Lian Li has put a thermometer in the 12V-2×6 plug and given it permission to turn the PC off. According to Lian Li, its new EDGE Hub ADV reads a temperature sensor built into a GPU power cable, and when the connector passes a limit set in L-Connect 3, the software warns, counts down and shuts the system down, VideoCardz reports. It also sends an email about it. For now the hub comes only with the biggest unit in Lian Li's new EDGE Platinum V2 power supply range.
How the shutdown works
The sensor is an NTC thermistor, a resistor whose resistance drops as it warms, sitting in the plug at the graphics card end of a 650 mm 12V-2×6 cable with its own lead back to the hub. The hub takes two of these connector sensors and also measures temperature around its own circuit board, so connector heat shows up separately from the GPU core temperature most monitoring tools report. VideoCardz notes ASRock already uses the same kind of sensor in its own GPU power cables.
When the reading reaches the owner's limit, L-Connect 3 puts up a warning and starts a countdown. If nobody acts, the PC shuts down. None of the coverage gives a default threshold, so where the line sits is the owner's decision.
Three limits follow from how it is built. The protection only exists on a cable that carries the sensor; an ordinary 12V-2×6 lead plugged into the same card reports nothing. The shutdown runs through L-Connect 3, Lian Li's control software, and nothing in the reports says the hub acts on its own when that software is not running, so treat it as a software guard until someone shows otherwise. And it measures heat, not current. A plug where one pin carries too much of the load will register once that heat reaches the sensor, but the hub cannot see how current splits across the pins. That is the job of per-pin monitors such as Thermal Grizzly's WireView Pro II, which shows the current on each wire, Club386 notes.
Otherwise it is a normal Lian Li hub, with six PWM fan connections and four USB headers feeding seven downstream connections. The existing EDGE Hub V2 offers eight but has no connector monitoring.
Where it ships first
The hub comes in the box with the top model of the EDGE Platinum V2 range, which Guru3D says reaches Japan on October 2 at 1,000, 1,200 and 1,350 W. Only the 1,350 W unit, listed at 57,980 yen, gets the ADV hub and a sensor cable; the 1,000 W (36,980 yen) and 1,200 W (45,980 yen) models keep the EDGE Hub V2. The 1,350 W model also has a two-color connector housing meant to make a half-seated plug easier to spot, which goes after the usual cause of the heat the sensor is there to catch.
All three are ATX 3.1 units with 80 Plus Platinum certification and ten-year warranties, and they keep Lian Li's L-shaped enclosure for dual-chamber cases. At 182 mm deep they are worth measuring against a case before ordering, even one built around an EDGE unit.
A cutoff at the plug does not fix whatever made it hot. It turns a slow failure nobody is watching into a shutdown and an email, which for an unattended render box is a fair trade.