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I'm not sure people have been yelling that the spec or form factor are the problem, they've been yelling that NVIDIA is the problem, exactly for how they implem

I'm not sure people have been yelling that the spec or form factor are the problem, they've been yelling that NVIDIA is the problem, exactly for how they implemented and supply a 12V solution (which includes both the physical products they supply, and the messaging they've put out around it) which this article yet again underlines as being both real, and even worse than initially thought. No need to beat about the bush, the "certain celebrities" is folks like JayzTwoCents who are willing to destroy their relationship with NVIDIA over this by showing that a company intentionally sells products they know are fire hazards, lied about that to the public, doubled down on the lies when they got called out on it the more people staretd reporting on it, and kept doing so all the way up to when official paperwork showed they knew about the issue and went ahead with it all along. The initial reports were "this is dangerous", but escalated to "NVIDIA knew this would could catch fire and pushed for sales anyway, this cannot be okay". If this was a cable that just bricked cards, or even entire computers, that's a dick move but it's just a computer. No one died, just some hardware got destroyed. However, that's not what it does: it can literally start fires and people can die, and there is publicly available documentation that shows that NVIDIA is strictly liable (in the legal sense) for gross negligence (again in the legal sense). NVIDIA should be all kinds of sued and federally fined here.

aftbit 4y ago
I was with you until: "and fined for half their annual profits by the FCC". Not only is that not the FCC's job, but that's an insane fine for a relatively small problem. If anything, NVIDIA should be required to recall the adapters and replace them with working ones at their cost, and maybe pre-fund a settlement fund to pay out in cases of damage due to this connector.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  Fair enough, changed it to just federally fined. But maybe going "we know this can cause fires, we're going to sell it anyway" should come with an insane fine. If you're willing to burn down the place for sales, see if you can recover from the same being done to you. And if you can't, maybe that should be the price for prioritising sales over human lives.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mike_d 4y ago
    It does come with an insane fine. You just need to report it to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
    - TheRealPomax 4y ago
      You mean the commission whose highest ever fine "omg so bigs" ever was a paltry 4 million dollars? Pass, this needs a bit more of an iron fist "we take half your revenue. If you go under, tough shit, you deserved it" approach.
      - mike_d 4y ago
        I'm not sure where you got that information, but it is wrong. They have handed out over $35 million in fines this year, with the largest being $27.25 million in 2018.
        lightedman 4y ago
        27.5 million is chump change for nVidia.
        TheRealPomax 4y ago
        I'd like to get better information, but google sure isn't finding me any, got a link that lists the fines issued per year? And of course with that said, $27 million is nowhere near enough to hurt a company like NVIDIA, which pulls in SIX BILLION DOLLARS per quarter. Even if they slapped down a 30 million fine, that'd be less than half a day's revenue, and basically says "this is perfectly acceptable behaviour in our country, thank you for dining, here's the bill, no tip required, come again". For megacorporations like NVIDIA, "a million" is not a big number, it's passive income that rolls in over a lunch break. Real fines for megacorps need to "b" rather than "m" to actually matter.
- cmsj 4y ago
  a nice juicy fine would certainly make sure they wouldn't knowingly release fire hazard GPUs again.
- sn0wf1re 4y ago
  If they were aware of the risks/problem then I do not think it is unfair punishment. We as a society need to have a stronger response to companies choosing profits over safety.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  Sorry, but that's nowhere close to being enough. This isn't an "insane fine" or a "relatively small problem." These things are dangerous and they had to know that they were dangerous when they shipped them. They deserve to get financially nuked for being so ridiculously irresponsible. Companies that put profits ahead of consumer safety shouldn't be allowed to have profits.
  - karamanolev 4y ago
    There's "they should've known, but it seems they didn't", which is bad engineering and should be punished somewhat. On the other hand, this seems to be "they knew about it and went ahead anyway" a la Boeing 737 MAX, which is many, many levels above and it should be the equivalent to a financial nuke, IMHO. Recoverable, but something that is talked about in the company for the next 15 years. Dare I say, if there's provably a person who was presented with this as a problem and overrode the decision so as not to delay the problem, there should be criminal liability for them?
    - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
      Yes, there should be, in addition to financial penalties. Unfortunately, what is considered to be a "fair" punishment for a corporation rarely ever reaches the level of criminal prosecution and never forces the corporation to change its operating strategy. In an ideal world, corporations would be punished financially, criminally, and be forced to reorganize whenever they attempt to wipe obvious dangers under the rug for profit's sake.
