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yesterday

Hobbyist Releases 12VHPWR Guard to Shut PCs When ASUS RTX 5080 and 5090 Pins Overload

The open-source Windows tool watches per-pin current and enforces configurable limits to stop sustained overcurrent that can melt modern GPU power connectors.

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Redditor builds an open-source tool to prevent RTX 5090 power connector failures, works like a charm

Overview

  • The app was published on GitHub by a Reddit user on August 6 and polls per-pin sensors twice per second to detect overloaded +12V pins.
  • By default the program forces a system shutdown if any single pin exceeds 9.5 amps for 15 seconds and it will close blocking apps before powering off.
  • 12VHPWR Guard only works on a small set of premium ASUS cards that expose per-pin current sensors, specifically Astral RTX 5080, Astral RTX 5090 and ROG Matrix RTX 5090.
  • The utility is free, open-source, lightweight (about 35MB), requires Windows 10 or 11 and Python 3.10+, and the author says AI tools helped assemble the code.
  • The tool is a software mitigation not a hardware fix: it cannot change connector design, it may disrupt running work with abrupt shutdowns, and it addresses a wider problem where modern 12V‑2x6 connectors can overload single pins when contacts are uneven and older shunt-based detection is absent.