TECH NEWS: This time, the connector burned so badly that both the GPU and VRAM became unusable…
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 continues to cause problems, as shown by the latest incident involving a burned-out 16-pin connector. Since the RTX 4000 series launched, the 16-pin connector has damaged numerous graphics cards. Most cases involve high-performance GPUs such as the RTX 4090 and RTX 5090, which typically draw between 450W and 600W of power.
However, similar incidents have also been reported with AMD’s RX 9070 XT, which uses the same connector despite being far less power-hungry than Nvidia’s highest-end cards. This suggests that a fundamental issue still needs to be addressed. Over the years, newer and supposedly safer 16-pin standards have appeared, including 12V-2×6, alongside ATX 3.1-compliant power supplies equipped with numerous safety features, but the problems have not disappeared.
Power supply, GPU, and cable manufacturers have released new products, yet serious failures have continued to occur. Asus’s $50 16-pin cable burned out only recently. The latest incident happened in Vietnam, where two RTX 5090 cards were sent to a GPU repair shop called quyle.gpufix.
One of the cards had previously been tampered with, leading to power-delivery issues and several GPU-detection errors, while it was also missing a VRAM chip. That card could be restored, but the second RTX 5090 was in a far worse condition. Its 16-pin connector had completely blown apart, leaving no visible trace of the physical connector.
An entire section of the printed circuit board was severely damaged, and the reported destruction extended to the GPU and VRAM chips, rendering them inoperable. There is no information about the configuration in which the card had been used, but the exposed copper layers of the PCB show that the burn damage was exceptionally severe.
The incident once again proves that RTX 5090 cards and other high-end graphics cards using 16-pin connectors can still be vulnerable to burning, melting, and catastrophic failure. Cards damaged to this extent cannot be repaired, and replacement may be the only option, although obtaining one can also be difficult depending on the retailer and region.
Source: WCCFTech
