UPDATE: In light of the excellent investigative video posted by Steve / GamersNexus (th-cam.com/video/EIKjZ1djp8c/w-d-xo.html), it would appear that this problem is still unresolved and there's more to it than the 14AWG wire solder points in the plug. Steve is asking for more people with these adapters to get in touch with him, and of course NVIDIA is investigating although they haven't made any statements beyond that. Locating more adapters with the 150V rated wires that IgorsLab saw (mine used 300V wires which can be seen at 8:26) would definitely help. Most are still leaning towards this being a manufacturing issue with the adapters, but what specifically the defect is remains to be seen.
Seems there are different versions of the adapter. @10:14 yours looks exactly like Igor's version and the outer cables soldered separately and not bridging with the adjacent cables. While GN's ones are different and seem more sturdy.
@@kamui004 yeah nvidia definitely spotted the issue, redid the cable design, but the 1st ones were already shipped (with 150v wires) and they should have recalled them
Paul, honestly speaking, has it ever occurred to anyone that the damages could be produced by shills with a flame and posted as "it happened naturally without me doing anything wrong!"? Has either you, Steve or Jay ever seen the problem firsthand? Ever? And no the story of first ones being faulty doesn`t stand. Both GamerNexus and JayZ have review samples sent in advance and definitely belonging to the first batch. Have they (Jay or Steeve) been able to reproduce the problem even after torturing the connector in the worst possible ways? And if not, is anyone starting to smell the much ado-about-nothing stink? (shills melting the connector with a flame anyone). P.S. I have been torturing my 4090 (MSI Suprim X purchased day 1) for days now, overclocking, 6 hours of consecutive gameplay at Cyberpunk and Dying light 2 (Full RT on) you name it. Checking the connector several times, It looks pristine as if just out of the box brand new.
@@winnieid2727 is there an issue with toms hardware? After jonny went to corsair, they're the only ones posting in depth reviews of psus. So it'd suck if they were shady.
This is one thing I love about youtube tech creators, for the most part they tend to support each other. You rarely see national media outlets ever collaborating on a investigative story like this.
Gamers Nexus carried report on validation test failures of adapter cables with 12VHPWR connector from the PCIE5 SIG on the RTX 40 announcement day. Very few of the tech press/reviewers covered it, or advised users about the fragility
I don't. Bunch of know it alls pretending they know better than actual electrical engineers over a couple of freak accidents, likely more to do with the manufacturing process in some Chinese plant.
absolutely ridiculous! NVIDIA recall the bloody adapters, fix all damaged cards and offer refund, to your customers. The cards are 2.5k in Ireland/UK. So you need a mortgage for feck sake! Normal person would be insane to buy one....
14:01 - Thank you. It has been obnoxious seeing people act as if AMD just made this decision right before launch. No, of course AMD didn't just make this decision and force themselves and all their partners to redesign their PCBs. This decision was made well before adapters started melting.
@@johnc8327 As shown by the fact AMD is using PCIe 5.0 and DP 2.1 when Nvidia is using PCIe 4.0 and DP 1.4a. 🙄 I swear, it is incredible how little credit Team Red gets for having common sense.
@@benjaminoechsli1941 So they're using ports and tech that their hardware can't even utilize because they can't even max out the bandwidth of the previous gen tech and are wasting money on new standards and ports and transferring the cost to the customer for no good reason.
Nice video Paul, I just put in my Corsair cable in this morning for the 4090. The Corsair cable feels nice and robust, and its working great. My old plug I took out and have been using for a week showed no signs of melting or any problems. Keep up the great work.
@@williamrestrepo98 you are sort of right. The one available at best buy is for the 30 series. The pcie5 600w version is offered by Corsair but out of stock at the moment. So yes and no.
G'day Paule & Joe, While not being someone who will buy a 4090 it is good to know that there are multiple reviewers looking into what is going on & trying to help solve the problem before 12VHPWR becomes the norm for all GPUs & PSUs for PCIe Power in the future if this is where we are heading.
I think you hit the nail right on the head. The broken outer cables are causing intermittent contact between the cable and the pin/pad. This is causing the higher resistance that you describe and depending on how bad the break is and outside conditions could also be causing arcing (There's a literal taser inside the housing) This is why its the OUTSIDE cables that are shown melted in all of the pictures, not the inner ones.
I don't think it's causing arcing, the 12 volts is too low for current to jump through air. It's probably just a lot more heat from more energy throughout through the fewer pins.
@@tristanweide Yep, this video does not explain either why plastic around the terminals are melted, not around the soldering. Buildzoid has also made a video on this subject and so far he was the only one giving a reasonable explanation: it is the Nvidia terminals that must be the cause. I recommend his video.
You are the only one of the youtubers who understands how electricity works. It's precisely because of loose connection, either loose connection in the plug or broken but still rubbing together connection that causes the increase in amperage and the one contact being heated. It's not about totally broken off contact. It is resolved. people just being slow af.
We are Teclab and made the tests (yoi called us Galax). We run more than than 25, considering more than 12 minutes overload (rising 300W per step), and reached 127 Celsius. Neither connector or cable melted, and it's still working. Then we installed bad mounting (bad assembly, both horizontal and vertical, then temperature increasing over the time, what can cause damage and melt. About 150 min testing alive. Thanks
You are correct in your thoughts of a small/ poor connect causes the heat. Just like a space heater I had. The plug would get so hot that I could not touch it. I replaced the plug and resolved the trouble. Bad connection in plug
Can't wait for AMD's marketing of RX 7000. "RX 7900 XT, stronger in rasterise than competition, lower power usage, protected by our special AMD It-Does-Not-Melt technology."
This failure is most likely caused by a pin fitment issue. A slightly too loose female pin connected to a male pin will have a slight air gap. At high current draw, this air gap will cause excess resistance which will generate excess heat and you will end up with melted connector. I have seen it before. This failure is most likely attributed to cheaply made connectors based on images shown. The outer pin gets hot and melts first because that is where the slight air gap will be and likely the highest point of resistance of the circuit. This is the simplest and most logical explanation (occam's razor).
Nice! JTC also noted that the 30 series connectors were similar, but were individually wired to the pin, as the Corsair cable. Nvidia stepping backward.
Some of the same principles that dictate the use of crimp connections over solder in automotive or aviation industries apply here. If wiring is allowed to flex or move freely then it cannot be terminated by a solid joint (solder) as solder is intended to form an electrical connection only (in most cases), not a physical AND electrical connection.
