GeForce RTX 4090 Claims Its First Cable Connector Casualty, Check Out The Aftermath
Posting on the NVIDIA subreddit, /u/reggie_gakil simply says his "RTX 4090 Adapter burned." He shared a picture of the card and of the adapter, both of which are reproduced here. In the thread, he comments that he was playing Red Dead Redemption 2 when it happened, and remarkably, the card itself is still functional, although he intends to RMA it regardless.
Both NVIDIA as well as CableMod reached out to the user in the thread. NVIDIA spoke to him in DM, so we have no idea what they were discussing, but CableMod offered to replace the user's adapter for him.
That's supported by the guide from CableMod, who says to give at least 3.5cm of clearance before bending the 12VHPWR cables vertically, and to never bend them horizontally at all. That makes cable routing a little difficult in most cases, where the GPU's power connector and the pass-through for the cable routing plates aren't likely to match up exactly on either axis.
According to Buildzoid, the fellow who runs the YouTube channel Actually Hardcore Overclocking, the fault isn't in the wires themselves, but actually in the connectors. Like with most internal PC connectors, including all power connectors, the actual electrical leads aren't attached to the plastic connector housing in any way; they're just kind of enclosed by it. He proposes that bonding the electric leads to the connector housing could help mitigate this issue.
Alternatively, longer cable housings that prevent the cables from bending could help. CableMod already plans to sell a 90° adapter that might prevent this problem and make cable routing much easier in the majority of cases. Whatever the end result, we hope we don't hear about a bunch more of these kinds of failures.