- dtjb 4y ago
  >a relatively small problem This is an overcorrection to OPs comment. If Nvidia knew about the very real risk of fire but continued to push unsafe products with misleading statements, that is a significant problem and hints at a fundamental rot within the company.
  - RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
    This is the bigger issue that isn't addressed by what effectively is a minor tax on gross negligence.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
- anonymousab 4y ago
  Corporations aren't going to adjust their behaviour until the punishments for their malfeasance start becoming a true existential threat
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    Agreed, and if this also seems like a valid case for holding individuals accountable if it can be shown they knowingly ignored or covered the situation. Perhaps criminally so if there were injuries.
  - xxpor 4y ago
    They spend lots and lots of money to make sure this doesn't happen. It's more or less why the entire right wing legal movement (Federalist Society et al) exists.
    - saltminer 4y ago
      Sadly, this. "Tort reform" is the name of the game, and it's depressing how well it's worked. Much like the more recent efforts to rebrand estate taxes as a "death tax" to bolster public support for the wealthy giving up less of their inherited fortunes.
- counttheforks 4y ago
  > relatively small problem Setting the houses of their customers on fire is a small problem??
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Setting people's houses on fire is in fact a large problem. Potentially setting houses on fire is also a problem, but it is "relatively smaller" than the liability of actually injuring or killing someone, or hundreds of people. Melting connectors is not all that uncommon of an issue with shoddy electronics. Well designed hardware rarely has this problem, but if you buy enough no-name import junk, you'll probably run into this with other products. (I have) Most of the time it does not cause a fire. This isn't okay, but it also isn't Surfside condo collapse levels of bad.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      This is a high amperage connector. It is significantly more prone to catching on fire that the majority of connectors in no name import junk in case of it melting.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        Fire is caused by heating something to its ignition temperature, and heat is a function of the conductor its flowing through just as much as it's a function of the current itself. The current provided from a base-spec USB charger is enough to start a fire, given the right (er... wrong) conductor. Plenty of us remember lighting Estes rocket motors with flashlight batteries (zinc carbon, no less) as a kid.
        sudosysgen 4y ago
        When a junction melts, it is often the case that the connection itself will become much more resistive, which will make it heat up more and more. For an application where the PSU might be able to supply hundreds of Watts, it's much easier for things to get very hot and ignite. This is despite the use of a good conductor. And the issue is that when the power source is that much more powerful you're more likely to make whatever is nearby catch fire.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  An honest mistake is different from an informed decision. The consequences are not small, and the action was apparently fully informed. Those two things combined constitute a very Big Deal deserving no forgiveness at all.
Sakos 4y ago
The last time I commented on a previous story about this debacle, people pointed out that molex melt all the time and that this wasn't a big deal. I saw that they were right that molex do melt sometimes, but these adapters have been on the market for what, a week? It felt like there was something wrong with the quality for it to happen so often with specifically these parts.
- rrss 4y ago
  How often does it happen? I cannot tell from the article.
  - wnevets 4y ago
    Too early to tell. Not only are the cards with these adapters just now getting into the hands of consumers but some people didn't realize there was melting taking place until they unplugged the adapter.
  - TheRealPomax 4y ago
    Fun fact: it doesn't even need to happen once for a company to be guilty of gross negligence when there's a public paper trail that shows they knew about the problem, then went ahead with selling products with that problem. But: it's happened more than once now, which is the exact bar required to clear to count as evidence of a pattern of real world damages in court.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- hn8305823 4y ago
  Molex connectors do indeed melt but rarely catch on fire. Molex connectors are made of nylon which melts as low as 170C. The pictures of the internals of this adapter are absolutely horrifying. This is 737-MAX style gross negligence: Several consecutive worst practices/shortcuts that ensure catastrophic failure one way or another.
rhn_mk1 4y ago
Having heard "fire hazard" from a nvidia fan as a justification for their user-hostile signed firmware (it blocks free drivers from using the cards at full speed), now I think we can put that excuse among the myths. I see no good will in blocking free Linux drivers, just the same crap that earned Torvald's salute. That they now opened a kernel driver is small improvement if the firmware remains signed.
UI_at_80x24 4y ago
I wish I was a fly on the wall when the conversation at EVGA went down. The timing is a little too perfect.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

