An RTX 4090 Just Melted 1 Year After Being Installed

It's been one year since Nvidia launched the RTX 4090 to much fanfare. Despite the card quickly being crowned the top dog of the GPU world, the launch was sullied promptly by reports of users' power connectors melting. This sordid scenario dragged on for months, with the root cause eventually being declared "user error" by Nvidia as it determined people weren't fully seating the 4-into-1 adapters into the cards. This seemingly settled the issue, but now it's back with a vengeance, like a GPU zombie.

A Redditor has posted a photo of a melted RTX 4090, claiming it had been working just fine for an entire year before performing Hari-Kari on itself. The Redditor says the card was purchased at launch in Germany, as none were available in the US then, and he has been using it without issue since. Naturally, there was a question about whether the card was seated correctly, to which they replied, "Clearly, I did for a year. If this was a seating issue it would've died ages ago. I've used it a lot." This Redditor had done their homework, too, as they linked a video from a computer repair company named NorthridgeFix in California that shows a technician declaring he's seen multiple RTX 4090 cards melt even when the connector is fully seated.

This melted 4-into-1 Nvidia adapter was one of many that suffered an early demise. Credit: Reddit

The Redditor said the incident occurred when they were playing Battlefield 2042, where the screen went black, but the game audio kept playing. Next, the PC rebooted, and they noticed the distinct smell of burnt plastic. They noted the card still works but will eventually crash, and when it reboots, the acrid smell is noticeable immediately. The Redditor notes two additional factors: the GPU was undervolted at the time of immolation, and they were using a 1,000W Corsair power supply. These factors lead to the inevitable conclusion that it's not user error but an issue with the Nvidia 4-into-1 adapter or the connector on the Asus card.

To its credit, Asus has offered either an upgrade for the GPU from the TUF to the Strix model or a full refund, which is about all one can hope for in these situations. Asus will have to examine the card first, of course, but it sounds like the company has stepped up. Still, it reignites the debate over the root cause of this issue once again, long after we all assumed it was settled.

Adding a bit more intrigue to the situation is Nvidia was previously reported to have begun swapping the connector on some of its cards for a new version designed to eliminate this issue. The new connector has its sensing pins moved back 2mm to require the cable to be inserted a smidge more to make a connection. The company had already begun including this revised connector on RTX 4070 cards when it was reported, which left us wondering whether it'd also add it to the RTX 4090 since that was the model previously vulnerable to melting.

Since the card was bought at launch, it has the stock connector. This indicates that although some GPUs might have melted due to user error, there's likely an issue with the RTX 4090 power connector design, a problem with the power cable adapters, or both. If you want to stroll down memory lane, there's a gigantic thread on Reddit listing all known incidents of adapters and GPU connectors melting right here.