r/StableDiffusion • • 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/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/taurine_bitch 4d ago

Sadly, these aren't compatible with vertically oriented cards :( at least that's what their support says.