What simply occurred? It appears a supposedly foolproof answer to the issue of melting graphics card cable connectors is not infallible. A consumer of MSI’s yellow-tipped 12V-2×6 energy cable has reported that regardless of being designed particularly to keep away from the melting points affecting high-end Nvidia graphics playing cards, the cable connector has burned black.
MSI was the primary firm to ship PSU/graphics card 12V-2×6 energy leads with plastic housing molded in a shiny shade. The idea behind them is that customers push the connectors far sufficient into the playing cards in order that no shade stays seen. This ensures the connectors are absolutely seated and never in peril of overheating.
Do you know?🧐 MSI graphics playing cards include a particular dual-color 16-pin PCIe cable!
When you see yellow, your connection is not safe😮 Ensure that to attach it correctly, and sport on with confidence!*This dual-color design applies solely to the 1-to-3 and 1-to-4 dongles. pic.twitter.com/KuKWbej3df
– MSI Gaming (@msigaming) April 1, 2025
It is also value remembering that the 12V-2×6 cables function shortened sense pins, so the pins do not contact till the connector is absolutely seated.
But it surely appears even with all these preventative measures, there are nonetheless some cases of melting connectors. As posted on the QuasarZone BBS thread (through Harukaze), an proprietor of the costly MSI GeForce RTX 5090 SUPRIM SOC was utilizing the bundled yellow-tipped cable and located that the card-end connector had burned and seems to have barely melted.
The publish notes that the cardboard was powered by a Tremendous Flower 1300W ATX 3.1-compliant PSU on the time, so an absence of energy wasn’t a difficulty.
In response to the consumer, a blue display of loss of life stored showing and the PC repeatedly turned itself off. It was found upon inspection that the GPU-end of the cable’s connector had been broken.
The poster added that that they had performed Black Desert, utilizing about 400W, for round two hours.
Simply because the ideas of the cables are coloured yellow does not routinely imply that they are not going to soften – it is nonetheless right down to customers to make sure they’re correctly seated with no shade left exhibiting. There’s at all times the possibility that the particular person on this case made an error. The excellent news is that the $3,150 RTX 5090 seems to have come away unscathed.
There have been a worrying variety of cases wherein RTX 4090 and RTX 5000-series energy cable connectors have melted – typically the cables themselves and the playing cards or PSUs have been broken.
