Another MSI RTX 5090 cable failure: burned adapter will not unplug from GPU
A new report from Reddit shows yet another power incident on an MSI RTX 5090 GPU, this time with the stock adapter apparently melted onto the card and refusing to come out . The system in question pairs AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D with an MSI X870 Tomahawk motherboard and a Seasonic TX-1600 Noctua Edition PSU, using MSI’s yellow-tipped 4× 8-pin to 16-pin 12V-2×6 adapter bundled with the GPU.
According to the owner, the issues started months earlier while using Seasonic’s native 12V-2×6 cable, which caused random black screens under load even though Windows and audio kept running. I’m not entirely sure why, but maybe sending this cable to Seasonic for inspection would have been a good idea?
After swapping to the MSI adapter, the card ran fine for about three months. This week Windows stopped detecting the RTX 5090, the monitor would not wake on the discrete GPU, and inspection revealed burn marks on top of the 16-pin plug and along the shroud next to the socket. The connector now feels “welded” to the card and cannot be removed with normal force, so the card has been powered down while the user prepares an MSI support ticket.
Source: Reddit
This is not the first time MSI’s yellow-tipped RTX 5090 adapters have been in the spotlight. Earlier cases already showed melted connectors on MSI cards using similar adapters, but often using unrecommended cable setups from PSU side. Still, these cases now appear frequently and it seems that for some reason, MSI cables are more prone to such issues than from other companies.
Limited sample shows MSI PSU cables and GPU adapters may have different connectors
There is also fresh discussion about how cable and adapter vendors implement the 16-pin hardware. Overclocker “sugi0lover” shared close-up photos of PSU-side 16-pin cables and GPU-side 16-pin adapters, noting that one sample adapter appeared to use thinner metal on one side of the terminal, while Uniko’s Hardware published similar macro shots of its own samples. Both stressed that this is a limited data point.
PSU (left), GPU (right) power cable crimps, Source: Overclock.net
Source: Uniko’s Hardware
For owners of RTX 5090 and other 12V-2×6 cards, the usual advice remains in force: use high-quality native PSU cables where possible, avoid unnecessary adapters, make sure the connector is fully seated with no visible yellow tip, and inspect cables for discoloration or deformation around the plug.
In this case the user already contacted MSI about sending the card in with the adapter still attached and also reached out to GamersNexus after claiming that a related post was removed from the official NVIDIA subreddit (like most of these reports), why is why its usually other subreddits reporting on this issue.
Source: Unhappy-War6154 (Reddit) , sugi0lover via Uniko’s Hardware
