Power supply manufacturer Super Flower has introduced a new accessory designed to mitigate issues with the 12V-2x6 (or 12VHPWR) connector used by many high-end graphics cards. This connector, capable of delivering up to 600 watts, has been implicated in incidents where its overcurrent can lead to catastrophic failure.
The Super Flower VGA 12+4 pin OCP Dongle is an intermediary device that measures current across the six +12V pins of the connector. Each of these pins is designed to carry approximately 8.33 amps, but imbalances can cause some pins to draw significantly more power, leading to overheating and melting. The dongle aims to prevent this by monitoring these individual pin loads.
When a power pin exceeds 9.5 amps, the dongle will turn orange and emit an intermittent buzzing sound. If the current surpasses 12 amps on any single pin, it will turn red and emit a continuous buzz. After 195 seconds of sustained overcurrent, a 'VGA Black Screen Protection' feature is triggered, intended to give users time to address the connection.
This type of monitoring accessory is not entirely novel. Cooler Master offers a similar device, the GPU Shield Adapter Cable, which operates on the same principle with visual and auditory alerts.
Currently, the Super Flower OCP Dongle appears to be available only in Taiwan as part of a power supply bundle, according to reports. Other power supply manufacturers, such as MSI with its 'GPU Safeguard+' feature, are integrating similar protective measures directly into their products. The existence of such accessories highlights ongoing concerns about the reliability and safety of high-power connectors in modern PC hardware.