from Hacker News

Today's heavy RTX 4090s GPUs plagued with cracking around PCIe slots

by hyperluz on 12/17/23, 4:56 PM with 17 comments

• by mk_stjames on 12/17/23, 9:10 PM

  This was solved a decade ago in the enterprise world with an attachable bracket on the end of the card that fits into a slot at a fixed width so it is supported in the vertical axis by both the standard rear case slot and the new support on the forward side.

  Nvidia had provisions on their Quadro's to bolt this bracket that all HP Z-machines used and I believe some Dell workstations as well.

  The fact that these new cards are even heavier than a K5000 and yet there are not supplied attachment points for such additional support in some way sucks. It comes down to the fact that self-build PC case manufacturers aren't working together and with card suppliers to have a standard- nay, ANY provision for additional support.

  Unlike in the enterprise world where the entire system is engineered at an extremely high level with communication from the vendors with the OEM (like a HP Z 800 machine).

  That's it. It's not like HP had some magical patent on "hey just have a little extra bit of metal slide into a slot ad a fixed width inline with the PCIe slot". In fact, they made it extra-wide and attached to the hard drive bays in the Z800/820/840s as if they were anticipating modern cards to be bigger than the Keplers/Pascal cards at the time.

  ---

  That said, the level of cracking shown here on the FR4 of these 4090s can only be the result of some pretty significant impact loads. These things were installed unsupported in a case and got dropped off the back of a truck, for sure. Or they were actually pulled out of a dumpster by an employee at a facility that had literally been doing fatigue vibe table tests on machines for an OEM...

• by henriquez on 12/17/23, 5:59 PM

  I have a Gigabyte RTX 4080, it’s the same size and weight as a 4090. The card is over 340mm long and tall enough to occupy more than three PCI-e slots in my case. It weighs more than many laptops, and I had to add a physical reinforcement bracket to keep it from sagging and straining against the PCI-e slot it’s plugged into.

  Looking at the article it’s fairly obvious the damaged cards came from system builder(s) who thought it would be sufficient to use two PCI-e bracket thumbscrews to secure the cards before throwing the whole PC in a shipping box and letting God sort it out.

  Sure GPUs are becoming too large, but issues like this could be solved with a little care during assembly. Many high-end GPUs actually come with the necessary support brackets, which should be a hint.

• by tompark on 12/17/23, 9:41 PM

  Nowadays I have a RTX 3090ti, which is even longer than a 4090.

  This solution isn't for everyone, but I made my pc case out of makerbeam rails, hanging the GPUs vertically, attached to the motherboard with PCIe x16 riser cables.

  This photo doesn't show the riser cables but it does show how the GPU attaches to the rails: https://www.instagram.com/p/BMcSU_ig-Ij/

• by wackget on 12/17/23, 6:31 PM

  The irony of the prominent "TUF Gaming" branding on the side of the card.

  You'd think they'd add a rigid frame around the card, or at least around the weakest point.

• by moondev on 12/18/23, 2:42 PM

  Some motherboards and pci slots have various methods of "locking" a card in place. Seems like this may have been forgotten and force was used to remove the card. I don't see how the weight of the card could crack the PCB, they are very durable.

• by wkat4242 on 12/18/23, 3:08 AM

  Wow I wonder if this also affects the founder editions which have a stronger metal enclosure. I hope not. But i had better print a support soon.

• by oopsthrowpass on 12/17/23, 6:26 PM

  Mine has not broken yet, I wonder if they do anything weird like heavy duty crypto mining with them that causes the failure

• by rpiNu on 12/18/23, 9:54 AM

  Just need an eGPU to dock my phone or Rpi 5 and beyond to at this point.

  Probably built my last ATX style workstation last June.