Great analysis but I don't think a single loose connection with multiple wires in parallel would cause that much heat because the power will go the path of least resistance. It is more likely something is causing a short or multiple pins are becoming lose and causing the additional resistance across multiple pins. You could put an amp clamp on each of the four wires and see if there is an imbalance after multiple plugging and unplugging or various configurations.
exactly ,the net resistance of a parallel circuit is always less than any of the individual resistance values. and base on P=I^2 R , the total heat generated on the cable should still lower then 2 line situation like Jayz experimented , Isn't this high school physics? and if only 2 lines are fine in Jayz test, it's more likely causing by loose pin
In residential wiring, 12 gauge wire is used for 20 amp circuits and 14 gauge wire (what the connector uses) is limited to a15 amp load (@120v). So the first problem is that if one of the four wires comes loose you are carrying 50 amps divided by 3 or 16.67 amps on a wire rated for 15 amps. However, what makes it worse is in residential wiring, the wire should only draw 80% of its maximum wattage in a continuous use situation. So in a 12v scenario, one of the four wires in a continuous use situation should only be supplying (15amps x 12 volts x .8) 144 watts. Even if all four wires are intact, at 600 watts, each wire would be supplying 150 watts. That is 4% over the 80% rule but probably okay. However, reduce that to three wires and you get 200 watts. That is 39% more than the wires recommended continuous loading. As Igor might say, "Nicht gut."
So there's different standards for different uses. I did some looking at automotive 12v standards, and it looks like with 6 wires, they'd need to be 16 or 18ga. So 4x 14ga is probably fine. The connector also has a rating of course, and it looks like the connector is the problem, not the wires themselves.
@@tippyc2 My analysis was based on solid copper wiring (i.e., Romex). Typically, stranded aluminum wiring needs to one size larger for the same rating. So those 14 gauge wires are really equivalent to 16 gauge copper. Put another way, for the ratings I mentioned the four wires should have been 12 gauge to meet a 14 gauge copper spec. It could be that electronics have a different spec, but since it's used in a residential setting I'd think safety standard would be similar. I don't have enough information to definitively state the root cause; just wanted to point out that there wasn't much margin for error in what they used. I will say that the weak link in most electric components that I've seen is the wire and connectors used going into an assembly and not the supply wires. Just look at a typical light fixture. I hope the industrial engineering in the interconnects improves moving forward to keep up with this trend in power usage.
I'm not really worried about the four honkin wires supplying the 600W of juice. That's not the failure point. The failure point is the pins themselves being pulled back in the socket and not making good contact. That's where they're heating up and melting the plug.
I showed this to my father and he laughed. He's a master electrician and he said the wires are fine, but can the plate and connectors handle the current over time. He said sure, it can work for a month or a year, but over time if there's any failure that is where it will be as the wires can handle the current just fine. (I have some knowledges as I helped him for years as an apprenctice wiring houses). Most circuits in your house in the US are on 14 gauge wires for a 15amp. 20AMP will use 12 gauge (Small # in gauge is actually thicker). So 4 of those can handle it. Your analysis is right on the thermals, being a 'loose' connection with some contact. He said it's a common failure he sees, that happens over time with wiring.
Does no one else think it is crazy that the gaming industry just keeps increasing its power draw when the rest of the world is trying to save energy? 600W is nuts. That's the same as a small room heater.
The issue seem boil down to that the wires are simply soldered into place (instead of being crimped down). This can cause arcing/sparks inside the plastic housing (and in turn, melt the plastic) if they come lose. Users simply bending the cable from side to side a little can be enough to cause the wires to break lose (which can easily happen when people try and do some cable management). nVidia will need to recall these cheaply made adapters, as they are not safe to use. That native Corsair-cable is complete safe to use as the wires are crimped down, and not soldered.
I have to agree with Buildzoid on this one. Where Nvidia's adapter has female connectors that have 2 splits in them, other manufacturers are using female plugs with only 1 split (which is mechanically and functionally much more rigid), So Nvidia's female adapters have much less rigidity especially when bending horizontally. Once bent this would cause the same amount of amperage to transfer through a smaller connection point (from the adapter to the GPU) and in turn create more heat. am not a electrical engineer, but to me this would make more sense as to why the connectors seem to be melting at the pin connections rather than melting closer to where the solder point is on the Nvidia adapter.
AWG standard spec for 14 gauge wire max current is 5,9A, so that adaptor is rated for max amperage of 23,6A current. 23,6 X12V = 283W, so there, gigidy...
So with this in mind, those 4 12V wires and the corresponding ground wires should be at least 10 gauge wires to be able to carry that much of load safely, and to pass any safety regulatory tests on consumer products...
Timely video Paul. I feel for the ones out of a card/setup due to the issues seen here. AMD had the right idea going with ole faithful. 3 8pins for 450 watt is a safe bet. Cheers.
Never had a warm fuzzy about that adaptor design. When the cards had three 8 pin connectors it was always recommended to use three separate 8pin wires from the PSU.
I suspect the melting is due to heating of the pin caused by high current arcs, itself due to embrittlement (phase changing) of the solder due to heat cycling. The embrittlement increases resistance at the connection point, lowering the voltage and therefore increasing the current (for a power controlled system) increasing heat. Eventually, the connection is so poor we see arcing which results is large temperature spikes. In one of the failure images you can see arcing tracers on the female end. I suspect that the specification requires these connections to be crimped and not soldered (like the Corsair cable) so I'm surprised this went through to manufacturing and passed QA. Bad day for the Manufacturing Engineer who signed off on this.
PAUL: This is not a new issue, but manufacturers are hoping nobody notices that this problem can occur with ANY small-pin injection-molded connectors. These things are cranked out by a third party manufacturer in china with little to no QC. The over-molded rubber serves 2 purposes: It provides a small amount of strain relief (but not enough) and it hides shoddy workmanship. These connectors suffer the same problem as MOLEX to SATA power adapters for hard drives. In one type of SATA adapter, the wires get soldered onto their pins and the pins are arranged as they will appear in the connector, then they injection mold the connector around the pins. The solder connections or the wires could break and cause an intermittent connection, leading to increased resistance and more heat. The wires could also shift during the mold process and bring two or more pins JUST close enough to create a short if there is even a pinhole in the plastic between them. These bad connections are something that can be caught in QC prior to the over-molding process, but good luck getting them to do that. It looks like the manufacturer opted to leave all of the power pins connected instead of cutting the metal spacers between them, so that should mitigate movement during molding. An alternative version of these mini-connectors is crimping the wires onto pins and inserting those pins into a pre-made plastic connector. Anybody who has worked with MOLEX cables knows exactly how wiggly those pins are...If they are not firmly held in place during the over-molding process those pins can shift and come VERY close to touching. JUST enough separation to pass a half-hearted continuity test at the manufacturer but not enough to withstand 600 watts. The manufacturer was on the right track by keeping the power pins joined but they should have crimped on the wires. That would have eliminated SO many failure scenarios. I am at a loss to explain why the solder joints are set up that way. They make it look like the 2 edge solder joints are separated from the 2 middle ones but all of those pins are connected together underneath the over-molding. They consciously decided not to add the same thickness of solder all the way across. Typically a line of solder over top of a connection like this is done to spread the load across multiple wires or to thicken circuit traces, and the thinner areas can (CAN, not will) heat up first. Huh, I wonder if that could be another failure mode for broken wires on the sides, the outer pins pulling current across the thinner metal where the wires connect, and also where the pins are held together.
