In a nutshell: The RTX 5090 and its predecessor, the RTX 4090, have been plagued by reports of catastrophic thermal failures that can cause the 16-pin power connector to melt, often destroying the card in the process. A team of Brazilian YouTubers has now seemingly found a "solution" to the problem by soldering the power cables directly to the GPU PCB.
TecLab recently demonstrated a workaround for the RTX 5090 thermal failures by modifying a 5090 to bypass the problematic 16-pin power connectors and route the power wiring directly to the GPU's PCB instead. For the experiment, they used a Galax GeForce RTX 5090 D HOF OC LAB XOC, which comes with two 16-pin power connectors designed for extreme overclocking.
The modification was carried out in two steps. First, the team used two adapters to accommodate two sets of wires from each 16-pin connector before soldering them to the connector traces on the PCB. Next, they removed the heatsink and the two 120mm fans cooling the GPU and added an industrial-strength water cooler to reduce the GPU's core temperature.
While the YouTubers did not reveal the GPU's temperatures after the modifications, the ~50A reading from the power meter connected to the 12V rail suggests that the card was drawing around 600W. For context, the Galax HOF OC LAB XOC can handle up to 2,000W, far more than the 575W TDP of standard RTX 5090 cards, thanks to a custom BIOS designed for professional overclockers.
TecLab acknowledged that its "solution" is not practical for most gamers and insisted that it was intended as a sarcastic take on Nvidia's repeated failures to fix the long-standing problem, rather than an actual recommendation to disassemble and permanently modify a $5,000 graphics card.
Ever since the RTX 5090 launched in January 2025, dozens of users have complained about melting 16-pin connectors. One of the earliest reported cases surfaced in February 2025, followed by two more reports in April and another in May. The issue was also documented by John Papadopoulos of DSO Gaming, who claimed that the 12V-2x6 cable connected to his RTX 5090 melted while he was playing Wuchang: Fallen Feathers.