Modders solder power cables directly to RTX 5090 PCB to eliminate notorious melting 16-pin connector — bare-board Galax HOF card pulls 600W under chiller cooling
'There's no princess connector here.'
Ever since the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 launched (and the RTX 4090 before it), reports of the card burning down have been commonplace in the community. The culprit behind the GPU's incendiary nature is the 16-pin power connector that's notorious for being unreliable... so what if we got rid of it in the first place? That's what Brazilian YouTuber TecLab did in their latest experiment — stripping an RTX 5090 down and powering it through wires directly soldered to the PCB.
The GPU used for this test was a very high-end Galax HOF OC LAB XOC variant of the RTX 5090D. Unlike standard RTX 5090s that come with a single 16-pin connector for their 575W TDPs, this bad boy is equipped with twice the firepower (literally) since you can use up to 2,000W OC BIOSes on it. That already sounds like a bad idea, but TecLab went further and removed the heatsink and fans entirely to liquid-cool the core.
The modders took two sets of wires and soldered them right above either power connector on the PCB, linking them to the connectors' traces. They used two adapters to intercept standard 16-pin power cables coming from a PSU and convert them into bare wires that could be soldered easily. From the looks of it, the poor soldering job was only going to put these guys in more danger, but it somehow worked.
The card booted and ran just fine, even benchmarking pretty well. Remember, there was no cooler on the GPU. Instead, it was being tamed by two 120mm fans loosely zip-tied to the PCB and an industrial liquid chiller running ice-cold water across the core. We didn't get any temps, but the card was running at around 600W based on the ~50A reading from the power meter clamped to the 12V rail.
TecLab explained that they'd grown tired of the constant complaints about 16-pin power connectors on RTX 5090s causing problems. They sarcastically presented this "solution" as an answer to people who whine too much about their expensive cards melting, taking matters into their own hands to show Nvidia "how it's done." Even though the experiment was a success, it's safe to say that this is not safe; do not try this at home, kids.
Regardless of the practicality here, the fact that hastily soldering wires to a 900W GPU is potentially more reliable than Nvidia's factory-developed solution is simply absurd. We've seen so many external monitoring tools purpose-built for saving these 16-pin cards that each new solution just begs the question as to why they haven't been recalled yet. Then again, if you're buying a $5,000 GPU, we suppose a WireView is chump change at that point.
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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
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JRHERITA I wouldn't recommend doing what they did. They used 12 guage wires - which are rated for about 24A continuous (30A peak). 48 amps continuous at 12 volts = 576 watts.Reply
Even though the 12VHP connector isn't great, it's certainly "OK" at 290 watts load.. (this board has 2 of them). -
ezst036 I am surprised someone didn't do this sooner.Reply
It does not seem to be the best solder job but if it were done correctly this would be a better solution than many of the others I have seen.
It is terrible that Nvidia just doesn't care. If you got a melted GPU just go buy another one for five thousand dollars. -
Ogotai Reply
the ONLY way nvidia would even begin to care.. if their sales started to drop with cards with the new connector on it... but we all know that wont happen, as there really isnt another option for the 80 and 90 series of cards.... OR, if maybe a persons place almost burned down, cause of this connector... but again.. that doesnt seem to be a possibility as well.....ezst036 said:It is terrible that Nvidia just doesn't care. If you got a melted GPU just go buy another one for five thousand dollars. -
Kindaian This only solves one issue which is the connector burning. Doesn't solve the over-wattage over one wire.Reply -
FunSurfer Well this connection proves that each 6 wires of the 12VHPWR connector (6 for 12V and 6 for ground), can be short-circuited, so a possible solution for a one wire overheat and burn on the connector, will be unifying each of the separate 6 pins layer to one flat and wide pin, so the new 12VHPWR connector will include 6 pins, two big flat ones and the original four small sense pins. The high current will flow through a whole flat pin and not concentrate on one small pin.Reply -
Vanderlindemedia ReplyKindaian said:This only solves one issue which is the connector burning. Doesn't solve the over-wattage over one wire.
It does, resolve the issue. The root cause is usually, corrosion happening over repeated pulls/insertions or not fitted properly or too much tension on the wire.
All the burning connectors come from corrosion that ramps up resistance thus less current being provided over a single wire, and spread towards the rest of the set.
When you merge all this, it becomes one again, and there's no weak link. The problem here is nvidia refusing to acknowledge the design is a faulty one.
Even a 300W 9070XT managed to burn, that connector. And not even in years a PCI-E connector ever has burned off because of it. It's just too fragile. -
Vicecrow For a good solder on these graphics your need a Lot of heat Will damage the board. It's why is ugly as hell.Reply
The Pcb suck ALL the heat from a Iron some times you need a Air station and a Iron to remove a caps. -
Trake_17 Y'all are critiquing the solder job and utterly missing how unforgivable this is. People are desperately learning to solder because Nvidia won't own this and doesn't have to because of how broken this market is.Reply -
Trake_17 Reply
There are AMD options. It's a lie that there aren't. But Pzc gamers are weak willed addicts if they know there's a more potent drug on the market, they're gonna use it, even if it kills them. When heroin addicts learned that fentanyl was more potent but also basically killed you if you used it, what happened? People bought the 5090 anyway.Ogotai said:the ONLY way nvidia would even begin to care.. if their sales started to drop with cards with the new connector on it... but we all know that wont happen, as there really isnt another option for the 80 and 90 series of cards.... OR, if maybe a persons place almost burned down, cause of this connector... but again.. that doesnt seem to be a possibility as well.....
Is it really all that different