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Comment by twblalock | Hacker News Reader

Is this really that unreasonable? From the point of view of a customer who has one of these cards, a recall or RMA is basically the same: they have to mail in their card to get fixed or replaced.

Customers could also return them to the retailers they bought them from.

The hyperventilating about this on tech YouTube is getting a bit ridiculous. The same thing happened with the controversy over the power connector on the 4090. Yes, it's bad -- but it's not like AMD ran over your dog.

When a new product has bugs (and many do), it takes some time to figure out who is impacted and what the fix is -- and when an issue becomes high profile, a lot of people who are not impacted manage to convince themselves that they are. Given that, and the general hyperventilating about this, I am not surprised AMD wants to be careful.

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> From the point of view of a customer who has one of these cards, a recall or RMA is basically the same

> a lot of people who are not impacted manage to convince themselves that they are

Well, there's one difference in the two: when the company doesn't announce a recall, customers are left guessing whether or not they're affected, assuming they even find out about this known issue to begin with. But if there was a recall, customers can verify whether or not they're affected and they can be notified.

>The hyperventilating about this on tech YouTube is getting a bit ridiculous.

This is a $1000+ product. What is the appropriate amount of outrage I am allowed to express as a consumer?

They KNOW which cards are affected... this means they could at LEAST list the serial numbers so people that do know can check... without going through the last bit about proactive contact.

I don't have one, but I don't game much, and mostly run in a Linux desktop without overclocking... I do sell my older cards when I update/upgrade sometimes. This could literally saddle someone else down the road with a card that breaks/throttles/ramps fans to an annoying level, because AMD didn't at least release serial numbers for the cards in question.

I'm guessing it's a MASSIVE amount and they just don't want to do the right thing.

This is not at all the same kind of "controversy" as having a component fail catastrophically and catch fire. Comparing it to such is minimising how reckless and callous nvidia was.

GamersNexus paid a bunch of money and had a failure analysis lab go over the Nvidia issue with a fine-tooth comb. I think their conclusion was that the connecters weren't fundamentally problematic - the melting issue overwhelmingly occurred when people didn't actually seat the connector properly. Further, it had to be off by a lot and the cable had to simultaneously be at a significant angle. [1]

I don't disagree there could have been a better design, and I think the design is fundamentally a risk when misused. When seated properly there shouldn't be any risk. That said we should ask for better than that from hardware makers.

This feels like a job for a warning sticker this generation and something a little different next generation.

The Nvidia issue is not like the NZXT H1 riser fire issue, for instance.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/nvidia/comments/yx0m1g/gamers_nexus...

Adequate and positive retention is part of a good connector design, especially when there are consequences beyond “it disconnects”.

To my knowledge it doesn't disconnect. People simply did not connect it.

GN is extremely critical and holds manufacturers to a very high standard. GN is the first to lambaste a manufacturer over a design that's even slightly sub-par. If Steve says it's fine, it's almost certainly fine IMO.

I'd recommend watching the video. [1]

[edit] johnnyguru apparently said the same thing. These are no spring chickens, and Johnny now works at Corsair AFAIK making power supplies.

The fix is shorter sense pins that don't indicate to the card the cable is actually plugged in until fully seated. Don't get me wrong it should have been that way from the start, and a warning is needed. That said, it's not an issue when used correctly.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig2px7ofKhQ

Yes, the connector works fine when used properly. The issue is that it doesn’t fail gracefully.

It might sound nit-picky, but this is a normal standard of engineering design safety.

Not nit-picky at all, I think it's a good distinction. Thanks for the clarification.

It's not the same, but also, the 12pin connector melting issue affected well under a single percent of owners, closer to 1 out of thousands. AMDs defective coolers are, making a forgiving estimate based on polls and anecdotal info, affecting well above 1% of the first wave of those cards, and maybe reaching into the double digits.

I own a 3090. Skipping on the 4090 for now as I am disturbed by melting-connector-gate. The Youtube and reddit threads scared me off as a customer. Don't recall this for previous generations.

Why ship them if one knows they're defective? Why even package them at all?

AMD didn't realize these cards were defective until after they shipped.

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