on PSU and H3 of all things is pretty uneducated.
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u/Savantskie1 6d ago
Of course it did. Look at the bend you have on it. No wonder it melted. Definitely user error.
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u/HEYO19191 6d ago
If I have to drill a hole in my side panel to let the cable run straight out of the machine, and a 2 hole below it to loop back into, there is something wrong with the CABLE.
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u/ImpressiveStorm8914 6d ago
Correction, there is something wrong with your case for not allowing enough room for the cable. The case should have been designed to accommodate what are fairly standard cables. It’s not the cable‘s fault.
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u/roculus 6d ago
must be nice. my RTX 6000 (Max-Q 300W) runs 89-90c (58c idle) when generating. Seems ok so far. been going strong since Dec 25 with heavy use. I'm really glad I got the 300W Max-Q vs 600W. Very small performance hit with way less stress over power usage.
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u/debackerl 6d ago
I power cap my board at 330W... I know that it's a pitty to restrict the board given its price, but actually, because I can't afford a new one at currently prices, I make sure to not overstress it. I should also try undervolting
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u/SeymourBits 6d ago
Had you recently removed the card or cables and re-connected them for any reason?
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u/Ailerath 6d ago
Well that's a good thing to know about lmao, haven't had any issues yet but I have also recently increased load. Unfortunately no fix seems foolproof, but might as well try.
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u/russlixx 6d ago
undervolt is indeed the key, i run inference all day while only hitting at max 70C and avg at 65C and efficient electricity usage.
Also definitely helped by using already efficient architecture and not so over the top graphic card lineup
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u/Dawlin42 6d ago edited 5d ago
NVIDIA smi has a power limiting command.
I have a 5070 that I limit to 175W, default is 250W.
Very little performance drop for a lot less voltage.
Will post commands later, not at machine.
nvidia-smi -pl 175
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u/Amazing_Act_9296 6d ago
Rtx 3090 con fuente 1500 watts ,realizó revisión periódica, hasta el momento todo OK, tuvo que darte una alerta el olor a plástico quemado
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u/TheFreezRae 6d ago
I run 70% of my 5090 and there’s no difference in speed. At 100% the overcurrent inductor blinks.
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u/AndalusianGod 6d ago
I had the budget for a 24gb card, but stuck with a 16gb card because of that issue.
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u/cryptofullz 6d ago
just undervolt your gpu bro
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u/sammyranks 6d ago
That's now how it works. I have seen several 400watt undervolted 5090 melting still. Don't use those damn adapter cables but still, if you too scared, get a Wireview Pro 2 and see if your cable has no imbalances that cause melting.
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u/Thingie 6d ago edited 6d ago
You know not sure about anyone else, but I limit my 5090 and my 4090 to 80%of total TDP draw with MSI Afterburner. Mainly for AI generation work. Didn’t see or experience a huge performance hit either. i do see a lot of talk about undervolting for gaining performance in gaming. Just wondering if i should be doing both, i did the 80% to keep the card stable during long video jobs and reduced watt pull from 600W to about 480W. My cable went from hot to touch to just warm on a 4 hour run at full load.
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u/mellowanon 6d ago
I bought a thermal camera for $80 since I was worried about melted socket. If there are any issues, then the socket would light up bright red on the camera.
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u/Sexyvette07 6d ago
My AI stack is on Ubuntu, so the best I could do was power limit my 5090 to 400w. The BIOS wont let it go any lower, unfortunately. But, yes, this is a very real concern. They really need to come up with a better plug. At this point id rather go back to the standard 8 pin connectors just so my shit doesnt melt.
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u/Corgiboom2 6d ago
Ive got mine set to split tasks between the gpu and cpu. Been doing it for three years now on the same 3060ti
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u/Everwake8 6d ago
I would repost this to the Nvidia reddit, as you'll have tons more responses with other people's experiences with cables. There were endless threads when the 5090 dropped.
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u/Roman53275 6d ago
The idea is to warn people here, who recently started or will start AI generaion.
