Nvidia released the RTX 4090 with great excitement a year ago. The card was soon dubbed the best GPU available, however stories of users’ power cables melting marred the launch event. Months passed during this disgusting situation, and Nvidia finally acknowledged that the fundamental cause was “user error” after discovering that users weren’t fully seating the 4-into-1 adapters into the cards. This seemed to put an end to the problem, but now it’s back, like a GPU zombie.
An image of a melted RTX 4090 was shared on Reddit, with the user stating that the device was functioning normally for a whole year before to executing self-harm. Since then, the Redditor claims he has been using the card without any problems. He bought it in Germany during the card’s launch because none were accessible in the US at the time. “Clearly, I did for a year,” they said in response to the question of whether the card was seated appropriately. It would have died long ago if this was a seating problem. I’ve made extensive use of it.” This Redditor had done their research as well, since they included a video from NorthridgeFix, a computer repair business in California, in which a technician claims to have witnessed several RTX 4090 cards melt, even when the connector is firmly installed.
The Redditor reported that the occurrence happened when they were playing Battlefield 2042 and that the game’s audio continued to play even while the screen went dark. When the computer restarted, they smelled burnt plastic strongly. They observed that while the card is still functional, it will eventually crash and that an unpleasant odor is immediately apparent upon rebooting. The Redditor also mentions two other factors: they were utilizing a 1,000W Corsair power supply and the GPU was undervolted at the moment of immolation. These elements inevitably lead to the conclusion that there is a problem with the Nvidia 4-into-1 adapter or the Asus card’s connector, not with user error.
To its credit, Asus has offered a complete refund, which is about the best one can hope for in these circumstances, or an upgrade for the GPU from the TUF to the Strix model. Naturally, Asus will need to inspect the card first, but it seems like the business has taken initiative. Even still, it rekindles the discussion about the underlying cause of this problem long after we all thought it was resolved.
The fact that Nvidia was previously said to have started replacing the connector on certain of its cards with a new version intended to fix this problem adds even more mystery to the matter. The detecting pins on the new connector are shifted 2 mm back, requiring a slight extra insertion of the cable to establish a connection. When it was first reported, the firm had already started to include this updated connector on RTX 4070 cards. This got us wondering if it would also add it to the RTX 4090, because that model was the one that was previously prone to melting.
The card has the stock connector because it was purchased at launch. This suggests that while some GPUs may have melted as a result of human mistake, the RTX 4090 power connector design, the power cable adapters, or both may be problematic. Here’s a massive Reddit thread that details every known case of adapters and GPU connectors melting if you want to take a trip down memory lane.