GeForce RTX 4090 Owner Sues NVIDIA Over Melted 16-Pin Connector

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A GeForce RTX 4090 user has decided to sue NVIDIA after paying $1,599.99 for the flagship graphics card from Best Buy and later discovering that its 16-pin power adapter had melted, according to a new case spotted on legal resource Justia (Genova v. NVIDIA Corporation) that lists Lucas Genova as the plaintiff.

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I wish them luck. Nvidia needs to be held accountable. Only way to do that is hit them in the wallet.
 
Grimlakin said:
I wish them luck. Nvidia needs to be held accountable. Only way to do that is hit them in the wallet.
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Doesn't look like Nvidia is the bad guy in this as much as people want them to be. For the last month there have only been a couple reports of this and none of the tech sites were able to reproduce the melting. Gamers Nexus released their video today of their testing and basically found out its user error. Not seating the connector fully and having the cable pulled taught is what was causing it.

 
Its a bad plug used too high in its supposed rating. Steve didn't prove much of anything, only that yes you can make it burn, same as anything. I have a harder time believing that buyers of these cards, which are most likely older, experienced computer people will plug and bend something so poorly as to make it burn, and if its that easy to do, and it looks plugged in fine, then, again, its a bad desing. Nvidia needs to pull the plug on this plug.
 
Grimlakin said:
I wish them luck. Nvidia needs to be held accountable. Only way to do that is hit them in the wallet.
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That has NEVER happened.

All these lawsuits are a waste of time and money.

It's always the same, settle out of court, nvidia admints no wrong doing, lawyers get millions and users get pennies.

Rinse and repeat.
 
Uvilla said:
I have a harder time believing that buyers of these cards, which are most likely older, experienced computer people will plug and bend something so poorly as to make it burn, and if its that easy to do, and it looks plugged in fine, then, again, its a bad desing.
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Well, it's a new plug - and it's even more of a PITA to use. But the idea that users are infallible just doesn't fly.

Users break stuff all the time.

The main problem isn't the plug itself, IMO, but that the cards are all so tall that the condensed cables are difficult to route. That's not a new problem, but it is one that needs to be addressed, either by relocating the socket on the card or by providing more options for cable routing. 90 and 180 degree adapter would be my preferred option, as I use three 180 degree eight-pin adapters for my 3080 12GB - which absolutely can pull 450W.
 
Uvilla said:
Its a bad plug used too high in its supposed rating. Steve didn't prove much of anything, only that yes you can make it burn, same as anything. I have a harder time believing that buyers of these cards, which are most likely older, experienced computer people will plug and bend something so poorly as to make it burn, and if its that easy to do, and it looks plugged in fine, then, again, its a bad desing. Nvidia needs to pull the plug on this plug.
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It's bad design because it's easy to not plug it in completely.

I really hope they come up with something better for next time, as much as I hate changing standards. Best would be going back to standard. Or making just a solid 90° converter, one end is 12 pin, other end is 4x8, all in one piece.
 
Stoly said:
That has NEVER happened.

All these lawsuits are a waste of time and money.

It's always the same, settle out of court, nvidia admints no wrong doing, lawyers get millions and users get pennies.

Rinse and repeat.
Click to expand...
A lawsuit is not always about the money, though but instead, that bad press could lead to bringing in GLOBAL higher authorities eyes into the situation, which could lead into an anti-trust investigation, bring unnecessary worry to their investors due to its future reputation, etc.
 
This whole plug issue has an Apple's you are holding it wrong flavor. Its really simple and all self evident really. Its a bad plug, its a bad plug in general, its a dangerous plug when used at or near its rated limits. Its not really a discussion, I find it fascinating, and frustrating that people think it is. Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely certain anyone with a brain at Nvidia knows they screwed up, most likely some in there raised they red flag before this thing was decided upon, I would bet my left nut that they had beefier designs, bigger plugs that were rejected, somebody pushed for the smallest possible, they didn't want to look ridiculous with either a huge plug, or tons of the already available 8 pin or some such. That is all that happened. Hopefully this fiasco means the death of this standard, no one smart enough should adopt it knowing the risks.
 
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Uvilla said:
its a dangerous plug when used at or near its rated limits
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That's not really a problem. The whole 12VHPWR standard is designed to handle well over 600W at 12V. May even be as high as 1200W transient loads.
 
GunShot said:
A lawsuit is not always about the money, though but instead, that bad press could lead to bringing in GLOBAL higher authorities eyes into the situation, which could lead into an anti-trust investigation, bring unnecessary worry to their investors due to its future reputation, etc.
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Again, that has NEVER happened. Besides, there might not even be a case if GN investigation is true.
 
GN cut off all but 2 12V pins and ran it at 600 watts and had no issue
A single pin can likely handle 600 watts as per GN (but they did not test)
This spec has a lot of safety margin regarding the amount of current it can handle

Just needs to be plugged in

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kcthebrewer said:
This spec has a lot of safety margin regarding the amount of current it can handle

Just needs to be plugged in
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Sounds like the engineers forgot the most important part: people have to use it
 
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