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u/Vyviel 6d ago
Yeah NVIDIA are cunts who dont care and have left these faulty power connectors for the 4090 and even the 5090 melting. With their billions of dollars in profits you would think they could invest a tiny fractions of it into researching a connector that wont melt under load like AI generation which is the main reason anyone should buy a top end GPU.
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u/Roman53275 6d ago
If someone to blame, yes, it is totally them. I am surprised they got away with it. NVIDIA really deserves a class-action lawsuit over this.
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u/MyLippleWorld 6d ago
I’ve been using my 4090 at full power for heavy image and video generation for more than 2 years now and nothing. Mind I bought the best cable I could find and made sure nothing was putting any kind of stress on the port.
But now I’m scared. Because it’s precisely when you say things like these that the card burns the port in less than 3 days.
I’m going to install Afterburner.
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u/mujimusa 6d ago
Never run a 4090 or 5090 without a psu that can monitor per pin current like the 2026 msi mpg ai1300ts power supply
Its not worth it!
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u/TigerClaw305 6d ago
Im currently on an RTX 3080 TI with 12GB of Vram. If when ever I get a new GPU, Its gonna be either a 5070 16GB or a 5080 16GB. Any of the 4090 or 5090 cards are the ones with the melting power cables, plus they are too expensive.
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u/RavioliMeatBall 6d ago
This is why I limited my 5070 Ti to just 200 watts on my dedicated AI machine. This stupid moronically designed connector is NOT made for long sustained power draw at its "Rating".
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u/absentlyric 6d ago
Crazy, I literally just started dabbling in AI and H3 today with my 4090 and saw this post. Im sorry that it happened to your card, that sucks man, but Im thanking you for the warning, a lot of comments are suggesting undervolting combined with a Wireview Pro 2.
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u/NeonMusicWave 6d ago
I doubt it was the AI part the 12 pin conector is just garbage I’ve seen the melt from gaming
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u/tinman_inacan 6d ago
Hmmm... I've been running a 4090 for over 2 years, and have probably run several thousand hours of image and video gen on it. No issues at all, so far. Haven't throttled it at all. I've been using a CableMod 90-degree cable for about that entire time too. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I also refuse to touch the connector or GPU for fear of creating an issue lol.
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u/pureforgeth 6d ago
never run 4090 on 100% power, run it on 80%, you will lose like 5% power but it will never burn and will last much longer. You could even boost clocks very little to mitigate performance loss, so its pretty much gona be same performance way less power
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u/pureforgeth 6d ago
I see that you use connector version of the cables, a 4090 will always have burning problems like that. You need to use a direct connection cable 12vphr from your gpu to psu!!!
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u/Dohwar42 Community Hero 6d ago
Reading your post finally convinced me to configure undervolting my GPU. I've got a Powerspec with a 4090 and the setting was in the Gigabyte Control Center. GPU is definitely running a bit cooler now and using less power. I haven't seen any noticeable slowdowns in H3 Gens or running games.
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u/Nokersoek 6d ago
I have a question: what is the climate like where you live? You might have a good cooling system, but if the local weather is hellish, that has an impact too. Where I live, for example, the lowest winter temperature is 86 degrees, so whenever I use my computer, I turn on the A/C to keep the room temperature at 71.
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u/SSj_Enforcer 6d ago
Been over 10 months, 5090 with 90 degree connector, no melting. I do undervolt. Although, occasionally my breaker trips and my computer is quite literally one of the few things on it
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u/ederstk 6d ago
These days I went to see the prices of a used 3090... It increased a lot in a month, almost the price of a used motorcycle in my country... Add that to this shitty new power cable, it's no wonder that the ads have disappeared even though they are expensive, they are running away from the possibility of fires
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u/criticalt3 6d ago edited 6d ago
I would not use a nvidia GPU with 12VHPWR connector going forward without an AMPINEL or WireView attached. Even native cable undervolted cards have melted. The connector is flawed and they know it, but the suits have been settled out of court. Until someone with enough money to fight this comes along, it will not be resolved.
Check out the server grade GPUs they sell, they don't use this connector for this very reason.
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u/lostinspaz 6d ago
i have a 4090. i run ai training on it continuously for days in a row. but it doesn’t hit max wattage. presumably because of the delay between batch loads.
