Nvidia faces lawsuit for melting RTX 4090 cables as AMD has a laugh
- Reference: 1668797186
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/11/18/nvidia_flawsuit_4090/
- Source link:
The lawsuit, filed on November 11 by Lucas Genova in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, looks to charge Nvidia with unjustly enriching itself, committing fraud, breaching the implied warranty, and violating two New York statutes in the sale of the faulty RTX 4090 cards.
Nvidia must respond to Genova's claims by December, according to a summons issued Wednesday. A company spokesperson told The Register that it does not comment on pending litigation.
[1]
The lawsuit cites [2]several reports pointing to the RTX 4090's 12VHPWR power connector or the card's power socket melting after use. An ongoing [3]Reddit post has identified 26 confirmed reports of RTX 4090 cards with melting cables, and they have occurred in Nvidia's Founders Edition board as well as cards made by third parties like Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI.
[4]
[5]
Nvidia launched the [6]RTX 4090 in October with a $1,499 suggested retail price. Due to the 450 watts required for regular power consumption and 600 watts for overclocking, the GPU behemoth introduced the new 12VHPWR power connector, short for 12-volt high-power, to maintain adequate energy levels. Twelve of the cable's pins supply power to the card while four other "sensing" pins monitor the card's wattage.
The lawsuit states that Genova noticed that the 12VHPWR power connector had melted at the point where it plugs into the RTX 4090 shortly after it was installed. The user wasn't aware of defects before this happened, and he wouldn't have purchased the card — or he would have paid much less for the card — had he known this was an issue, according to the lawsuit.
[7]
The lawsuit calls this meltdown a "serious electrical and fire hazard." "As such, the cards are unsafe for anyone to use in their present configuration," it states.
[8]Nvidia's datacenter growth can't save it from gaming GPU woes
[9]Nvidia H100-based Henri supercomputer tests AMD's claim on Green500
[10]Azure-based 'AI supercomputer' to use Nvidia GPUs and software
[11]Micron double decimates production as sales stall
The lawsuit claims users who reported the melting cable issue properly installed the RTX 4090, and that the problem stems from a design flaw connected to how the wattage flows through the 12VHPWR's 16 pins:
"If there is even a temporary break in the electrical connection for any of the pins, too high a current will flow through the remaining pins, causing a meltdown."
Among the charges made, Nvidia "unjustly enriched" itself by taking money from consumers for graphics cards without disclosing they had defective power cables, the lawsuit alleges. This also breached the warranty implied in the sale of RTX 4090 cards and constitutes fraud, the lawsuit further claims.
Lawyers representing Genova are seeking to gain class-action status for the lawsuit, which would allow anyone who purchased an RTX 4090 card to seek damages. This excludes those who bought an RTX 4090 for reselling purposes.
The lawsuit is also looking to form a sub-class of New York residents who purchased the card because it alleges violations of two state statutes related to deceptive business practices.
If class-action status is granted, the number of class members would be in the thousands, according to lawsuit, though the precise number is currently unknown.
[12]
The law firm representing the plaintiff, New York-based Bursor and Fisher, wants a trial by jury and is seeking compensatory, statutory, and punitive damages, plus pre-judgement interest on all awards as well as restitution.
Nvidia's main GPU rival, AMD, apparently couldn't resist itself and roasted the GeForce designer over the melting cable issue. On Thursday, Sasa Marinkovic, senior director of gaming marketing at AMD, [13]tweeted , "Stay safe this holiday season," and attached an image of the dual 8-pin connector design of AMD's new Radeon RX 7900 products that have been standard in high-end cards.
