Hardware Unboxed became the latest channel to document a melted 12V-2×6 connector on an ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 paired with a be quiet! Dark Power 13 PSU. Host Steve discovered the fault only after touching the cable and finding it hot enough to burn his hand. Thermal camera readings confirmed temperatures above 150°C, climbing to roughly 175°C under load. A Thermal Grizzly WireView Pro revealed a severe current imbalance: some pins carried almost no current while a single wire pulled around 22A.

Oddly, damage was worse on the PSU side. The cable fused inside the Dark Power 13 connector and required pliers to remove, while the GPU connector showed no visible marks. Hardware Unboxed confirmed the cable was fully seated and ruled out installation error.

This is not an isolated incident. TechPowerUp has reported RTX 5090 connectors melting even with undervolts and power limits applied. In one case, an ASRock PSU's thermal cutoff saved a card. Frustrated modders have resorted to soldering wires directly to the PCB to bypass the problematic connector entirely.