GPU meltgate returns, this time with an unexpected twist: more meltiness. This time, it’s looking like one of the main preventative strategies against melting GPU cables might not be as simply effective as initially thought, as there are reports of gamers’ yellow-tipped MSI cables creeping out on their own over time (via Wccftech).
We’ve witnessed 12V-2×6 cables melting for years now, the first being with the RTX 4090. Since then, there have been a number of attempted diagnoses and fixes, but on the melting goes.
The main solution of late has been to ensure the cable is fully—fully—inserted. Thus, enter stage left: the yellow-tipped cable. MSI cooked up this solution for the RTX 4090 a couple of years ago, and it cooked up the same solution for RTX 50-series cards about a year ago. The idea is, if you have the tips of the power connector yellow rather than all black, you’ll be able to tell whether they’re fully inserted.
Which is all good in theory, but these unfortunately haven’t seemed to stop the tide of melting cables. There have been reports of these yellow cables melting, too—check out Unikoshardware on X for some examples, as they’ve kept a pretty extensive record of GPU meltgate over the last few months.
I assumed such cases might be to do with a combination of user error and bad design, the bad design part being just that full cable insertion is difficult and at any rate shouldn’t prove catastrophic when done incorrectly, and the user error being not taking enough care to insert the cable fully. But it looks like that assumption might have been incorrect: there might have been no user error at all.
PSU cables (16-pin) slowly backing out on their own – yellow part becomes visible from r/MSI_Gaming
According to one Redditor, who has corroboration from other Redditors experiencing the same issue, the cables are initially inserted fully without any yellow visible, but over time the connector starts to creep out again:
“I always make sure [the cables are] fully seated and clicked in properly. There’s no tension on the cables at all—they’re straight and not being pulled or bent sharply. However, over time, the connectors seem to slowly back themselves out. Little by little, I start seeing the yellow part of the connector becoming visible, as if it’s not fully inserted anymore. It’s almost like they’re gradually sliding out on their own. I double-check them and push them back in, but after some time, the same thing happens again.”
Some of the examples shown are incredibly clear and obvious—they’re no longer fully plugged in. The yellow tips are clearly visible in the following Redditor’s picture.
Comment from r/MSI_Gaming
It’s somewhat ironic that this is going noticed in large part because the tips are yellow. In a way, it’s a vindication of the yellow tip idea: it does work in revealing when the cable isn’t fully connected. It’s just you were only meant to have to check once, when you actually plug it in. The cable wasn’t meant to scoot out on its own.
That’s especially pertinent given the longstanding advice has been to set it and leave it. Ie, don’t mess around with your cable, unplugging and re-plugging, once you’ve got it sorted. If this is how the 12V-2×6 cables are, however, then maybe there’ll have to be more fiddling than that.
An alternative would be to get a fancy gizmo to add on to your cable. There’s one from Thermal Grizzly that issues over-volting and over-heating warnings as well as preventative shutdowns, or there’s one from Aqua Computer that has such shutdown failsafes but also attempts to distribute power through the pins more evenly to prevent an issue in the first place.
At any rate, if you haven’t checked your GPU connector in a while, now might be a good time to make sure it’s fully seated.
