A Reddit user going by the name SnooPaintings7769 has shared a concerning failure of MSI colour-coded 12V-2×6 power cables, in which the connector becomes loose over time, causing it to slowly work its way out of the header. This is very concerning since an improper connection would force more power through some pins, causing overheating and potentially melting.
MSI’s yellow-coded12V-2×6 power connector is designed to make proper insertion easily verifiable. To put it simply, you shouldn’t see the yellow pin housings at all after plugging the cable into the GPU or PSU. After noticing the yellow parts on their 12V-2×6 becoming visible over time, SnooPaintings7769 took to Reddit to see if this was normal behaviour. And in case you were wondering, the user noted that they pushed the connector in place properly with no cable tension, both on the GPU and PSU sides. Somehow, the connector started backing out over time.
The concern here is that a partial connection could increase resistance on some of the pins, causing them to heat up, which increases resistance even more, until the temperature becomes high enough to melt the plastic housing and cause catastrophic damage to either the PSU or graphics card. To be clear, that hasn’t happened here.
After posting their findings, SnooPaintings7769 received many recommendations from the community, plus some worrying reports. It appears that SnooPaintings7769 isn’t alone in this situation, as at least two other users shared similar findings after verifying their systems. By asking for help, SnooPaintings7769 may have saved some users’ hardware.
The Redditor indicated that they pushed the connector back when they first noticed this issue, but it still came out over time. All seem to agree that this behaviour appears after a couple of months of installing the cable, leading some to theorise that this may be caused by thermal expansion. The expansion and contraction caused by the repeated switching between idle and high load as the GPU operates could be causing the connector to slip from its place if the latch mechanism has loose tolerances.
After contacting MSI, the brand claimed that this was simply a defective unit, encouraging them to contact Amazon services for a warranty return. While it remains to be seen how many products are affected by this apparent defect, it may be wise to check your cables for proper connection if you own one of these MSI 12V-2×6.