Not sure if anybody else has mentioned this. But a broken connection may also cause arcing to occur. As the current jumps the short gap. This actually can cause an extremely high temperature jump. This is actually how many house fires are caused on mains power connections where there is a poor connection. So Paul's conclusion on the poor connection is probably correct but, it might also be worsened by internal arcing adding extra heat.
O look. They couldn't even finish their R&D for $1600 graphics cards. Will the people buying these things ever feel stupid? I doubt it. But we can dream
Thanks for the thorough breakdown. Frankly, it would be great to have some focus on energy efficiency for a change. We can't keep scaling up power to improve performance.
If it's ABS plastic then the glass temp is 105c, but it will have started to soften a bit before that. Based on my own experience of 3D printing with ABS.
Nice to see you doing a bit more research than most of the "influencers" who jumped on the doom and gloom bandwagon and overblew the situation with fear mongering. To me this looks a lot more like some faulty adapters just like every generation of power connector has had forever but was especially more common in the early days of each plug. While 600W through a tiny plug like that seems like a lot to people even a 16 awg wire in a x4 config should be able to handle more than 600W this is almost certainly a faulty batch(or partial batch) because of poor soldering rather than an actual issue with the plugs and wires.
Think your analysis about loose contact is the answer to the issue. I troubleshooted my flickering lights once and the root of the issue was loose contact on one of the wires, and that wire/surrounding plastic was a little burnt. In many cases, loose contact is a lot worse than no contact
Igors adapter looks like I soldered it. Jay's a lot nicer. Yous is somewhere in between. You can tell from all 3, the soldering is inconsistent in quality as well as wire placement. Some have more contact area than others. I think think that 8.3a is too much load for that pin. It is beyond what molex specs for it.
When I saw that, it was clear that these are almost certainly all soldered by hand. That means that soldering wasn't a decision they made to save cost.
I think they populated the two unused connections to prevent people from sending angry social media posts about "missing wires" in their connector 😂 Great series of videos from the community, hopefully it helps with the resolution coming faster and better!
Found your video on this subject to be very productive in terms of actual information. Didn't seem like a sensational report/reaction, which I appreciate.
Oh don't you worry, the regular crew of thumbnail click-baiters will be by shortly with their mouths hanging open, the cable sticking out of their ear, and a dumb question in the title. "Will NVIDIA burn your house down?"
problem too, is those metal plates are now thinner vs previous connector, so they get hotter, 57C (plastic 67ºC at 30 ambient temp) outside, could be 90-º105ºC (metal) inside, that could strain the solder with the time and breat the solder joint.
I ran the numbers just as a sanity check for the possibility of a bad connection causing the problem. I believe power loss will be "high" when the impedance of the poor connection matches the impedance of the wires coming from the PSU to the connector. Doing some back of the envelope calculations, the expected power loss for 4 - 14 AWG Aluminum, 0.5 meter wires carrying 50A total is about 4W. (using 13.47 mOhm/meter at 70C). That's higher than I expected, but distributed over that much wire, it's fine. I ran through the current divider circuit, and found that the weakened connection could dissipate a little over 1 watt in the worst case scenario. This is obviously in a much more concentrated and insulated area than before. My intuition tells me that could be enough power to start a bad thermal situation. Resistors rated for 1 watt are pretty chonky as is, and they would probably be significantly derated being incased in plastic. Maybe the Sense #2 and #3 should have been used for a thermocouple in the connector ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think you have some terms backwards, where do you find large resistors rated for 1 watt? I think you meant 1 ohm, because at 12v that would be 12 amps through a resistor. A 1 watt resistor at 12v would be like 0.08 amps.
For those not seeking to purchase a new PSU ATX 3.0, Cablemod has designed, manufactured & distributed a new cable to suit that on the face of it, is much more robust than Intel's adaptors. It would be much better having a complete cable to suit your current PSU than just a flimsy adapter cable. Pauls investigation, as others have done, is spot on with the outer pins being effected. The inner pins are able to dissipate the heat generated whereby the out pins don't.. The buck stops with them. Perhaps for the outer pins the plate, and those pins need to be thicker.
Keep in mind with thermal camera results you're observing the outside of the plastic connector. Plastic is an insulator; the actual temperatures of the electrical connections inside the connector are going to be significantly higher. Also the solder joints lie towards the rear of the connector, which doesn't directly explain why the opposite end of the connector where the pins lie is melting. The solder joints are possibly a secondary issue unrelated to the melting.
Great vid you explained how it works, what's different and why it would get hot. It's still really weird not seeing it crimped that Corsair pigtail is very nice.
Another characteristic: power draw by the graphics card is variable. I'd look to thermal expansion/contraction effects causing pin to connector movement. Over time gold or palladium plated surfaces can wear, and connection contact areas can decrease, resistance increases, becoming more more thermally active. Once micro-arcing starts, oxidized contaminants appear in the contact area leading to bigger arcing as the pin and connector degrade further. Just something I've seen in the past.
was it only the 4090 that had an issue? or all the cards that used the 12vhpr? I've been looking at a 4070 ti super and I'm concerned because I've been news that it's STILL an issue.
Hardware Busters International's video, "16-Pin (12VHPWR) Cable Bended vs Straight. Is it dangerous on an RTX 4090?", is well worth a watch too. His power monitoring device is top notch.
There are at least two different variations of this adaptor, 150v and 300v. the 300v like you have is a lot more heavy duty. Id like to see the burnt adapters, I bet they are all 150v.
