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Nvidia won, we all lost

(blog.sebin-nyshkim.net)
977 points todsacerdoti | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.21s | source
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rkagerer ◴[] No.44469388[source]
I am a volunteer firefighter and hold a degree in electrical engineering. The shenanigans with their shunt resistors, and ensuing melting cables, is in my view criminal. Any engineer worth their salt would recognize pushing 600W through a bunch of small cables with no contingency if some of them have failed is just asking for trouble. These assholes are going to set someone's house on fire.

I hope they get hit with a class action lawsuit and are forced to recall and properly fix these products before anyone dies as a result of their shoddy engineering.

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ryao ◴[] No.44469723[source]
Has anyone made 12VHPWR cables that replace the 12 little wires with 2 large gauge wires yet? That would prevent the wires from becoming unbalanced, which should preempt the melting connector problem.

As a bonus, if the gauge is large enough, the cable would actually cool the connectors, although that should not be necessary since the failure appears to be caused by overloaded wires dumping heat into the connector as they overheat.

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alright2565 ◴[] No.44469763[source]
Might help a little bit, by heatsinking the contacts better, but the problem is the contact resistance, not the wire resistance. The connector itself dangerously heats up.

Or at least I think so? Was that a different 12VHPWR scandal?

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bobmcnamara ◴[] No.44469795[source]
Contact resistance is a problem.

Another problem is when the connector is angled, several of the pins may not make contact, shoving all the power through as few as one wire. A common bus would help this but the contact resistance in this case is still bad.

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ryao ◴[] No.44469801[source]
A common bus that is not also overheating would cool the overheating contact(s).
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1. alright2565 ◴[] No.44469809[source]
It would help, but my intuition is that the thin steel of the contact would not move the heat fast enough to make a significant difference. Only way to really know is to test it.