Loose cables, bending and debris behind melting 12VHPWR connectors

There has been much discussion around the 12VHPWR adapter shipping with Nvidia's new RTX 40 series cards after a few users reported issues with the connector overheating. We've seen plenty of theories on the root cause and even a dissection of the adapter, but reproducing the issue was proving to be tricky. The team over at Gamers Nexus spent weeks looking into this and running failure tests, and now, the results are in. 

Gamers Nexus previously confirmed it was conducting these tests but had been unable to reproduce the issue so far. As it turns out, in order to get the connector to short and begin to heat up to extreme temperatures, you need to have a very loose connection. If the cable is not inserted and latched properly, then a loose connection can cause big problems, but GN finds that you do have to leave a pretty substantial amount of wiggle room to achieve this, while also bending the cable at an angle.

There is also the possibility that some users may not insert the cable to the point of latching in place, and as a result, cable management efforts after plugging the card in could cause the connection to loosen over time. The GN team did test the connector unseated at various points and the amount the connector has to be pulled out and bent in order to achieve melting is quite surprising.

Bending the cable itself doesn't seem to be an issue if the connector is fully seated and latched in place, but users will have to ensure they are plugging the adapter all the way into the connector. Users should not regularly unplug their cables to check them, as this brings up the possibility of introducing foreign debris into the connector, which in turn can also lead to failures.

Interestingly, GN's board partner sources indicate that the failure rate is below 0.1 percent, so this is an extremely rare issue to come across.

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KitGuru Says: Nvidia is of course still conducting its own failure testing and investigating this matter, but it has not made any public announcements just yet. 

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