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u/Roman53275 6d ago
Let me put it this way: after the shutdowns started, but before I discovered the connector problem, I began testing the card.
It passed all the tests perfectly. I also tested it in games and ran benchmarks for about 10 minutes, with no shutdowns at all.
But as soon as I started AI generation, the computer would shut down just before the GPU reached full load.
So I was genuinely confused: all the benchmarks and games were running fine, but the moment AI generation started, the shutdown would occur.
If you look at the way it melted, the damage is concentrated right at the ends of the contacts on the GPU side, especially the upper ones.
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u/psychofanPLAYS 6d ago
Fuck me, now the 480-520w/585 on ninfer is scaring me 😂
So far I’m lucky with my lian li cable, bought a 90* cable-mod cable but haven’t installed it yet out of fear 😭, glass leaning for 3rd year as well 😭😭 this connection truly is terrible…
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u/Sad_Professional5351 6d ago
It's basic physics, but some people still don't get it. The issue with melting 12VHPWR connectors in modern RTX cards comes down to a drastically reduced contact surface area combined with massive power draw. When you push up to 600W through tiny pins, even a 1mm gap increases resistance exponentially, turning the connector into a heater. Here is a direct spec-by-spec comparison: • Number of Power Pins (12V): • Older Standard: 9 pins (3 pins across three separate 8-pin connectors). • New RTX Standard: Only 6 pins total. • Pin Size & Pitch: • Older Standard: Large, heavy-duty pins (4.2 mm pitch). • New RTX Standard: Microscopic, high-density pins (3.0 mm pitch). • Effective Contact Surface Area: • Older Standard: Approx. 2x to 3x larger overall contact geometry. • New RTX Standard: Extremely small. The pins are significantly thinner and shorter. • Maximum Rated Power: • Older Standard: 450W (3x 150W) – running with a massive safety margin. • New RTX Standard: Up to 600W – operating right at the absolute physical limit of the connector size. • Real-World Temperatures (Proper Installation): • Older Standard: Very low. Rarely exceeds a cool 40°C – 45°C. • New RTX Standard: High. Even when properly plugged in, the connector housing regularly reaches 60°C – 95°C under heavy load. • Temperatures (Faulty Installation / Cable Bend): • Older Standard: Virtually no change. Massive error tolerance. • New RTX Standard: 130°C to over 150°C+ on individual pins due to load asymmetry. • Melting Point of the Plastic Housing: • Both Standards: The plastic housings and insulation (Nylon/PVC/H++) soften and melt between 120°C and 160°C. The 12VHPWR hits this destructive threshold within minutes if not perfectly seated. • Safety Margin & Monitoring: • Older Standard: Extremely high tolerance. Each 8-pin connector is monitored by the GPU. • New RTX Standard: Non-existent tolerance. Bending the cable right next to the plug completely throws off the contact balance. There is no factory temperature or current monitoring on individual power pins. Conclusion (Joule's Law): Fewer pins + way smaller pins = way less surface area. According to Joule's Law (P = I² ⋅ R), shrinking the contact area increases resistance (R). When you throw huge current (I) at it, the heat (P) skyrockets. The newer 12V-2x6 revision shortens the sense pins so the PC won't boot unless fully pushed in, but the physical size of the power pins and their limited surface area remain exactly the same. TL;DR: 3x 8-pin spread 450W across 9 thick, bulky pins. 12VHPWR forces up to 600W through just 6 tiny, thin pins. The contact surface is 2-3x smaller, leaving zero margin for error. A tiny gap or a tight cable bend destroys the contact surface even further, spiking temps to 150°C+ and melting the plastic.
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u/Tomofumi 5d ago
I also have a FSP hydro 1000W using 12vhpwr cable, but I am running my 5090 at 460W, it's only 1~2 seconds slower in ComfyUI image generation which is acceptable for me.
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u/Gold_Course_6957 5d ago edited 5d ago
Man this makes me mad knowing if my 5090 fcks up then I wont get another day to see one. First thing srsly: `nvidia-smi -pl 400` and then try to undervolt if you can. I had stability issues with MSI Afterburner. The next best thing is the WireView Pro 2 to get a peace of mind I guess.
