A handful? Wow that's gotta be like 50% of the 50 series out there!
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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I can really recommend both der8auers video and Buildzoids video on this. Der8auer has good thermal imaging of imbalanced current between the wires between two 12V HPWR plugs, and Buildzoid has the explanation why the current can't be balanced with the current setup on 5090s.
And it burns, burns, burns
The gpu of fire
The gpu of fire
I never get the newest thing, people who buy brand new stuff are just beta testers for the product imo
1080ti days were just simpler times!
I really appreciate the specificity of the headline, rather than the clickbait it could have been.
Alternate title:
Nvidia SLAMMED as 5090 GPUs start caching on FIRE
Well, only a handful of users exist.
Better would have been:
Handful of users complain about 3rd Party Cables Melting Their 5090FE.
All that cost and this is what you get…
Are people improperly connecting them again?
Every picture I've seen has been an outside pin. So my theory is it's the cable getting tugged for cable management and even though it's clipped in, it's not making as good of contact.
That or just a bad cable design. I've bought a few cables from cablemod and I'm not happy with the wiring they used. Their website says "Crafted with 16AWG wiring" but they also brag about the flexibility of their cables so I assume they're using stranded wires instead of a solid core so you lose a decent chunk of ampacity (and heat sinking).
The problem seems to be load balancing, or lack thereof. A German guy on YouTube noticed that his cable got up to 150°C at the PSU end, due to one wire delivering 20 or 22 amps, while the others were getting a lot less pumped through them. 22 Ampere is pretty much half the power draw of the card, through one wire instead of three if the load was properly balanced between them. That's why it ran so hot and melted to shit.
If you've ever worked on your car's 12 V electrics system, you'll know how thick the wires (and corresponding connector sizes) are for things like window defrosters that will run through a 20 or 30 amp fuse.
22 Ampere is pretty much half the power draw of the card, through one wire instead of three if the load was properly balanced between them.
Apparently the reference design only has one current shunt, so they can't even measure the imbalance. Madness.
Well, of course. What can you expect from a Chinese PCB that costs only 2500 USD, right?
The person on reddit used a third party cable instead of the one supplied with the device.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/1ilhfk0/rtx_5090fe_molten_12vhpwr/
It melted on both sides (PSU and GPU), which indicates it was probably the cable being the issue.
12VHPWR is a fucking mess, so please don't tempt fate with your expensive purchase.
It's poor design on Nvidias part. There is no load balancing.
So, when is the first party cable going to be launched? The device only hast an adapter shipped with it, which won't help you connect to the PSU 12VHPWR.
What I've learned from this whole fiasco after owning a problem-free 4090 for over 2 years:
- Don't use 3rd party connectors, and don't use the squid adapter in the box. Use the 12VHPR cable that came with your PSU or GPU. If your PSU doesn't have a 12VHPR connection, get one that does.
- Don't bend the cable near the connection. Make sure your case is actually big enough to avoid bending.
- Make sure it's actually plugged in all the way. If you didn't hear a click, it's not plugged in all the way.
- Don't keep disconnecting the cable to check for burns. The connection is weak and designed to fail after only a handful of disconnect/reconnects. If you followed the 3 steps above perfectly, you have nothing to worry about.
That said, I'm skipping this GPU generation (and most likely the next one as well). Hopefully in 2-4 years AMD or Intel will be on more level grounds with nVidia so that I can finally stop giving them money just to have good ray tracing performance.
Strolls nervously through room with RX 580...
I got lucky and picked up a 7900 XTX for a reasonable price last gen and it's been a really great card. I've got a couple systems coming up on needing a refresh (1080 Ti and a 2080 Ti) and I'm planning on upgrading both of them to a 9070 XT. I'm staying away from Nvidia until they start pricing their GPUs at prices actual consumers can afford instead of corporations looking to build AI farms.
That's bad, but that aside - It might be time to consider alternate power delivery to these cards. The power they need should warrant having a standard c13 plug directly on em or something.
c13 plug
Who would've thought.... 3DFX was apparently ahead of its time...
Is this the fabled Bitchin' Fast 3d?
I love the IDE connector on the front of the card itself.
That IDE connector was for SLI...
Four of the standard 8 pin PCIe power connectors would work well.
The new connector really should have used some large blade contacts to handle 50 amps.
A mini fusion drive, perhaps?
Power the house with it when not using the PC, but expect brown outs when gaming.