Recently, we reported on an incident involving an RTX 5090 GPU that suffered damage due to a "melted" 12VHPWR connector. As it turns out, the owner of this GPU resides near Roman “der8auer” Hartung, a highly regarded overclocker, allowing him the chance to inspect the damaged unit. His results are quite alarming. In fact, der8auer identified a comparable issue with his own RTX 5090 Founders Edition (FE) graphics card, prompting speculation about a potential flaw in the GPU's power distribution design.
In the video below, der8auer observed that his RTX 5090 Founders Edition (FE) GPU faced analogous problems to that of the user with the melted connector. The GPU was primarily drawing power through just two of the six 12V wires in the cable. This uneven power distribution resulted in certain wires overheating as they were handling most of the load.
The thermal imaging camera captured the power cable’s heat distribution, illustrating that only two of the power cables were heating up. Additionally, the PSU side temperature reached 153 degrees Celsius.
Der8auer is concerned that continued operation of his GPU under these conditions could eventually result in the power cables melting. Consequently, he stopped his tests before that could happen.
It’s important to note that this issue arises from the uneven distribution of power across the GPU’s six 12V cables. Properly balancing the power across these cables would prevent any single cable from overheating more than the others.
(Thermal images provided by der8auer (PSU side Left – GPU side Right))
Der8auer has indicated that not all RTX 5090 GPUs are affected by this power distribution issue. This problem seems to be isolated to Nvidia’s Founders Edition design, although there’s a possibility that other GPUs may exhibit a similar defect.
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