With tension on it and under load it clearly has a problem with a cable losing its good connection. If you want to avoid this problem for the moment and continue using your Gpu, connect ALL FOUR of the 8 pins and then dont run your card at 600 watts. Connecting only 3 of the 8 pins is possible but WOULD still have the same chances of the same problem, as the issue IS NOT that the 12pin gets hot under 600 watts, but rather the conncections arent durable enough. If Nvidia used 8 wires instead that would probably help, BUT the connections need to be strong or it could still happen. For those with experience in eletrical work, recable at your own risk
So sad that it takes youtubers to find these things out and not the actual companies that are literally making billions off of us. Thanks for the information, it was eggscellent...
It's crazy to think that this sort of tiny oversights are also what causes planes to crash. Can't overstate the importance and responsibilities of the QA/QC engineers, even the technicians who are working on wires, soldering, and cabling, and the need for them to do their jobs at the highest level always.
Biggest issue I can see is binding them all together in a tight 'shrinkwrap', it would be much better to shrinkwrap the top 4 and bottom 4 separately, that would allow for movement when bending into position. currently as they are so tightly bound together if you put a 90o bend on them it will have no option but to pull the top connectors loose there is no way they could just slide against each other. quick test grap a note pad/book grab the approximate amount of pages and bend the pages back and see how much 'shorter' the top pages are compared to the bottom.
That doesn't seem like sufficient isolation between +12V and ground inside the connector. I bet those two skinny little plates are somehow shorting a little bit inside the connector and going nuclear from there.
I think it's the factory mix up on NVIDIA 12V PWR Adapter. There are some NVIDIA adapters out (Like Igor's one) that have each wire rated 150V but majority of us including me have each wire rated 300V. You can easily find out if you unpeel bending tape and expose little of the wire. Again I don't think you can recreate the melting if you have each wire rated 300V.
Nvidia heard that new gen tech consumers are nicknamed "1st wave Beta testers" then went the extra mile and added the "final QA" title just for laughs.
thanks paul. jayz vid confused me, suggesting that disconnected pins were overheating... you explained it far better. dodgy connection, higher resistance, voila, smoke.
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It's quite obvious that they knew the possible issue, that's why there is the rubber strain relief sleeve which Corsair and others don't use. This is precisely there to reduce the stress put on the soldered connections inside. Either this sleeve is not sturdy enough, not long enough or people experiencing those issues put too much force on the adapter that was still able to crack the soldered join. Or it is QA issue. Most likely all of this together. A few unlucky guys got defective adapters and put them on enough strain to crack the joint that should have been protected by this sleeve.
working in QC, learning how to use power supplies to test certain equipment has shown me how absolutely ridiculous Nvidia is for using a 12pin, 12vdc connectors…now we’re gettn toasty
The pins are in parallel as per diagram, if resistence goes up due to poor contact, that pin has much lower heat generation. Power = V^2/R. That means side pins having poor contact will raise the heat generation on good pins because they need to pass way more current than before. It's crazy seeing bunch of people make tech videos parroting each other, but not really thinking or checking.
burning issues happened when they used a 2x8pin to 12+4 pin adapter. to avoid this, use a real PCIe gen5 PSUs with dedicated 12vhpwr pins. once you smell the smoke, it means that's the smell of a lawsuit. gpus are not the problem, rather it's on the psus. Reply
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UPDATE: In light of the excellent investigative video posted by Steve / GamersNexus (th-cam.com/video/EIKjZ1djp8c/w-d-xo.html), it would appear that this problem is still unresolved and there's more to it than the 14AWG wire solder points in the plug. Steve is asking for more people with these adapters to get in touch with him, and of course NVIDIA is investigating although they haven't made any statements beyond that. Locating more adapters with the 150V rated wires that IgorsLab saw (mine used 300V wires which can be seen at 8:26) would definitely help. Most are still leaning towards this being a manufacturing issue with the adapters, but what specifically the defect is remains to be seen.
You are just pathetic.
Seems there are different versions of the adapter. @10:14 yours looks exactly like Igor's version and the outer cables soldered separately and not bridging with the adjacent cables. While GN's ones are different and seem more sturdy.
@@kamui004 yeah nvidia definitely spotted the issue, redid the cable design, but the 1st ones were already shipped (with 150v wires) and they should have recalled them
Paul, honestly speaking, has it ever occurred to anyone that the damages could be produced by shills with a flame and posted as "it happened naturally without me doing anything wrong!"? Has either you, Steve or Jay ever seen the problem firsthand? Ever?
And no the story of first ones being faulty doesn`t stand. Both GamerNexus and JayZ have review samples sent in advance and definitely belonging to the first batch.
Have they (Jay or Steeve) been able to reproduce the problem even after torturing the connector in the worst possible ways? And if not, is anyone starting to smell the much ado-about-nothing stink? (shills melting the connector with a flame anyone).
P.S.
I have been torturing my 4090 (MSI Suprim X purchased day 1) for days now, overclocking, 6 hours of consecutive gameplay at Cyberpunk and Dying light 2 (Full RT on) you name it. Checking the connector several times, It looks pristine as if just out of the box brand new.
send Steve your cables today.
The melting plastic is a feature. It fuses you to nvidia's ecosystem indefinitely..the smell is just a notification of successful synergy.
Thanks for the best laugh of my day. :-)
I thought that was gsync...
@@edwardallenthree LOL!
Nvidia doesn't have an ecosystem
Hilarious truth
Igor really is a gem, I always watch his videos.
The entire industry has attacked him, basically _always wrongly,_ on _several_ occasions now. That's how you _know_ he's an actual threat to them.
TH-cam's auto translation leaves me vexed, so I follow the link to his articles. I like the way the man thinks.
He is the original TH when it was the best out there, glad he break away early and keep the high standards even now.
@@winnieid2727 is there an issue with toms hardware? After jonny went to corsair, they're the only ones posting in depth reviews of psus. So it'd suck if they were shady.
@@Tagiau Here on TH-cam, look for Hardware Busters International. The man does very thorough PSU reviews.
This is one thing I love about youtube tech creators, for the most part they tend to support each other. You rarely see national media outlets ever collaborating on a investigative story like this.
I don't think it was a contest, but if it was, you definitely win the "Cleanest adapter deconstruction award"
Very nicely done. That's not easy.
Agreed! Paul's looked like something that was intentionally made for educational purposes or something.
Thank you for investigating problems like these. It really helps push new tech forward. Watch out here comes sherlock Paul!
I appreciate the entire community working together to bring us better data and information regarding this.
Gamers Nexus carried report on validation test failures of adapter cables with 12VHPWR connector from the PCIE5 SIG on the RTX 40 announcement day.
