PCI-SIG has launched an announcement on the continued saga of the 12VHPWR adapter being bundled with Nvidia’s RTX 40-series graphics playing cards. The consortium accountable for many requirements in PC gaming, together with energy supply to GPUs, has mentioned that it wish to remind all of its members—which embrace Nvidia, AMD, and others accountable for smaller elements and elements—that they need to take a look at to make sure finish consumer security with the 12VHPWR adapter.
The 12VHPWR adapter—discovered on the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 (opens in new tab) and RTX 4080 (opens in new tab)—has been embroiled in latest controversy concerning its security, following stories of melting and warmth harm (opens in new tab) whereas in use. The problem, affecting an quantity of Nvidia GPUs at present (possibly 50 or so in accordance with Nvidia however arguably too many), is presently the topic of a class-action lawsuit.
“We beforehand despatched an electronic mail notifying you that one producer has reported to PCI-SIG potential questions of safety with its use of the 12VHPWR connection,” PCI-SIG notes in an electronic mail despatched to PC Gamer. “Additional to that, we have now been knowledgeable of a latest lawsuit: Genova v. Nvidia Company, U.S. District Court docket for the Northern District of California case No. 5:22-cv-07090 (opens in new tab). The lawsuit alleges, partly, that 12VHPWR cable plugs skilled ‘melting … posing a severe electrical and fireplace hazard.'”
The lawsuit is a category motion filed by a person as a purchaser of an Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card, which claims: “The gravamen of this motion is that Defendant marketed and offered the RTX 4090 with a faulty and harmful energy cable plug and socket, which has rendered shoppers’ playing cards inoperable and poses a severe electrical and fireplace hazard for every purchaser.”
PCI-SIG has launched in response to the lawsuit:
“PCI-SIG needs to impress upon all Members that manufacture, market or promote PCI-SIG applied sciences (together with 12VHPWR connections) of the necessity to take all acceptable and prudent measures to make sure finish consumer security, together with testing for the reported downside circumstances involving shoppers as alleged within the above-referenced lawsuit.
“Members are reminded that PCI-SIG specs present needed technical info for interoperability and don’t try to handle correct design, manufacturing strategies, supplies, security testing, security tolerances or workmanship. When implementing a PCI-SIG specification, Members are accountable for the design, manufacturing, and testing, together with security testing, of their merchandise.”
Basically, take a look at your personal cables.
The 12VHPWR connector is printed within the PCIe 5.0 specification, and can also be included as part of Intel’s ATX 3.0 specification for energy provides. AMD has confirmed it won’t be utilizing the connector for its next-generation, although this resolution could have definitely been made many months earlier than the connector points first reared their ugly head.
Nvidia, as the first producer affected by the problem (although the connector will not be Nvidia’s alone), has mentioned it’s investigating the problem. From its preliminary inquiries, and from affected playing cards it has collected, the corporate has mentioned what it believes to this point may very well be the trigger for the issue: not absolutely plugging within the connector.
“We’re actively investigating the stories. We’re conscious of about 50 circumstances globally,” Nvidia says in a put up on its help knowledgebase titled ‘Energy Connector Replace – GeForce RTX 4090’ (opens in new tab).
“Our findings thus far recommend {that a} frequent difficulty is that connectors are usually not absolutely plugged into the graphics card. To assist make sure the connector is safe we suggest plugging the ability dongle into the graphics card first to make sure it’s firmly and evenly plugged in, earlier than plugging the graphics card into the motherboard.”
Nvidia says it’s wanting into methods to make sure this connection has been made earlier than powering on the graphics card.
The 12VHPWR connector is ready to ship as much as 600W, so a correct connection is certain to be important to make sure that wattage is delivered safely. Nevertheless, third-party stories additionally recommend that two totally different 12VHPWR adapter producers (opens in new tab) with various connection factors may very well be seen to have an effect on whether or not this difficulty happens or not. A type of firms, Astron, is listed as a PCI-SIG member, as I am certain too would be the different, NTK. Although I am unable to discover that identify straight listed. so it might be underneath one other.
Maybe these stories are additionally why PCI-SIG feels the necessity to remind its members that testing and correct design are their very own accountability. Both means, it would not look good for anybody if a $1,599+ graphics card goes up in a puff of smoke, not to mention the related fireplace danger that goes with that.