aftbit 4y ago

I was with you until: "and fined for half their annual profits by the FCC". Not only is that not the FCC's job, but that's an insane fine for a relatively small problem. If anything, NVIDIA should be required to recall the adapters and replace them with working ones at their cost, and maybe pre-fund a settlement fund to pay out in cases of damage due to this connector.

TheRealPomax 4y ago
Fair enough, changed it to just federally fined. But maybe going "we know this can cause fires, we're going to sell it anyway" should come with an insane fine. If you're willing to burn down the place for sales, see if you can recover from the same being done to you. And if you can't, maybe that should be the price for prioritising sales over human lives.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- mike_d 4y ago
  It does come with an insane fine. You just need to report it to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
  - TheRealPomax 4y ago
    You mean the commission whose highest ever fine "omg so bigs" ever was a paltry 4 million dollars? Pass, this needs a bit more of an iron fist "we take half your revenue. If you go under, tough shit, you deserved it" approach.
    - mike_d 4y ago
      I'm not sure where you got that information, but it is wrong. They have handed out over $35 million in fines this year, with the largest being $27.25 million in 2018.
      - lightedman 4y ago
        27.5 million is chump change for nVidia.
      - TheRealPomax 4y ago
        I'd like to get better information, but google sure isn't finding me any, got a link that lists the fines issued per year? And of course with that said, $27 million is nowhere near enough to hurt a company like NVIDIA, which pulls in SIX BILLION DOLLARS per quarter. Even if they slapped down a 30 million fine, that'd be less than half a day's revenue, and basically says "this is perfectly acceptable behaviour in our country, thank you for dining, here's the bill, no tip required, come again". For megacorporations like NVIDIA, "a million" is not a big number, it's passive income that rolls in over a lunch break. Real fines for megacorps need to "b" rather than "m" to actually matter.
cmsj 4y ago
a nice juicy fine would certainly make sure they wouldn't knowingly release fire hazard GPUs again.
sn0wf1re 4y ago
If they were aware of the risks/problem then I do not think it is unfair punishment. We as a society need to have a stronger response to companies choosing profits over safety.
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
Sorry, but that's nowhere close to being enough. This isn't an "insane fine" or a "relatively small problem." These things are dangerous and they had to know that they were dangerous when they shipped them. They deserve to get financially nuked for being so ridiculously irresponsible. Companies that put profits ahead of consumer safety shouldn't be allowed to have profits.
- karamanolev 4y ago
  There's "they should've known, but it seems they didn't", which is bad engineering and should be punished somewhat. On the other hand, this seems to be "they knew about it and went ahead anyway" a la Boeing 737 MAX, which is many, many levels above and it should be the equivalent to a financial nuke, IMHO. Recoverable, but something that is talked about in the company for the next 15 years. Dare I say, if there's provably a person who was presented with this as a problem and overrode the decision so as not to delay the problem, there should be criminal liability for them?
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    Yes, there should be, in addition to financial penalties. Unfortunately, what is considered to be a "fair" punishment for a corporation rarely ever reaches the level of criminal prosecution and never forces the corporation to change its operating strategy. In an ideal world, corporations would be punished financially, criminally, and be forced to reorganize whenever they attempt to wipe obvious dangers under the rug for profit's sake.
dtjb 4y ago
>a relatively small problem This is an overcorrection to OPs comment. If Nvidia knew about the very real risk of fire but continued to push unsafe products with misleading statements, that is a significant problem and hints at a fundamental rot within the company.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
  This is the bigger issue that isn't addressed by what effectively is a minor tax on gross negligence.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
anonymousab 4y ago
Corporations aren't going to adjust their behaviour until the punishments for their malfeasance start becoming a true existential threat
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Agreed, and if this also seems like a valid case for holding individuals accountable if it can be shown they knowingly ignored or covered the situation. Perhaps criminally so if there were injuries.
- xxpor 4y ago
  They spend lots and lots of money to make sure this doesn't happen. It's more or less why the entire right wing legal movement (Federalist Society et al) exists.
  - saltminer 4y ago
    Sadly, this. "Tort reform" is the name of the game, and it's depressing how well it's worked. Much like the more recent efforts to rebrand estate taxes as a "death tax" to bolster public support for the wealthy giving up less of their inherited fortunes.
counttheforks 4y ago
> relatively small problem Setting the houses of their customers on fire is a small problem??
- kube-system 4y ago
  Setting people's houses on fire is in fact a large problem. Potentially setting houses on fire is also a problem, but it is "relatively smaller" than the liability of actually injuring or killing someone, or hundreds of people. Melting connectors is not all that uncommon of an issue with shoddy electronics. Well designed hardware rarely has this problem, but if you buy enough no-name import junk, you'll probably run into this with other products. (I have) Most of the time it does not cause a fire. This isn't okay, but it also isn't Surfside condo collapse levels of bad.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    This is a high amperage connector. It is significantly more prone to catching on fire that the majority of connectors in no name import junk in case of it melting.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      Fire is caused by heating something to its ignition temperature, and heat is a function of the conductor its flowing through just as much as it's a function of the current itself. The current provided from a base-spec USB charger is enough to start a fire, given the right (er... wrong) conductor. Plenty of us remember lighting Estes rocket motors with flashlight batteries (zinc carbon, no less) as a kid.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        When a junction melts, it is often the case that the connection itself will become much more resistive, which will make it heat up more and more. For an application where the PSU might be able to supply hundreds of Watts, it's much easier for things to get very hot and ignite. This is despite the use of a good conductor. And the issue is that when the power source is that much more powerful you're more likely to make whatever is nearby catch fire.
Brian_K_White 4y ago
An honest mistake is different from an informed decision. The consequences are not small, and the action was apparently fully informed. Those two things combined constitute a very Big Deal deserving no forgiveness at all.

