As a fast refresher, the primary huge report on this was from Igor’s Lab. They do a very good job and apparently found a obtrusive flaw in Nvidia’s design of the 4-in-1 PCIe adapter that ships with each RTX 4090. That bug is an absence of solder on the pads that join the ability cables to the connector on the board. In his check, they had been simple to interrupt when the wire was bent at an excessive angle; a standard incidence when gamers place wires out of the best way.
After he printed his report, different tech sleuths examined his adapters and located that they did not match Igor’s. As an alternative of a poor soldering job, they discovered that he was really fairly strong with the adapters that they had. This results in the idea that Igor may need examined pre-production adapters. Each Players Nexus and Jayztwocents tried to drive their adapters to soften, however to no avail. Even with the deliberately damaged adapter, he refused to soften. This goes towards Igor’s report completely. In spite of everything, Nvidia could have achieved its homework with the adapter.
The adapter utilized in Igor’s Labs testing may have been a pre-production unit. (Picture: Igor’s Lab)
Jonny Guru determined to take issues into his personal fingers after emailing Nvidia concerning the challenge. In accordance with his weblog submit by way of Tom’s {Hardware}, Nvidia instructed him that he is “nonetheless testing.” With that useful resource a useless finish, he grabbed a number of adapters and began testing. He inserted three PCIe energy cables together with a temperature probe into every one. This allowed him to torture check cables and monitor temperatures the place the adapter suits into the connector on the PCB. As an alternative of RTX 4090, he used a board with extreme curves and carried out torture checks all night time.
An incorrectly inserted PCIe energy adapter. (Picture: Jonny Guru)
Like different testers, he deliberately tried to soften an adapter and was unsuccessful. Even when he fully broke one of many exterior energy cables, the adapter by no means melted. Additionally, the probe he used by no means reported temperatures above 53C. This led him to re-examine pictures individuals posted on-line of melted adapters, and he got here to a easy conclusion: Individuals aren’t plugging all of them the best way in (above). He factors out that this is not essentially his fault, as a result of the brand new adapter is seemingly tough to insert all the best way. That is as a result of new sideband rails that talk with the GPU, he says. He additionally factors out that we’re seeing extra solid adapters in comparison with ATX 3.0 cables simply because the previous are extra prevalent.
On the finish, he says that his opinion is that the adapters are actually good. they’re simply very tough (emphasis his) to completely insert. General there appears to be sufficient solder and the connection may be very stable. Even when he’s bent or broken, nobody has been capable of drive him to soften till now. Nonetheless, extra testing is required earlier than this may be confirmed. A phrase from Nvidia would definitely assist too, however we’re nonetheless ready for that. For now, if in case you have an RTX 4090, be sure you cannot simply unplug it as soon as it is inserted. When you can solely pull it out, it isn’t absolutely seated.
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