Here’s A Small Guide To Help You Make Sure Your NVIDIA 16-Pin 12VHPWR Cable For GeForce RTX 4090 or RTX 4080 Doesn’t Melt
While we don’t know the exact nature of the issue yet, we do know that at least three sources have pointed out that poor contact force is the most plausible reason behind the melting of the 16-pin 12VHPWR cable. We have worked with some manufacturers to assemble a small guide that will let you know the proper way of installing the cable to the graphics card. We have also seen issues with people installing the same cable on an ATX 3.0 PSU and we have to point out that the same problem can occur on the PSU side as the GPU side. A loose connection can appear at both ends and in the case you are running a native ATX 3.0 PSU with a Gen 5 cable, you should follow the same steps as we mentioned for the GPUs above. Following are some examples of how the cable looks at various angles when it is fully seated or pulled to the sides. NVIDIA 16-Pin 12VHPWR Cable: PSU Manufacturer 16-Pin Cable: The reason why checking the connection on both ends is very important compared to an 8-pin connector is because the new 16-pin 12VHPWR cables come with a buckle-less design which is resistant to high-pulling force and bending. Plus, it latches to the anchor firmly & won’t come out. The 16-pin cable has a small latch mechanism underneath the anchor which doesn’t seem to do the job well. It is easy to come out and even when fully plugged in, the connection can come out loose in certain cases. This shows that despite your best efforts, there’s still a chance that an improper connection will occur sometime and in that case, it is just better to check your connector periodically. It also shows that the design of the cable in general isn’t as user-friendly as the existing 8-pin plugs & a redesign or a revision is the best option that we can hope for. We want to tell our readers and anyone reading this post that this guide is to help you out and mitigate the issue. We aren’t saying that this will fully solve the problem as NVIDIA still has not confirmed what’s the root cause but since most tech outlets have pointed this out, we can only provide the resolution we see fit for now.
