Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 power wire reportedly caught fire despite using the original cable — CPU cooler's tubing was also caught in the blaze

Someone must've been on Santa's naughty list, as a user on Reddit has posted an ugly picture of a melted RTX 5090 power connector that occurred on Christmas. The connector is fried past recognition, to the point where its owner thinks it's safer not to even try to take it out right away.

This melting fate befell user u/nmp14fayl, who described their misfortune on the r/pcmasterrace subreddit.

"[I]ndeed it did not just melt, when I started smelling something weird, next thing I knew, it was fully on fire 🔥," they wrote.

The plastic insulation of the 12V-2x6 cable has given way and exposed the bare copper wires underneath and the connector housing has melted into itself.

We see a blob of solder piled up on the GPU-side connector, which has likely solidified and is even making contact with the heatsink fins, along with some burnt cable debris. The fire also scorched part of the AIO tubes passing over the GPU, but everything else looks untouched. The point of connection is completely destroyed.

The Redditor has already said they'll take the entire apparatus, cable dangling and all, to Micro Center after the holidays. In the meantime, they've troubleshooted other components, including the ATX 3.1 power supply and they all seem to be fine. The motherboard is displaying an image over integrated graphics, and a secondary RTX 2070 Super is also working on the affected PCIe slot.

Whether the RTX 5090 itself is salvageable remains a question, but the power connector is a goner for sure and, sadly, it's just an addition to the long list of stories like this. While user error is often attributed to 12V-2x6 woes, the connector itself is notorious for being allegedly under-designed, often carrying close to 600W of power at very high amperage that it seems to mishandle.

On paper, the 12V-2x6 connector is already an improvement over the previous-gen 12VHPWR connector that killed many RTX 4090s, but the same underlying logic applies across both generations. If one pin stops making a connection due to stress or mechanical failure, the rest receive too much load, which overheats them and leads to melting, burning, or igniting in worst-case scenarios.

We've done a deep dive into the specifics of why these connectors melt, but it's clearly a persistent issue. If it were an isolated problem, companies like Thermal Grizzly wouldn't sell temp monitoring adapters, and DIY solutions to combat overloads would never materialize.

The issue is exacerbated by older power supplies that only support 8-pin PCIe cables, for which GPU manufacturers supply 8-pin-to-16-pin adapters, adding another factor into the equation. Funnily enough, this Redditor was using a native 12V-2x6 cable that came with their PowerSpec 1050 GFM power supply, so even that excuse is out the window. We're sending our holiday wishes to the poster, hoping the GPU is somehow salvageable.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.