Reddit user malcanore18 has already had problems with damage and repair of his NVIDIA RTX 4090. So he decided to create something that would prevent connectors and cables from melting.
This is a simple circuit with removable fuses on each wire of the power cable. The implementation is quite cumbersome and it is better to have a closed case to avoid seeing it. However, it’s not a perfect solution, and the author knows this — blowing one fuse can cause cascading of others, but at least it will protect the video card. Commenters suggest self-healing fuses. The author of the modification also told us what he thinks about NVIDIA’s explanation of the incidents:
«I don’t believe in these arguments about «user error» or «the connector was not fully connected». I think this is just a story they made up to try to save face. I think the 4090 is just drawing more current than the tiny contacts in the plug can handle. These tiny contacts act as a kind of bottleneck».
Other «lucky» owners create even more radical, but also more risky solutions. The user jlodvo simply soldered the power wires to the video card’s PCB. Although this eliminates the connector melting, it does not eliminate the uneven current distribution and the possibility of «burning the» video card. As they say, it’s best not to try this trick at home. In addition, there are factory-safe cables and devices that report abnormal current and temperature.
Recently, there have been fewer reports of video card failures. The NVIDIA RTX 50 series seems to be less prone to meltdowns, but there have been some cases. There have also been fewer reports of AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processorsalthough it is unlikely that the problem has disappeared.
Source: VideoCardz
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