Another case where an RTX 5090… Well, its connector, is causing problems. Indeed, Andreas Schilling, editor at HardwareLuxx, has observed worrying temperatures on the 12V-2×6 on the power supply side, despite a water-cooled graphics card. On his thermal images, the connector exceeds 150°C, a clearly worrying temperature… But we know the cause.
RTX 5090: the 12V-2×6 on the power supply side exceeds 150°C!
While taking pictures with a thermal camera, our HardwareLuxx colleague was unpleasantly surprised when he saw the images. While the board displayed perfectly normal temperatures (it was water-cooled, after all), the power supply was in a state of disarray. And yes, the power supply connector at the block’s output showed a clearly worrying temperatures: in excess of 150°C!
Clearly, at such temperatures, the risk of damage is present. If the connector doesn’t melt, you’re in luck, but the plastic may become brittle, for example. The connector may become loose, fail to make contact and eventually melt… In this case, burying the power supply or even the graphics card. This is what happened to this user on Reddit.
In short, the cause of the problem is always the same – we’ve talked about it extensively, and Der8auer has made some excellent videos on the subject(here and here). We’re still dealing with a lack of load distribution between the different pins on the cable. Very high currents (>20A) can then flow over one or two pins of the connector, generating high temperatures… This is what happens here.
In the end, all that’s needed is to add a few extra safeguards to the connector, with control and load distribution mechanisms. This is what was done with the RTX 3090 (Ti) in particular, and no major problems were to be deplored. It was only with subsequent generations of cards that the problem began to appear.
