• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.
  • The forums have been upgraded with support for dark mode. By default it will follow the setting on your system/browser. You may override it by scrolling to the end of the page and clicking the gears icon.

ASRock Acknowledges Ryzen CPU Failures Linked to Motherboard BIOS, Offers Warranty Replacement

AleksandarK

AleksandarK

News Editor
Staff member
Joined
Aug 19, 2017
Messages
3,114 (1.09/day)
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.

"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
Click to expand...



View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source
 
Code: 
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.

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.
 
Good that they have admitted to it and are comitted to replacements

Bad cause it took them SOOO long to get to this point
 
Panther_Seraphin said:
Good that they have admitted to it and are comitted to replacements

Bad cause it took them SOOO long to get to this point
Click to expand...
And thanks to Steve for forcing this out of them despite ASRock trying to pull a fast one in thinking he wouldn't be able to get into the hall in time to ask the hard questions.

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.
 
Panther_Seraphin said:
Good that they have admitted to it and are comitted to replacements

Bad cause it took them SOOO long to get to this point
Click to expand...
Not as long as it took Intel to "fix" the issues with their last gen CPUs.
 
And they are bleeding sales because of it. I recently had to pick between a Gigabyte X870E board and the Asrock X870E Nova WiFi, both at similar price points (the Asrock was discounted) with the Asrock offering better features all around . . . and I went Gigabyte. To me, stuff that works reliably is better than stuff that looks great on paper but has a higher chance of wetting the bed. Plus RMAs are usually a PITA so even if they'll replace it for free they will not compensate me for the extra stress and time wasted.
 
AGlezB said:
And they are bleeding sales because of it. I recently had to pick between a Gigabyte X870E board and the Asrock X870E Nova WiFi, both at similar price points (the Asrock was discounted) with the Asrock offering better features all around . . . and I went Gigabyte. To me, stuff that works reliably is better than stuff that looks great on paper but has a higher chance of wetting the bed. Plus RMAs are usually a PITA so even if they'll replace it for free they will not compensate me for the extra stress and time wasted.
Click to expand...
You just need to update the bios. It has nothing to do with the board itself.
 
This should go over well with AMD.
 
Shakallia said:
You just need to update the bios. It has nothing to do with the board itself.
Click to expand...
Why are you telling me? I don't own an Asrock mobo. Tell it to all the people with very expensive e-waste that used to be very expensive CPUs.

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.
 
Going to be very interesting once this generation is over and getting to the real story about how x3D chips are dying, but good thing for AMD that Intel's still got a bigger scandal because otherwise this would be scaring everyone away.
 
How are they pushing PBO currents beyond AMD's specification? Isn't that a big deal?
 
I read that statement that amd and asrock screwed, cause if there is specification and they know what they are doing there is no way to think, there should be facts.
"might" its ass saver... Not statement.
 
This is what a motherboard manufacturer error looks like. Isolated to one manufacturer who admits the problem and offers warranty replacement

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!
 
We need buildzoid to get a scope on one of these... TDC and EDC alone being the cause doesn't quite make sense to me. Maybe there was a clue when he said the new values were different depending on the VRM configuration.
 
How lucky were I not being able to but my 9800X3D in my ASRock B650E PG ITX because I still miss the waterblock for my 9070 Taichi. I literally updated the bios to the available 3.25 last weekend as a preparation to migrate W10 -> W11.
 
Broken Processor said:
Will AMD warranty these CPU's under the circumstances?
Click to expand...
Being that ASRock has come out and taken public responsibility for the damaged CPUs. I would assume that they have already come to an agreement with AMD. That's what it sounds like at least. It would be a tad bit bold of them if that weren't the case.
 
Panther_Seraphin said:
Good that they have admitted to it and are comitted to replacements

Bad cause it took them SOOO long to get to this point
Click to expand...
Seems that quote is out of context as they also stated they were given the electrical parameters by AMD that the CPUs can run at and designed the BIOS according to those parameters. It seems that AMD's Engineers were overly enthusiastic about their CPUs capabilities.
 
Chomiq said:
The big question is: does enabling PBO still void warranty?
Click to expand...
If I'm not mistaken the current answer is no, it doesn't void the warranty. And by current I mean not too long ago even enabling the RAM's XMP profile was considered overclocking and you could kiss you warranty bye bye. Intel users had it the worst because K processors are unlocked for overclocking but if you did overclock it you voided the warranty. :shadedshu:
 
I watched Steve's interview, and they clearly stated that they will not replace your broken (by their shhhtty motherboard) CPU, that is for you to take up with AMD. Good luck with that boys!

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?
 
Bobaganoosh said:
How are they pushing PBO currents beyond AMD's specification? Isn't that a big deal?
Click to expand...
From what I've learned AMD specifies a range for those currents and ASRock opted to use the upper limit of those ranges. So you could also blame AMD for specifying ranges that their CPUs may not be able to sustain indefinitely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top