Thursday, May 8th 2025
Tech YouTuber Highlights ASRock X870 Motherboard's "Killing" of His Ryzen 9 9950X CPU
Unlucky owners of AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processors have encountered major problems that largely involve ASRock motherboards. Throughout early 2025, user feedback provided insight into numerous cases of "catastrophic CPU failures." Members of the official ASRock subreddit have kept track of these unfortunate incidents; now closing in on 200 documented "murdered" specimens. Industry watchdogs reckon that even more disagreements—involving the Zen 5-based 9000X3D series and ASRock B- and X- (AM5) boards—exist outside of this community-aggregated log. At the end of February, ASRock pushed out an important BIOS update—this fix did not resolve all problems. Over a month later, AMD weighed in with their findings—in response, ASRock released another update.
Evidently, Ryzen 7 9800X3D products continue to perish—Tech YES City's Bryan Bilowol has added Team Red's Ryzen 9 9950X model to the mix. The tech YouTuber was surprised by the death of his example; apparently caused by an ASRock X870 Steel Legend mainboard. Standard "Granite Ridge" processors—that lack 3D V-Cache—have received less attention, but observers believe that these non-X3D options are still vulnerable. Bilowol did not personally experience the moment of catastrophe—instead, a friend was borrowing an affected PC build. As demonstrated in a new Tech YES City video post-mortem, the completely dead CPU sported some worrying gray marks. Tech YES City has a fairly large audience, so ASRock leadership will likely be cursing after noticing another uptick in public scrutiny. Past reports have pointed out the manufacturer's belief that too much "misinformation" is being spread. Bilowol surmised that the company is keeping this issue: "under the radar—they seem to be hoping that the issue will just go away." Despite collaborating with ASRock for over a decade, Tech YES City will not pull any punches—await for more gory details in upcoming follow-up investigations.
Tech YES City's video description stated: "so a few weeks into lending my rig out to a friend, and whilst he was watching movies; the System just said no display and then the CPU was gone.... what happened?"
Sources:
Tech YES City Tweet, Tech YES City YouTube Channel, Wccftech, ASRock Subreddit (log of 9800X3D deaths)
Evidently, Ryzen 7 9800X3D products continue to perish—Tech YES City's Bryan Bilowol has added Team Red's Ryzen 9 9950X model to the mix. The tech YouTuber was surprised by the death of his example; apparently caused by an ASRock X870 Steel Legend mainboard. Standard "Granite Ridge" processors—that lack 3D V-Cache—have received less attention, but observers believe that these non-X3D options are still vulnerable. Bilowol did not personally experience the moment of catastrophe—instead, a friend was borrowing an affected PC build. As demonstrated in a new Tech YES City video post-mortem, the completely dead CPU sported some worrying gray marks. Tech YES City has a fairly large audience, so ASRock leadership will likely be cursing after noticing another uptick in public scrutiny. Past reports have pointed out the manufacturer's belief that too much "misinformation" is being spread. Bilowol surmised that the company is keeping this issue: "under the radar—they seem to be hoping that the issue will just go away." Despite collaborating with ASRock for over a decade, Tech YES City will not pull any punches—await for more gory details in upcoming follow-up investigations.
51 Comments on Tech YouTuber Highlights ASRock X870 Motherboard's "Killing" of His Ryzen 9 9950X CPU
[EMBED content="post-5497310"]https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/7800x3d-and-5070-ti-9070-xt-build.335236/post-5497310[/EMBED]
In the motherboard market, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock are the dominant players. In 2024, they are expected to deliver 38.8 million motherboards, with Asus leading the way at 15 million, followed by Gigabyte (10.3 million), MSI (9.3 million), and ASRock (4.2 million)
Edit: I'm still betting there's a voltage spec that's too loose and ASRock is letting their boards run right at the edge of it while others have theirs dialed in better. I'm betting the failure rate per motherboard sold is still quite low (in relative terms), but at over 100 failures, it's too high for my liking lol. I hope they figure it out for everyone who has or wants one of these.