Very few of the tech press/reviewers covered it, or advised users about the fragility
I don't. Bunch of know it alls pretending they know better than actual electrical engineers over a couple of freak accidents, likely more to do with the manufacturing process in some Chinese plant.
TH-cam you work together here ???
who does that ??? you share likes and commands ? subscribers ???
absolutely ridiculous! NVIDIA recall the bloody adapters, fix all damaged cards and offer refund, to your customers. The cards are 2.5k in Ireland/UK. So you need a mortgage for feck sake! Normal person would be insane to buy one....
14:01 - Thank you. It has been obnoxious seeing people act as if AMD just made this decision right before launch. No, of course AMD didn't just make this decision and force themselves and all their partners to redesign their PCBs. This decision was made well before adapters started melting.
AMD doesn't do anything until Nvidia has already been doing it for 5+ years
@@johnc8327 As shown by the fact AMD is using PCIe 5.0 and DP 2.1 when Nvidia is using PCIe 4.0 and DP 1.4a. 🙄
I swear, it is incredible how little credit Team Red gets for having common sense.
@@benjaminoechsli1941 So they're using ports and tech that their hardware can't even utilize because they can't even max out the bandwidth of the previous gen tech and are wasting money on new standards and ports and transferring the cost to the customer for no good reason.
They will be able use the bandwidth of display 2.0. You are free to give your money to whoever you wish.
@@Talishar Sad....
Nice video Paul, I just put in my Corsair cable in this morning for the 4090. The Corsair cable feels nice and robust, and its working great. My old plug I took out and have been using for a week showed no signs of melting or any problems. Keep up the great work.
Where do you find it? I am having no luck in finding one, about as much trouble as I had for the dang 4090 card
@@killer01ws6 best buy has the Corsair 12 pin cables for $20.
Have you noticed if you can set the maximum power over 93% on the geforce experience performance tab?
@@Stormborn29 The cable you are thinking of is only for 3090FE being a 12 pin not a 12+6 which is the one needed for 3090ti/4090 cards.
@@williamrestrepo98 you are sort of right. The one available at best buy is for the 30 series. The pcie5 600w version is offered by Corsair but out of stock at the moment. So yes and no.
G'day Paule & Joe,
While not being someone who will buy a 4090 it is good to know that there are multiple reviewers looking into what is going on & trying to help solve the problem before 12VHPWR becomes the norm for all GPUs & PSUs for PCIe Power in the future if this is where we are heading.
How many times are you going to reiterate not being interested in the 4090 to "Paule & Joe" every time there's a 4090 video upload?
I think you hit the nail right on the head. The broken outer cables are causing intermittent contact between the cable and the pin/pad. This is causing the higher resistance that you describe and depending on how bad the break is and outside conditions could also be causing arcing (There's a literal taser inside the housing) This is why its the OUTSIDE cables that are shown melted in all of the pictures, not the inner ones.
I don't think it's causing arcing, the 12 volts is too low for current to jump through air. It's probably just a lot more heat from more energy throughout through the fewer pins.
@@tristanweide I mean it could… a car battery connector arcs when you connect it, and that’s ~13 volts
@@tristanweide
Yep, this video does not explain either why plastic around the terminals are melted, not around the soldering. Buildzoid has also made a video on this subject and so far he was the only one giving a reasonable explanation: it is the Nvidia terminals that must be the cause. I recommend his video.
Na, cable works fine. User error
You are the only one of the youtubers who understands how electricity works. It's precisely because of loose connection, either loose connection in the plug or broken but still rubbing together connection that causes the increase in amperage and the one contact being heated. It's not about totally broken off contact. It is resolved. people just being slow af.
Wrong resistance does not increase current, it decreases it, but we all know ur real smart
Thanks Nvidia for using the cheapest connections you can get while charging us 1700 bucks for the card.
Funny when it is likely just customers not plugging in the cable enough. KEKW
Na, cable works fine. User error
The best thing is... there really was no need for this new connector at all. The old connectors would work fine.
Nice PSA, Nice to see Jay, Steve and yourself collaborate on such issues and support each other doing it.
We are Teclab and made the tests (yoi called us Galax).
We run more than than 25, considering more than 12 minutes overload (rising 300W per step), and reached 127 Celsius.
Neither connector or cable melted, and it's still working.
Then we installed bad mounting (bad assembly, both horizontal and vertical, then temperature increasing over the time, what can cause damage and melt.
About 150 min testing alive.
Thanks
The WAY Better question would be "Why hundreds of thousands are NOT melting while those 12 on Reddit did?"...
those users probably got defective adapters cables or are using low quality 3rd party cables
@@ssaini5028 Na, they just didn't know what they were doing and never fully seated their power plugs. Defective users
@@kenmasters916 agreed lol
You are correct in your thoughts of a small/ poor connect causes the heat. Just like a space heater I had. The plug would get so hot that I could not touch it. I replaced the plug and resolved the trouble. Bad connection in plug
I'm very glad you mentioned the possibility of broken but still (poorly) contacting outer connections, thank you.
Great video. Personally I'd love to get the Corsair VHPWR cable, but those things are more scarce than actual 4090s at this point.
For real... its wild. I would love if nvidia would just send out these cords. Would be great...
CableMod has their version in stock for about $20USD. I think they're much better equipped to crank these cables out.
Can't wait for AMD's marketing of RX 7000. "RX 7900 XT, stronger in rasterise than competition, lower power usage, protected by our special AMD It-Does-Not-Melt technology."
This failure is most likely caused by a pin fitment issue. A slightly too loose female pin connected to a male pin will have a slight air gap. At high current draw, this air gap will cause excess resistance which will generate excess heat and you will end up with melted connector. I have seen it before. This failure is most likely attributed to cheaply made connectors based on images shown. The outer pin gets hot and melts first because that is where the slight air gap will be and likely the highest point of resistance of the circuit. This is the simplest and most logical explanation (occam's razor).
Yes, you are right. I recommend Buildzoid's video, it confirms your opinion.
I love the smell of melted plastic in the morning.
Great Job on disassembly Paul. You have good hands sir.
Nice! JTC also noted that the 30 series connectors were similar, but were individually wired to the pin, as the Corsair cable.
Nvidia stepping backward.
Money over everything. Why pay for 12 wires when you could pay for 8?
Ah yes, the Apple manouver
Paul: I can confirm Igor's findings.
That moment when you realize that Paul And Igor in fact does NOT have the same adapter design. 😂
Thanks Paul. You made quick work of figuring this out and presenting it in a way that makes sense.
