RTX 5070 Melting Reports Show 250W Cards Can Burn Connectors Too
More than 10 melted GeForce connector reports surfaced in two weeks, including two RTX 5070 cards rated at 250W. Here's what failed and how to stay safe.
Hakkı ALKANPublished Updated 4 min read
More than ten GeForce owners reported melted or damaged power connectors, adapters and cables in the first two weeks of November 2026, and the list now includes RTX 5070 melting cases. That matters because Nvidia rates the RTX 5070 at just 250W, less than half the 575W of the RTX 5090 that has dominated these stories so far.
The tally comes from a VideoCardz roundup published Nov. 14, which drew on reports collected by the X account UNIKO's Hardware from Reddit, Chinese forums and other communities. These are user posts with photos, not a confirmed failure rate, and the cause of each case has not been verified.
What happened in the RTX 5070 melting cases?
The first RTX 5070 report came from a Reddit user who found a melted adapter after the PC suffered black screens and unexpected reboots. The owner also admitted that a friend who installed the card may not have pushed the cable in all the way.
A second owner then reported a similar failure on an Asus Dual RTX 5070. The retailer could not supply a replacement card, so it refunded the purchase instead.
This is not the first time the midrange card has shown up in such reports. In April 2025, a Zotac RTX 5070 paired with a Seasonic Focus GX-750 power supply melted its cable shortly after being switched on, although the cause was never confirmed.
Why is a 250W card a surprise?
Modern GeForce cards draw power through a single 16-pin plug called 12V-2x6, the revised version of the older 12VHPWR connector. It is rated for up to 600W. Total graphics power, or TGP, is the amount of power the card is designed to draw under load.
The RTX 5090 runs at 575W, so it sits close to the connector's ceiling, and some owners now cap its power to protect the plug. By contrast, Nvidia's own spec sheet lists 250W for the RTX 5070 and 300W for the RTX 5070 Ti, which should leave plenty of headroom.
In other words, raw power draw alone does not explain these failures. A plug that is not fully seated has a smaller contact area, which raises resistance and creates heat at the pins, whatever the card's wattage.
Which GPUs appeared in the November reports?
The reports span two generations, from the RTX 4090 to the new RTX 50 lineup. Here is how they break down:
| GPU | Rated power | Reported damage |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 5090 D | Not stated | Melted connector, damage on both cable and GPU socket |
| RTX 4090 (4 reports) | Not stated | Overheated cable, damaged Nvidia adapter, deformed connectors |
| RTX 5080 | Not stated | Damaged contacts on the power cable and socket |
| RTX 5070 Ti | 300W | Burned MSI adapter; separate case on a Thermaltake PSU-side connector |
| RTX 5070 (2 reports) | 250W | Melted adapters, one card refunded |
| Unspecified GeForce (3 reports) | Not stated | Deformed cable, damaged be quiet! PSU connector, damaged Gigabyte card socket |
Not every case involves the card itself. In the Thermaltake Toughpower Grand case, the damage was on the modular connector at the power supply end, not on the 16-pin socket of the graphics card.
How can you lower the risk?
Nvidia has not commented on the November reports. Until there is a clearer picture, a few simple checks help:
- Push the plug in until it clicks and no gap is visible.
- Avoid sharp bends in the cable right next to the plug.
- Look for browning on the plug and notice any burning smell.
- Use the cable that came with your power supply or graphics card.
- Treat sudden black screens or reboots as a reason to inspect the connector.
Prices make the stakes higher, too. With the RTX 5090 price already far above MSRP, a damaged card is an expensive problem to fix.
Board partners have tried their own fixes before, as our report on Asus's earlier attempt to address melting cables showed.
Memory costs are squeezing Nvidia's lineup at the same time, which is why the RTX 5080 24GB was reportedly cancelled. That leaves existing RTX 50 cards, and their 16-pin plugs, as the hardware most buyers will live with for a while.
Our take: A dozen photos in two weeks does not prove that the RTX 5070 is unsafe, and some of these cases clearly involve installation mistakes. Still, a connector that tolerates so little error is a design weakness when it ships on mainstream cards bought by first-time builders. An old 8-pin plug that was half inserted usually just failed to power on; a half-seated 16-pin plug can quietly cook itself.