Seriously though, I was aware of some of these issues, but did not realize it was so widespread & significant to the point of actually KILLING the installed CPU's....'
This suks wallah, and I believe a class-action should be forthcoming, especially if the evidence supports the affected users, which the graphs above seem to do....
"Can ya smell what da Rock is cookin" ?
Hmmmmm....
Charring means arcing.
Arcing means high voltage.
There are no HV sources in or around a CPU. However, when a loaded circuit is severed, the voltage rises intensely, causing arcing (and charring).
Given the evidence presented and my own experiences w/ AM5's socket flexing...
This CPU 'popped' out of place in its socket while under load; or, pin shifted slightly. Probably, a combination of PCB warpage / cooler torque and thermal expansion.
IMHO, start including a socket reinforcing bracket with CPUs, coolers, and boards as a norm.
It's pennies worth of material to help prevent RMAs and User Complaints. Who cares if most people would end up with more than one?
This is still only a cross section of the bigger picture, since it's only tracking Reddit posts, right? I'll assume the data came from this thread which has 157 dead CPUs to date and was updated 8 days ago.
Backplates:
Asus Prime X870-P:
Gigabyte Aorus X870E:
ASRock Taichi Lite X870E:
SO two use a machined plate while the other uses a stamped steel plate. I would think that stamped plate is pretty damn stiff based on the channels they stamped into it, but it would be interesting if there's some warp in some of them that causes twisting of the board.
Front side of the socket:
ASUS:
Gigabyte:
ASRock:
Again, the ASUS and Gigabyte look very similar but the ASRock is slightly different. I don't think you can really tell anything from the bracket differences, but it's interesting.
I would be surprised if my cpu ever moved in that aftermarket socket. Part is the original ASUS mainboard socket. Part is a ~10€ Thermaltake Socket.
I had to remove parts of the original socket. That socket construction was not something i really liked. one of the motivations to ditch that.
note: 2x be quiet bracket on the picture. 1x noctua bracket on the picture.
That is the other stuff I removed from The ASUS Prime X670-P mainboard. that is not a proper construction. Picture was taken just now
Thermal grizzly and therrmal take shows there are better solutions for am5. Especially with those joke prices for 230€ or more for AM5 mainboards in the low end.
I estimate the top part moves, without measuring at least 7 mm at the end from left to right. I could take pictures. Not every argument needs a picture as a proof. the top cover reaches left edge of the socket, and reaches right edge of the socket. I'm quite sure the top cover should be in the middle with the same 3mm spacing on the left and same 3mm spacing to the right. All dimensions were not measured. Only valid measurement would be with a OGP machine, which i do not own. In the other dimension the top part can be also moved a few millimeters.
The walk of shame for you.
That mount setup you have looks janky AF brotha.
Though, I'd wonder if ESD elsewhere in the system could be at fault. TBQH, 'seems like an extreme 'stretch' to blame ESD, with so many reports, and a higher-percentage of ASrock boards being at the center.
en.wikichip.org/w/images/2/2d/Socket_AM5_pinmap.svg
After looking @ the pinout (assuming I have the orientation correct), it looks like the charring is around/about the VDD_18 or VDD_18_S5 pads.
As always when trying to get to the bottom of such problems we need to separate out all the noise in the data, like overclocked units, user error, and other unrelated issues (Like the AsRock BIOS issue where CPUs got too little voltage to boot, and don't let the CPU manufacturer gaslight us into thinking it's the same issue.).
If there is an underlying common issue (and not a collection of random unrelated failures), whether it's a pending defect in the CPU, motherboard or firmware, I'm pretty sure AMD is fully aware of it. So I would like for AMD to make a public statement about the real cause, even if it turns out to be something like "this falls within the normal 0.xx% random failure rates, we will refund any failing products within the warranty period".
I don't like when we are left hanging for months wondering; Why are there seemingly more failing on AsRock boards? Are there quality issues on certain motherboards?
(I'm just wondering, not an owner.)
that said, there does seem to be some kind of an issue that the OEMs are trying to fix
They're already far behind ASUS, MSI, and Gigabyte in terms of sales, and this drama will put them even further behind.