I mean, Igor figured it out, not Paul
Some of the same principles that dictate the use of crimp connections over solder in automotive or aviation industries apply here. If wiring is allowed to flex or move freely then it cannot be terminated by a solid joint (solder) as solder is intended to form an electrical connection only (in most cases), not a physical AND electrical connection.
Great analysis but I don't think a single loose connection with multiple wires in parallel would cause that much heat because the power will go the path of least resistance. It is more likely something is causing a short or multiple pins are becoming lose and causing the additional resistance across multiple pins. You could put an amp clamp on each of the four wires and see if there is an imbalance after multiple plugging and unplugging or various configurations.
exactly ,the net resistance of a parallel circuit is always less than any of the individual resistance values. and base on P=I^2 R , the total heat generated on the cable should still lower then 2 line situation like Jayz experimented , Isn't this high school physics?
and if only 2 lines are fine in Jayz test, it's more likely causing by loose pin
In residential wiring, 12 gauge wire is used for 20 amp circuits and 14 gauge wire (what the connector uses) is limited to a15 amp load (@120v). So the first problem is that if one of the four wires comes loose you are carrying 50 amps divided by 3 or 16.67 amps on a wire rated for 15 amps. However, what makes it worse is in residential wiring, the wire should only draw 80% of its maximum wattage in a continuous use situation. So in a 12v scenario, one of the four wires in a continuous use situation should only be supplying (15amps x 12 volts x .8) 144 watts. Even if all four wires are intact, at 600 watts, each wire would be supplying 150 watts. That is 4% over the 80% rule but probably okay. However, reduce that to three wires and you get 200 watts. That is 39% more than the wires recommended continuous loading. As Igor might say, "Nicht gut."
So there's different standards for different uses. I did some looking at automotive 12v standards, and it looks like with 6 wires, they'd need to be 16 or 18ga. So 4x 14ga is probably fine. The connector also has a rating of course, and it looks like the connector is the problem, not the wires themselves.
@@tippyc2 My analysis was based on solid copper wiring (i.e., Romex). Typically, stranded aluminum wiring needs to one size larger for the same rating. So those 14 gauge wires are really equivalent to 16 gauge copper. Put another way, for the ratings I mentioned the four wires should have been 12 gauge to meet a 14 gauge copper spec. It could be that electronics have a different spec, but since it's used in a residential setting I'd think safety standard would be similar. I don't have enough information to definitively state the root cause; just wanted to point out that there wasn't much margin for error in what they used. I will say that the weak link in most electric components that I've seen is the wire and connectors used going into an assembly and not the supply wires. Just look at a typical light fixture. I hope the industrial engineering in the interconnects improves moving forward to keep up with this trend in power usage.
The design seems marginal.
If the adaptor is defective it becomes a risk too quickly
@@chillysourdough8924 sounds like you think those are stranded aluminum wires?
@@potatopobobot4231 it looked like it in the close ups Jay showed; if not then disregard.
"My connector is horribly worn mother, I need a new one"
Yes dear. Why does it seem to happen every two years?
I'm not really worried about the four honkin wires supplying the 600W of juice. That's not the failure point. The failure point is the pins themselves being pulled back in the socket and not making good contact. That's where they're heating up and melting the plug.
I showed this to my father and he laughed. He's a master electrician and he said the wires are fine, but can the plate and connectors handle the current over time.
He said sure, it can work for a month or a year, but over time if there's any failure that is where it will be as the wires can handle the current just fine. (I have some knowledges as I helped him for years as an apprenctice wiring houses). Most circuits in your house in the US are on 14 gauge wires for a 15amp. 20AMP will use 12 gauge (Small # in gauge is actually thicker). So 4 of those can handle it.
Your analysis is right on the thermals, being a 'loose' connection with some contact. He said it's a common failure he sees, that happens over time with wiring.
Does no one else think it is crazy that the gaming industry just keeps increasing its power draw when the rest of the world is trying to save energy? 600W is nuts. That's the same as a small room heater.
The issue seem boil down to that the wires are simply soldered into place (instead of being crimped down).
This can cause arcing/sparks inside the plastic housing (and in turn, melt the plastic) if they come lose.
Users simply bending the cable from side to side a little can be enough to cause the wires to break lose
(which can easily happen when people try and do some cable management).
nVidia will need to recall these cheaply made adapters, as they are not safe to use.
That native Corsair-cable is complete safe to use as the wires are crimped down, and not soldered.
I have to agree with Buildzoid on this one. Where Nvidia's adapter has female connectors that have 2 splits in them, other manufacturers are using female plugs with only 1 split (which is mechanically and functionally much more rigid), So Nvidia's female adapters have much less rigidity especially when bending horizontally. Once bent this would cause the same amount of amperage to transfer through a smaller connection point (from the adapter to the GPU) and in turn create more heat. am not a electrical engineer, but to me this would make more sense as to why the connectors seem to be melting at the pin connections rather than melting closer to where the solder point is on the Nvidia adapter.
AWG standard spec for 14 gauge wire max current is 5,9A, so that adaptor is rated for max amperage of 23,6A current. 23,6 X12V = 283W, so there, gigidy...
So with this in mind, those 4 12V wires and the corresponding ground wires should be at least 10 gauge wires to be able to carry that much of load safely, and to pass any safety regulatory tests on consumer products...
Timely video Paul. I feel for the ones out of a card/setup due to the issues seen here. AMD had the right idea going with ole faithful. 3 8pins for 450 watt is a safe bet. Cheers.
Never had a warm fuzzy about that adaptor design. When the cards had three 8 pin connectors it was always recommended to use three separate 8pin wires from the PSU.
the problem is the mechanical design, not the amount of wires ffs
I suspect the melting is due to heating of the pin caused by high current arcs, itself due to embrittlement (phase changing) of the solder due to heat cycling. The embrittlement increases resistance at the connection point, lowering the voltage and therefore increasing the current (for a power controlled system) increasing heat. Eventually, the connection is so poor we see arcing which results is large temperature spikes. In one of the failure images you can see arcing tracers on the female end. I suspect that the specification requires these connections to be crimped and not soldered (like the Corsair cable) so I'm surprised this went through to manufacturing and passed QA. Bad day for the Manufacturing Engineer who signed off on this.
Glad I bought the Corsair 12 pin adapter. It has 12 individual wires. Super high quality, not this hot mess.
it will not save not you or your bank account, lol
@@аибе-о9ь this comment makes no sense. Is this a bot? Save me from what? It will save from having a fire so yes it will.
This is such a non-issue. Some faulty things and everyone is blowing it way out of proportion.