Stay safe this holiday season. [14]@amdradeon [15]pic.twitter.com/DOpg0f2qaP — Sasa Marinkovic (@SasaMarinkovic) [16]November 17, 2022
AMD best be careful tossing stones in silicon houses, considering that electric vehicle maker Tesla had to recall nearly 130,000 of its cars earlier this year due to [17]overheating Ryzen processors used in the infotainment system. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y3gOh3nLRZz3acZ7i2sOGAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/25/nvidia_rtx_4090_so_hot/
[3] https://new.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/ydh1mh/16_pins_adapter_megathread/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y3gOh3nLRZz3acZ7i2sOGAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y3gOh3nLRZz3acZ7i2sOGAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/20/nvidia_rtx_40_series/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y3gOh3nLRZz3acZ7i2sOGAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/nvidia_quarterly_results/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/henri_green500_nvidia/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/azure_nvidia_ai_supercomputer/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/17/micron_cuts_production_dram_nand/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/systems&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y3gOh3nLRZz3acZ7i2sOGAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://twitter.com/SasaMarinkovic/status/1593243804538372096
[14] https://twitter.com/amdradeon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[15] https://t.co/DOpg0f2qaP
[16] https://twitter.com/SasaMarinkovic/status/1593243804538372096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
[17] https://www.pcgamer.com/tesla-has-to-patch-130k-cars-because-their-ryzen-apus-are-overheating/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
RE: failed connector
That's a worthwhile analysis, thanks for sharing that. If true, it can / should be addressed simply with far more details and careful instructions from nVidia on how to set that connector.
Re: RE: failed connector
I just watched the video... it"s not all cases and it seems it's a lazy design. The video runs just the cable angle, there's no mention of testing if the GPU circuit or software can be faulty... nothing not a harness test :-/.
I understand for flexibility that they want to keep the lead and thread count high, but if you have to go thicker who cares as It's a 1 time install. Throw some 10awg at it... it'll be alright.
Re: RE: failed connector
Forgive me, I may have missed the bit where Steve caveated the all cases with 'apart from these ones with FOD, and from the other connector supplier'.
I was dealing with exactly how I was going to correlate 2 customer datasets. Where in one of them, the system supplier appears to have decided that 'input validation is for the weak', and the users have discovered the forename field is a great place to put freeform notes. It has not been a good week.
I can assure you, I agree wholeheartedly with you regarding the poncy conductor thickness/cost-cutting/connector walled garden strategy, and I for one will not be purchasing a GPU where the power connector has, apparently, a 40 insertion lifespan.
So, as Apple would say, they are inserting it wrongly? I, and i'm sure many of us, have built computers over the years, our first one will have been, to put it bluntly thrown together with cables and cards plugged in without much care. A fire shouldn't occur because someone wasn't using a torque meter,a set square and a spirit level to ensure the PC was put together with with precision.
If a cable burns becasue it's not been put in just right that's not the users fault it's a problem with the design.
Given the length of the cards there is not that much space at the end of the card either.
Going from the amount of press this has got I was under the impression lots of cables had melted rather than just 26.
and he wouldn't have purchased the card — or he would have paid much less for the card — had he known this was an issue
"I'll only risk the lives of my family in a house fire if you take $50 off."
The thing with connectors..
Is that even if they are initially seated well, send a load or high heat through them and they can move if not positively connected. This can then cause arcing, higher heat, rinse and repeat until melty goodness or worse.
AC current is even more fun since it literally vibrates. This can cause cables to become loose, again arcing ensues and melty goodness. Really annoying when it causes your otherwise perfectly fine heating timer to get melty. Thankfully not burnie too (good design and materials) otherwise electrical fire next to water heater is asking for a visit from the local fire brigade and awkward questions from building owners.
Gamer's Nexus on YT recently put up a video where they sent a number of failed connectors to a failure analysis lab, in all cases the lab thought the fault was down to incorrect installation due to not seating the connector correctly. So the lawyers may get short shrift if these things are looked at, at microscopic scales.
Though there certainly is an argument to made that the connector lacks feedback such as a positive click or visually confirmable mechanism for the user to validate the connector is correctly inserted.
Even more argument could be made that Nvidia might have been negligent in putting the connector on the outboard side of a card that is difficult to fit in the most generous case without excessively bending the power cable and placing strain on the connector.