Sakos 4y ago

The last time I commented on a previous story about this debacle, people pointed out that molex melt all the time and that this wasn't a big deal. I saw that they were right that molex do melt sometimes, but these adapters have been on the market for what, a week? It felt like there was something wrong with the quality for it to happen so often with specifically these parts.

rrss 4y ago
How often does it happen? I cannot tell from the article.
- wnevets 4y ago
  Too early to tell. Not only are the cards with these adapters just now getting into the hands of consumers but some people didn't realize there was melting taking place until they unplugged the adapter.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  Fun fact: it doesn't even need to happen once for a company to be guilty of gross negligence when there's a public paper trail that shows they knew about the problem, then went ahead with selling products with that problem. But: it's happened more than once now, which is the exact bar required to clear to count as evidence of a pattern of real world damages in court.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
hn8305823 4y ago
Molex connectors do indeed melt but rarely catch on fire. Molex connectors are made of nylon which melts as low as 170C. The pictures of the internals of this adapter are absolutely horrifying. This is 737-MAX style gross negligence: Several consecutive worst practices/shortcuts that ensure catastrophic failure one way or another.

rhn_mk1 4y ago

Having heard "fire hazard" from a nvidia fan as a justification for their user-hostile signed firmware (it blocks free drivers from using the cards at full speed), now I think we can put that excuse among the myths. I see no good will in blocking free Linux drivers, just the same crap that earned Torvald's salute. That they now opened a kernel driver is small improvement if the firmware remains signed.

UI_at_80x24 4y ago

I wish I was a fly on the wall when the conversation at EVGA went down. The timing is a little too perfect.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]