After the issues with NVIDIA RTX 4090 GPUs ending up with melting power connectors, the last thing anyone likely expected to happen was to see the same problem pop up with NVIDIA’s RTX 50-series GPUs. And yet, that’s exactly what’s been happening for some users. Over the past few weeks, more than a few owners of the new RTX 50-series GPUs have reported melting power connectors.
A problem like that could render the GPU completely useless, not to mention it could be dangerous and a potential fire hazard. NVIDIA doesn’t appear to have confirmed the cause of this problem, but as Tom’s Hardware notes, it could be that uneven current distribution is causing the connectors to overheat.
One RTX 5090 owner isn’t waiting around for NVIDIA to fix things and has taken it upon themselves to come up with a solution to this, quite frankly, ridiculous issue.
This prototype is designed to prevent the RTX 50-series GPU power connectors from melting
It’s important to make the distinction that this is just a prototype. It’s not something that NVIDIA itself has made. Additionally, it won’t necessarily guarantee any sort of prevention. That’s the intentional function, but this doesn’t cause the GPU to balance the current flow.
What it does do is alert you if one of the pins on the power connector is drawing too much power. Presumably, so you could either power off your system. In addition to the alarm, the prototype also includes 6 shunt resistors for each 12V cable on the connector. Images of the prototype were shared by X user Uniko’s Hardware (originally posted on Bilibili). This allows the PCB to read per-pin current values. This supposedly results in the alarm being able to send an alert if too much power is being drawn by a single connector.
The creator plans to open-source the project and software
Since this is just a prototype it’s not something other people will be able to buy. That being said, it doesn’t mean something like this won’t be available in the future. Provided NVIDIA doesn’t just fix its melting GPUs beforehand.
The creator said they plan to make the project and the software for it open source. And that could give others the capability to further the design and make it more usable. Or just downright something that can be purchased. Again, though, this is something that anyone who paid for one of these GPUs shouldn’t have to deal with. It is a cool prototype. It’s also great to see someone tackling this issue. Hopefully, however, NVIDIA will just fix it.