Graphics card repair company Northbridge Fix claims it’s still dealing with large numbers of melted Nvidia RTX 4090 cards, with the firm having to fix 200 cards in one month alone. Melted power connectors are supposedly caused by an insecure connection of the 12VHPWR plug to the socket on the graphics card. It’s affected thousands of Nvidia graphics cards and even the 12vHPWR connectors on modular PSUs.
While the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 sits on our list of the best graphics cards as the supreme ray tracing option, this melting fault has become a notable reason to potentially reconsider a purchase. Worse still, no one can agree on what is specifically causing the issue in the first place.
On one side we have the ‘user error’ crowd, who support the idea that your RTX 4090 will only suffer from this melting issue if the power plug isn’t installed properly with an insecure connection. The other side of the argument is that the new 12VHPWR connection has an inferior design that is always going to be prone to such issues.
Looking at the arguments from both sides, they seem to ignore the fact that both can, in fact, be true. Nvidia is aware of the issue and has since revised the 16-pin connector to feature shorter sense pins, a move that reduces the RTX 4090 melting risk, as it only receives additional power when the adapter is completely connected.
In the meantime, users stuck with the original models have to be very careful to make sure their connections are secure to prevent this issue from catching them off guard. The official advice is to only use power cables provided with your GPU or by power supply manufacturers, but third party companies such as CableMod have also made products such as right-angled adapters.
These initially looked as though they could help this problem, as using one meant less pressure was being placed on the connection by the cables, but they’ve since been recalled, with the company recently advising owners to destroy their right-angled CableMod adapters, as they represent “fire and burn hazards.” NorthBridge Fix doesn’t blame CableMod for this problem specifically, instead saying the company just “built on the wrong foundation” with the original 12VHPWR socket design.
If you want to avoid issues like this arising, then follow our guide on how to build a gaming PC, where we take you step-by-step through the entire process.