NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 graphics cards continue to cause trouble, as the latest case shows a 16-pin connector that's blown out.
NVIDIA 16-Pin Connector Issues Continue To Mount With The RTX 5090, New Case Shows The Worst Kind of Damage We've Seen Yet
Ever since the RTX 40 series, the 16-pin connector has been killing many graphics cards. Most cases are specific to the higher-end GPUs such as the RTX 4090 and the latest RTX 5090, which consume lots of power, mainly between 450-600W. But we have also seen similar cases emerge on AMD's RX 9070 XT variants that feature this connector, and that's not as power hungry as the NVIDIA designs, which means that there's an underlying problem that has yet to be resolved.
Over the years, new 16-pin standards, which were meant to be safer, have been released, such as 12V-2x6, and compliant ATX 3.1 PSUs, which offer many safety features. PSU, GPU, & cablemakers have been providing new products, but even those have failed to solve the issues. Just recently, we saw ASUS's $50 16-pin cable burn out.
Now, the latest case has been presented in Vietnam. A GPU repair outlet, quyle.gpufix, was sent two RTX 5090s for repair. One of the graphics cards had been tampered with, which resulted in a power loss and various GPU recognition issues. It even had a missing VRAM chip. This was fixed to normal operation, but the second RTX 5090 was in a far worse condition.
The second RTX 5090 had its entire 16-pin connector completely blown up. The explosion was so bad that there are no traces left of a physical connector. The entire section of the PCB is in bad shape, and it is also reported that the damage extended to the GPU and the VRAMs, rendering them dead.
No information on what sort of setup this particular graphics card was running inside is shared, but we can even see the copper layers of the PCB, which shows that the burn damage was of an extent unlike anything we've seen before.
No Real Fix
This goes on to show that RTX 5090s and other high-end graphics cards featuring a 16-pin connector are still prone to burning, melting & explosions. There's no fix for them, but replacements are provided, though in some cases, it could be hard to get those, too, depending on the region and retailer.
More recently, tech outlets such as Club386 & Daniel Owen from YouTube also saw their RTX 5090 Founders Edition models burn up, and the 16-pin connector was once again the main culprit. You can check out our guide to ensure proper installation of 16-pin cables here.
News Source: I_Leak_VN
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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