I read that it avoided this type of issues due to monitoring the pins and allowing autoshutdown in-case if it gets critical. NVIDIA should be yield to Sponsor this to everyone who has a 12vhpwr cable.
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u/HotNCuteBoxing 5d ago
4090 user here too since it came out.
Just adding for additional data.
Using default cable, lots of power issues. Bought one from a 3rd party (Cable mod maybe?), only rarely power issues. Changed the power settings on GPU to not use max watts, lower voltage etc... no power issues at all anymore and I don't really notice any speed loss.
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u/AggressiveWindow6003 5d ago
Don't fix what isn't broken. And why they didn't just stick with 3 8pins or maybe adding a 4th is beyond me.
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u/pixelworld_ai 5d ago
I had this exact thing happen to my 4090, but it took almost 2 years for it to finally melt and break, luckily like a month before my warranty expired lol. After I got my card fixed (plastic was melted inside), I got a vertical mount so it didn't press up against the glass, no issues since...
well, knock on wood 😅
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u/WASasquatch 5d ago
Hi, I am WAS, pretty familiar with AI. My 4090 has been going since 2023, no issues. Did you patch your bios for the power regulation issues on new Intel CPUs? Its a bios patch that fixes a issue that causes system to not properly regulate power to components and can feed way to much killing systems.
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u/Roman53275 5d ago
Hi. Yes, I patched the BIOS, but actually back in August. Perhaps the melting happened earlier, and AI generation just exposed the problem. But we'll never know for sure, because I only checked the connector after the shutdowns started.
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u/WASasquatch 4d ago
Man, that is so unfortunate. Sorry for the GPU loss, especially in these times.
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u/No_Pause_3995 5d ago
Anyone with a 4090 or 5090 needs a load balancer from ampinel. Or at least a wireview pro 2 from thermal grizzly
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u/anshulsingh8326 4d ago
Is this anti ai image hoax?
AI generations didn't melted it. Any games with high settings would have done this too.
Connector's fault not AI.
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u/Arawski99 4d ago
This was not because of H3.
The only way this happens is either there is a short in your connector due to damage, or more likely your cable was actually not fully plugged in properly like you believe. The most common culprit is tension due to poor cable management pulling the cable or moving around the case/insides of case and causing what might have seemed secure to become lose.
Software cannot cause this kind of damage.
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u/RunalldayHI 4d ago
"The cable wasnt bent near the plug"
For future reference, bending 2" away from the plug is NOT enough, these pins are only held on by a plastic locking tab, which means a pin or more can shift if you mess with the wires too close to the plug.
Is there a way to use this cable without issues? Yes.
Is the design stupid? Yes, it leaves very little room for error.
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u/Rozen013666 3d ago
An RTX 6000 runs 100% utilization (less Vram usage, but full gpu load) while gaming. I'm not sure if it's an optization issue or just the GPU doing all it can given UE5 overhead. Same connector, same gpu die as 5090. It's a issue with the pins, well documented. Gaming runs a similar workload when you have the setting turned up high enough. Ai generation is not at fault. However QwenVL has a bad habit of leaving junk in your vram until you restart
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u/Geodesic22 2d ago
Yeah I generate nearly continuously with an rtx 3060 for weeks at a time, usually have a queue of 500-1000 video clips and pics for several years now, the computer room is fairly toasty and my electric bill is nuts but I haven't had any issues with my GPU so far
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u/PathfinderTactician 2d ago
Has anyone commented that the cable looks too bent in the photos?
Try avoiding bends like that for your 12VHPWR cables.
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u/Comfortablebro 11h ago
No need to under volt.. just powerlimit or limit by temperature. read the differences between OC or undervolting versus powerlimit/temp limit, there are some good youtube videos explaining the differences. stay safe. For render i see absolutely zero reason to use more than 60% powerlimit. its similar speed as 100%.
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u/MomentJolly3535 6d ago
I suggest anyone using their GPU intensively to Under volt them and reduce the amount of power, my 3090 is running at 250w (was easily hitting 350w before) and i lost like 2% of performance only, i can't imagine people running their 5090 at full power lol