PAUL: This is not a new issue, but manufacturers are hoping nobody notices that this problem can occur with ANY small-pin injection-molded connectors. These things are cranked out by a third party manufacturer in china with little to no QC. The over-molded rubber serves 2 purposes: It provides a small amount of strain relief (but not enough) and it hides shoddy workmanship. These connectors suffer the same problem as MOLEX to SATA power adapters for hard drives. In one type of SATA adapter, the wires get soldered onto their pins and the pins are arranged as they will appear in the connector, then they injection mold the connector around the pins. The solder connections or the wires could break and cause an intermittent connection, leading to increased resistance and more heat. The wires could also shift during the mold process and bring two or more pins JUST close enough to create a short if there is even a pinhole in the plastic between them. These bad connections are something that can be caught in QC prior to the over-molding process, but good luck getting them to do that. It looks like the manufacturer opted to leave all of the power pins connected instead of cutting the metal spacers between them, so that should mitigate movement during molding.
An alternative version of these mini-connectors is crimping the wires onto pins and inserting those pins into a pre-made plastic connector. Anybody who has worked with MOLEX cables knows exactly how wiggly those pins are...If they are not firmly held in place during the over-molding process those pins can shift and come VERY close to touching. JUST enough separation to pass a half-hearted continuity test at the manufacturer but not enough to withstand 600 watts. The manufacturer was on the right track by keeping the power pins joined but they should have crimped on the wires. That would have eliminated SO many failure scenarios.
I am at a loss to explain why the solder joints are set up that way. They make it look like the 2 edge solder joints are separated from the 2 middle ones but all of those pins are connected together underneath the over-molding. They consciously decided not to add the same thickness of solder all the way across. Typically a line of solder over top of a connection like this is done to spread the load across multiple wires or to thicken circuit traces, and the thinner areas can (CAN, not will) heat up first. Huh, I wonder if that could be another failure mode for broken wires on the sides, the outer pins pulling current across the thinner metal where the wires connect, and also where the pins are held together.
Already watched Jays video but I love watching all you guys. It’s like we’re all chillin together talking pc stuff/news.
Not sure if anybody else has mentioned this. But a broken connection may also cause arcing to occur. As the current jumps the short gap. This actually can cause an extremely high temperature jump. This is actually how many house fires are caused on mains power connections where there is a poor connection. So Paul's conclusion on the poor connection is probably correct but, it might also be worsened by internal arcing adding extra heat.
O look. They couldn't even finish their R&D for $1600 graphics cards. Will the people buying these things ever feel stupid? I doubt it. But we can dream
Thanks for the thorough breakdown. Frankly, it would be great to have some focus on energy efficiency for a change. We can't keep scaling up power to improve performance.
If it's ABS plastic then the glass temp is 105c, but it will have started to soften a bit before that. Based on my own experience of 3D printing with ABS.
It's a relief for the 5.0 connector, but a damn shame for Nvidia. They should be sending out a revised version of the adapter.
Nice to see you doing a bit more research than most of the "influencers" who jumped on the doom and gloom bandwagon and overblew the situation with fear mongering.
To me this looks a lot more like some faulty adapters just like every generation of power connector has had forever but was especially more common in the early days of each plug.
While 600W through a tiny plug like that seems like a lot to people even a 16 awg wire in a x4 config should be able to handle more than 600W this is almost certainly a faulty batch(or partial batch) because of poor soldering rather than an actual issue with the plugs and wires.
Think your analysis about loose contact is the answer to the issue. I troubleshooted my flickering lights once and the root of the issue was loose contact on one of the wires, and that wire/surrounding plastic was a little burnt. In many cases, loose contact is a lot worse than no contact
As a former technician, seeing 4 power inputs shoved into 1 plug was the first red flag...
nVidia can't ignore the deficiencies in the cable design. Possible FIRE hazards are too real. THX Paul.
Igors adapter looks like I soldered it. Jay's a lot nicer. Yous is somewhere in between. You can tell from all 3, the soldering is inconsistent in quality as well as wire placement. Some have more contact area than others.
I think think that 8.3a is too much load for that pin. It is beyond what molex specs for it.
When I saw that, it was clear that these are almost certainly all soldered by hand. That means that soldering wasn't a decision they made to save cost.
The surface tension on the solder suggests that the outer pins are on their own and the center 4 are in pairs
I think they populated the two unused connections to prevent people from sending angry social media posts about "missing wires" in their connector 😂 Great series of videos from the community, hopefully it helps with the resolution coming faster and better!
Found your video on this subject to be very productive in terms of actual information. Didn't seem like a sensational report/reaction, which I appreciate.
Oh don't you worry, the regular crew of thumbnail click-baiters will be by shortly with their mouths hanging open, the cable sticking out of their ear, and a dumb question in the title. "Will NVIDIA burn your house down?"
Agreed. Paul, with his trusty editor Joe, is good at conveying an aggregate of information.
Another level-headed commentary on the adapter issue, thank you Paul.
Appreciate the breakdown Paul, much appreciated.👍
when the adapter melts on the plug, but the heat should spred from the lose cable/sodering point(as you show in this video) istnt that a bit odd?
The more you buy, the more money I saved with gimped power wires that funds my leather jacket relief.
Hey HuWang...... Have you figured out who kopite7kimi is yet???..... Your MOM????
No argument here. Fashion first!
problem too, is those metal plates are now thinner vs previous connector, so they get hotter, 57C (plastic 67ºC at 30 ambient temp) outside, could be 90-º105ºC (metal) inside, that could strain the solder with the time and breat the solder joint.
I ran the numbers just as a sanity check for the possibility of a bad connection causing the problem.
I believe power loss will be "high" when the impedance of the poor connection matches the impedance of the wires coming from the PSU to the connector. Doing some back of the envelope calculations, the expected power loss for 4 - 14 AWG Aluminum, 0.5 meter wires carrying 50A total is about 4W. (using 13.47 mOhm/meter at 70C). That's higher than I expected, but distributed over that much wire, it's fine.
I ran through the current divider circuit, and found that the weakened connection could dissipate a little over 1 watt in the worst case scenario. This is obviously in a much more concentrated and insulated area than before. My intuition tells me that could be enough power to start a bad thermal situation. Resistors rated for 1 watt are pretty chonky as is, and they would probably be significantly derated being incased in plastic.
Maybe the Sense #2 and #3 should have been used for a thermocouple in the connector ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think you have some terms backwards, where do you find large resistors rated for 1 watt? I think you meant 1 ohm, because at 12v that would be 12 amps through a resistor. A 1 watt resistor at 12v would be like 0.08 amps.
