Intel may have found the solution to Nvidia’s melting GPUs

kac77

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Intel may have found the solution to Nvidia’s melting GPUs

The 12VHPWR connector found in Nvidia’s best graphics cards has had its fair share of issues. After dozens of cases of the connector melting during regular usage, the most common cause may have been found, but a permanent solution to the problem has been elusive. Up until now, that is.

Surprisingly, the possible fix comes from Intel, not Nvidia. The company issued a recommendation regarding the design of the connector.
 
It's far more than that.
PSU manufacturers warned against using 600W GPU power plug design due to temperature rise risk
Intel says power supplies should now come with only one 12VHPWR plug design, 4 Spring.
I see the title of the article says PSU manufactures warned against… but the article makes no mention of which ones or when. The actual comment they are quoting about thermal benefits are from a random Twitter user and not an actual PSU manufacturer. Intel recommends the spec because it gives better contact area in the event the connector is not properly plugged in, the proper “fix” is still to ensure the card is correctly plugged in.
 
I thought Gamers Nexus did a big investigation and published a video with the problem 100% identified and a solution? They said all the other tech media people besides them were making up a bunch of BS. Did their own video end up being BS? Because that was months ago and if the problem still isn't solved...
 
I see the title of the article says PSU manufactures warned against… but the article makes no mention of which ones or when. The actual comment they are quoting about thermal benefits are from a random Twitter user and not an actual PSU manufacturer. Intel recommends the spec because it gives better contact area in the event the connector is not properly plugged in, the proper “fix” is still to ensure the card is correctly plugged in.
If higher than normal # of people make the same mistake it is one of design. That ranks right up there with "you're not holding it right".

Good engineering accounts for even mistakes on the users part.
 
Simple solution. Plug it in completely.

Happens to many of us, sometimes we just don't plug something in all the way. Still not acceptable. Add in all of the various manufacturers being ever so slightly different and it can be a problem. Even with good brand PSUs, some cables are tighter than others. Think it was my EVGA 1070, but the PSU power cables were always a tad loose when using an EVGA branded PSU. 2070/3070 are a bit more of a tactile feel and snap in better. I also changed to Seasonic last year.
 
If it is critical for a plug to be plugged a certain way, it should at least be clear that it was achieved or not. We are used to connector not letting you plug them in reverse if the pin order is important to them, Ethernet cable nice little sound when they connect and so on.
 
I think it has always been clear to plug in all cables in and double check it. I am sure their are lots of people out there that did t plug in their MB connection all the way in and caused fires.
 
If higher than normal # of people make the same mistake it is one of design. That ranks right up there with "you're not holding it right".

Good engineering accounts for even mistakes on the users part.
Like 50 of thousands, it worked out to be a fraction of a percent of users, a higher number of people struggle with opening the lids to garbage cans in public parks than plugging in the connector.
And if you wanna go the route of I spend thousands on that card it should be designed better, one of those garbage cans is in the 10s' of thousands so...
It bears repeating, "There is a surprising overlap between the smartest of bears and the dumbest of people".
 
I do believe that at some point, there must be a certain amount of extinction in regards to connectors. When it comes to transferring data or power, there are not really that many different ways in how it is done, in terms of parallel, serial, streaming, or synchronized data pulses. We need to have significantly less connector types and have each type designed in anticipation for the future.

Within multiple enterprise grade hardware projects I am involved in, all of them have had extensive delays due to connector and adapter issues. M.2 type A, type M, type B, mPcie, and if not that, it's a battle between UF.L and IPEX or yet another USB version. Even if it is mere human error, we as a technological species, should not be wondering what the best configuration of wires are to make power or data flow efficiently. We should simply know. Let's quickly figure it out and lay this connector nonsense to rest.
 
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Like 50 of thousands, it worked out to be a fraction of a percent of users, a higher number of people struggle with opening the lids to garbage cans in public parks than plugging in the connector.
And if you wanna go the route of I spend thousands on that card it should be designed better, one of those garbage cans is in the 10s' of thousands so...
It bears repeating, "There is a surprising overlap between the smartest of bears and the dumbest of people".
Nvidia never released numbers but if Intel is speaking on it then chances are the numbers were high enough / problem noticable enough for them to comment. Either way they offered a solution which is welcome.
 
It is the manufacturers job/requirement to spec/ provide the proper rated connections; now it is your job to use it properly.
 
Nvidia never released numbers but if Intel is speaking on it then chances are the numbers were high enough / problem noticable enough for them to comment. Either way they offered a solution which is welcome.
Yes, they did. 50 cases out of 125,000, or a rate of 0.04%. They responded to social media blowing up the issue when it was always an extremely rare occurrence. It's the perfect case exhibiting how the internet overly amplifies voices, especially those associated with stirring up controversy.

https://hardforum.com/threads/nvidia-rtx-4090-power-connectors-melting.2022862/post-1045506940
 
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