The cause of a sudden power breakdown was experimentally investigated for a banded structure membrane fuel cell module (rated power of 120 W), which consisted of 20 polymer electrolyte fuel cells laid in a plane. The results show that the module operated for much longer than 1 hour in the case of 80% of fuel utilization, however, it experienced a sudden power breakdown in the case of 90% or 100% of fuel utilization. The results also show that a large temperature variation was found within a specific cell that caused a sudden power breakdown. It is noteworthy that the module operated in no more than 4 minutes when humidified hydrogen was supplied to the single cell.