Thursday, May 29th 2025
ASRock Acknowledges Ryzen CPU Failures Linked to Motherboard BIOS, Offers Warranty Replacement
ASRock has finally acknowledged that the mysterious AMD Ryzen "processor deaths" plaguing its mid- and high-end motherboards weren't caused by defective AMD chips or stray debris but rather overly aggressive Precision Boost Overdrive settings in its BIOS. After more than 100 reports of Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X CPUs going dark on boards like the X670E Taichi and B650E Steel Legend, the company rolled out BIOS version 3.25 to dial back the Thermal Design Current and Electrical Design Current limits and apologized for initially blaming memory quirks and socket contaminants. ASRock will repair or replace affected motherboards free of charge (including shipping), though users whose CPUs have already failed must seek warranties through their retailer or AMD.
Sources:
Gamer's Nexus, via VideoCardz
"No, we're not saying it's an AMD issue. We found that it should be related to our BIOS setting — that's the PBO settings, Precision Boost Overdrive. More technically, we adjusted two main settings in PBO. One is TDC (Thermal Design Current) and the other is EDC (Electrical Design Current). We found that our original values for these two settings might have been too high. So now, with BIOS version 3.25, we lowered the PBO values. We believe this can solve the problem."—Chris Lee, ASRock VP of Motherboard Business

43 Comments on ASRock Acknowledges Ryzen CPU Failures Linked to Motherboard BIOS, Offers Warranty Replacement
I also want to burn down my neighbours house and than tell him go ask the insurance
The topic will not be solved by this. I highly doubt this is over for Asrock and AMD.
Bad cause it took them SOOO long to get to this point
The next thing they could do is open up with their engineering staff instead of a VP who knows more about the finances of his department than the nuts and bolts of it.
And just so you know this isn't something new. Their AM4 mobos were notorius for having by default a higher base clock (105 MHz instead of 100, IIRC) which made them look great in benchmarks because it looked like CPUs were bursting higher. That didn't last either because just like this time, CPUs started failing soon after. MSI did something similar but they didn't push it too much so they had a lot less failures.
To be clear: I don't hate Asrock. There was a time when I'd have picked Asrock over Gigabyte, Asus and MSI without batting an eye. Unfortunately, times change and now it takes them several tries to lower their settings enough to not burn the CPU. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Maybe they'll learn, but I don't expect them to.
"might" its ass saver... Not statement.
Intel blaming ALL motherboard manufacturers for widespread issues regarding their 13th and 14th gen processors was childish at best, complete lie at worst.
Keeping doing right Asrock!
That interview and ASRock's attitude ensured I will never buy one of their products.
Who makes the best motherboards these days, it used to be ASUS, but is it MSi now? What's your opinion?