Nvidia Investigates Melting PC Graphics Card Power Cables | Biden News

Maybe the oversized, power hungryand high priced Nvidia’s 4000 series graphics cards are a bit too hot of a product right now. After one user posted photos of his charred 12-volt, high-power (12VHPWR) connector on Reddit, Nvidia responded with an investigation in at least two cases.

Yesterday, Reddit user reggie_gakil shared photos of a freshly burned cable and electrical connector on their RTX 4090 graphics card, titled “RTX 4090 Adapter burned” with a caption that read “IDK”. [how] it happened but it smelled bad and I saw smoke.” Although the card is said to still be working, reggie_gakil was not alone. Another Reddit user began his response with, “You’re not the only one. This happened to me today too.” This follows reports that PCI-SIG, the consortium that sets standards for PCI, PCI-X, and PCI-Express connections (those used in said graphics cards), was aware of potential “security issues under certain conditions.” According to The EdgeNvidia is now investigating these cases.

In a statement to KotakuNvidia said it is “in contact with the first owner and will contact the other for more information.”

With the increased power of these new graphics cards and new ATX power standards that have raised eyebrows, this is perhaps not so surprising. Indeed, YouTube channels like JayzTwoCents are doing a bit of an “I told you so” victory lap.

As mentioned in JayzTwoCents’ video, Brandon Bell, senior technical marketing manager for Geforce at Nvidia dismissed early fears about unsafe power cables as “issues that don’t exist” and that “everything just works, man.” While the results of Nvidia’s investigation have yet to determine whether the initial Reddit post that set off the alarm is an outlier, there is certainly cause for concern.

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Nvidia’s competitor AMD also responded to reggie_gakill’s melted cable story. Senior vice president of AMD Radeon replied to a Tweet remain that “the Radeon RX 6000 series and upcoming RDNA 3 GPUs will not use [the 12VHPWR] connector.”