For those not seeking to purchase a new PSU ATX 3.0, Cablemod has designed, manufactured & distributed a new cable to suit that on the face of it, is much more robust than Intel's adaptors.
It would be much better having a complete cable to suit your current PSU than just a flimsy adapter cable.
Pauls investigation, as others have done, is spot on with the outer pins being effected. The inner pins are able to dissipate the heat generated whereby the out pins don't.. The buck stops with them. Perhaps for the outer pins the plate, and those pins need to be thicker.
Good add Paul! A real value add piece. Your Dremel skillz are legendary, respect.
Where can I get one of those adapters? 3:29
Keep in mind with thermal camera results you're observing the outside of the plastic connector. Plastic is an insulator; the actual temperatures of the electrical connections inside the connector are going to be significantly higher.
Also the solder joints lie towards the rear of the connector, which doesn't directly explain why the opposite end of the connector where the pins lie is melting. The solder joints are possibly a secondary issue unrelated to the melting.
Great vid you explained how it works, what's different and why it would get hot. It's still really weird not seeing it crimped that Corsair pigtail is very nice.
Another characteristic: power draw by the graphics card is variable. I'd look to thermal expansion/contraction effects causing pin to connector movement. Over time gold or palladium plated surfaces can wear, and connection contact areas can decrease, resistance increases, becoming more more thermally active. Once micro-arcing starts, oxidized contaminants appear in the contact area leading to bigger arcing as the pin and connector degrade further. Just something I've seen in the past.
It's good to see another TH-cam channel employ The Vise of Knowledge.
Great overview of the situation!
So to summarize... The new 12VHPWR connection is great but the bundled Nvidia adapters are trash! Who would have thought...
Great complimentary video to Jay
Thanks for the tips and reassurance, Paul. Much appreciated.
problem with reviewer tests... they're all on open air test beds. But hey. Thanks for the cable tear down. That was fun.
was it only the 4090 that had an issue? or all the cards that used the 12vhpr? I've been looking at a 4070 ti super and I'm concerned because I've been news that it's STILL an issue.
Hardware Busters International's video, "16-Pin (12VHPWR) Cable Bended vs Straight. Is it dangerous on an RTX 4090?", is well worth a watch too. His power monitoring device is top notch.
There are at least two different variations of this adaptor, 150v and 300v. the 300v like you have is a lot more heavy duty. Id like to see the burnt adapters, I bet they are all 150v.
14:27
And, **cough** **cough** , failed to mention it publicly. By mistake....
Of course.
Imagine spending that much money to receive such a janky and potentially life threatening product.
With tension on it and under load it clearly has a problem with a cable losing its good connection. If you want to avoid this problem for the moment and continue using your Gpu, connect ALL FOUR of the 8 pins and then dont run your card at 600 watts. Connecting only 3 of the 8 pins is possible but WOULD still have the same chances of the same problem, as the issue IS NOT that the 12pin gets hot under 600 watts, but rather the conncections arent durable enough. If Nvidia used 8 wires instead that would probably help, BUT the connections need to be strong or it could still happen. For those with experience in eletrical work, recable at your own risk
This is brilliant, I'm glad you found the problem (confirmed the problem).
So sad that it takes youtubers to find these things out and not the actual companies that are literally making billions off of us. Thanks for the information, it was eggscellent...
It's crazy to think that this sort of tiny oversights are also what causes planes to crash. Can't overstate the importance and responsibilities of the QA/QC engineers, even the technicians who are working on wires, soldering, and cabling, and the need for them to do their jobs at the highest level always.
You think that most of the ppl that this has happened to were attempting to mine with their cards?
Let's be real... Anyone who bought a 4090 deserves a fire.
thank you for this Paul. I was really glad when your showed the adapter that Corsair sent to you.
ah the joy of progress.
Biggest issue I can see is binding them all together in a tight 'shrinkwrap', it would be much better to shrinkwrap the top 4 and bottom 4 separately, that would allow for movement when bending into position. currently as they are so tightly bound together if you put a 90o bend on them it will have no option but to pull the top connectors loose there is no way they could just slide against each other.
quick test grap a note pad/book grab the approximate amount of pages and bend the pages back and see how much 'shorter' the top pages are compared to the bottom.
That doesn't seem like sufficient isolation between +12V and ground inside the connector. I bet those two skinny little plates are somehow shorting a little bit inside the connector and going nuclear from there.
at 8:26 This cable is 300v, same as GamersNexus. Igor's was 150V
I think it's the factory mix up on NVIDIA 12V PWR Adapter. There are some NVIDIA adapters out (Like Igor's one) that have each wire rated 150V but majority of us including me have each wire rated 300V. You can easily find out if you unpeel bending tape and expose little of the wire. Again I don't think you can recreate the melting if you have each wire rated 300V.
Nvidia heard that new gen tech consumers are nicknamed "1st wave Beta testers" then went the extra mile and added the "final QA" title just for laughs.
thanks paul. jayz vid confused me, suggesting that disconnected pins were overheating...
you explained it far better. dodgy connection, higher resistance, voila, smoke.
It's quite obvious that they knew the possible issue, that's why there is the rubber strain relief sleeve which Corsair and others don't use. This is precisely there to reduce the stress put on the soldered connections inside. Either this sleeve is not sturdy enough, not long enough or people experiencing those issues put too much force on the adapter that was still able to crack the soldered join. Or it is QA issue. Most likely all of this together. A few unlucky guys got defective adapters and put them on enough strain to crack the joint that should have been protected by this sleeve.
working in QC, learning how to use power supplies to test certain equipment has shown me how absolutely ridiculous Nvidia is for using a 12pin, 12vdc connectors…now we’re gettn toasty
The 90 degree adapter coming from cable mod feels like it should have been the standard to begin with
The pins are in parallel as per diagram, if resistence goes up due to poor contact, that pin has much lower heat generation. Power = V^2/R. That means side pins having poor contact will raise the heat generation on good pins because they need to pass way more current than before.
It's crazy seeing bunch of people make tech videos parroting each other, but not really thinking or checking.
+1
What brand are the blue side cutters at 9:07?
burning issues happened when they used a 2x8pin to 12+4 pin adapter. to avoid this, use a real PCIe gen5 PSUs with dedicated 12vhpwr pins. once you smell the smoke, it means that's the smell of a lawsuit. gpus are not the problem, rather it's on the psus.
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In short, Nvidia shipped sub-standard power adapter cable for a 1600USD GPU.