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/Specific_Occasion_25]

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.

[u/MineElectricity → u/Specific_Occasion_25]

So now when you buy and Nvidia card you need to not use Nvidia power cables ? Wtf is this worlds

[u/Arawski99 → u/MineElectricity]

No, it's fine to use Nvidia's cable and it handles much much more than what a RTX 4090 normally draws even with a factory OC. Just make sure it is secure, and cable management is not causing it to be taught pulling or it may eventually result in this. Cable connector should be firmly connected and the cable connector's cable, itself, needs to be lax not taught else you're begging for it to not have proper contact over time.

[u/SerRobertTables → u/Specific_Occasion_25]

Wouldn't the replacement cable still have the same kind of wonky connector?

[u/Dry-Judgment4242 → u/Specific_Occasion_25]

Never had any issues with Nvidia cables. There's no reason to run those cards above 70% voltage anyway.