u/LA_Rym

My warning post was removed on Nvidia by the mods, but they remove any and all posts that don't glaze over Nvidia anyway so that sub is a joke.

Onto the real issue, when I bought my 4090 I was concerned that the hydra adapter that Nvidia sent with the GPU would not be good enough and cause melting, so I bought a CableMod 12VHPWR cable for my GPU.

Recently I've been having blackouts with fans revving up to max and requiring a full PC restart to fix the issue. After further investigations, I saw how the 12V Rail voltage was getting dangerously low during gaming, between 11.5V to 11.6V, up to maybe 11.7-11.8V.

For context, the minimum acceptable voltage is 11.4V, that's the bare spec minimum. Any further drops result in hardware failsafes engaging on GPUs that have them, shutting down to prevent damage. My GPU has failsafes and shuts down instead of functioning at dangerous voltage levels.

I uninstalled the CableMod cable, which was basically fused to the GPU since I hadn't removed it in years, and it took a lot of effort to pull it out, it was NOT improperly installed. I had to physically hold and push my GPU into the motherboard PCI-E slot while forcefully pulling the CableMod cable out bit by bit until it finally came loose (no, I did not forget about it's safety pin or whatever it's called).

After reinstalling the Nvidia Adapter (which takes up more space and does look like a hydra), idle voltage increased enormously to 12.3-12.4V, and in-game voltage is now at 11.9V to 12.0V, with the lowest transient spike recorded at 11.85V. My GPU did not shut down randomly anymore.

I use HWINFO 64 to check for my voltages. This is a warning for 12VHPWR GPUs using third party cables, CHECK FOR YOUR VOLTAGES TO BE WITHIN SPEC PARAMETERS, THAT'S WHAT'S CAUSING CABLE MELTDOWNS.