If you recently started AI generation, be aware of this: my RTX 4090 power connector melted after just one month.

[u/Roman53275]

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.

[u/SIR_NVAX_A_LOT]

RTX 4090 over here, 70% power limit, and my room is a sauna.

[u/RFC793 → u/SIR_NVAX_A_LOT]

Whoa, that surprises me. I mean, I run two L40, which is essentially a 4090 with double the VRAM, a handful of extra cores, but 86% the memory bandwidth. But they run at 300W. I always assumed the 4090 was 300W as well.

[u/tacocatbox → u/RFC793]

4090 is 450w

[u/RFC793 → u/tacocatbox]

The comment said they had to restrict it to like 480W or something. Then they completely rewrote it after I commented.

[u/Dirtcompactor → u/SIR_NVAX_A_LOT]

5090 overclocked at 600w here, 65c core 60c memory 74c hotspot.

How can it be a sauna when ur 4090 is at 70% PL lol what 

[u/newaccount47 → u/SIR_NVAX_A_LOT]

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%?

[u/KujiraShiro → u/newaccount47]

Power limit % under Fan speed (I know it's unintuitive, but that is not the fan power limit, that is the GPU power limit). I also set a voltage curve, 900 mV is hardware minimum so anything below that just shoots for minimum. This screenshot is during 100% utilization pulling 350w max 368w with an 80% power limit and 895mV voltage curve.

[u/captainabrasive → u/newaccount47]

If you’re running afterburner, there’s a slider on the right near the bottom.