News ASRock confirms its BIOS settings are killing Ryzen CPUs, is fully committed to fixing any damaged motherboards

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I had installed the 3.25 BIOS update last week only to see it was pulled and replaced by 3.26. I have an X870 Steel Legend WiFi with a 9900X that I built about 7 months ago. Never had any issues, but I have it running at stock and never overclocked it.
 
I think this article misinterprets some parts of the interview.

Article:
ASRock confirmed to Gamers Nexus that it is solely responsible, and AMD's chips aren't causing problems.
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Interview:
Steve: So is that an AMD issue? AMD CPU issue?
Chris: No we're not saying it's an AMD issue, we found that it's related to our BIOS setting, one of our BIOS settings
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(IMO "we're not saying it's an AMD issue" is pretty different from "we are saying it's not an AMD issue")

Article:
If customers RMA their motherboard with the faulty CPU, ASRock will automatically send the CPU back to the retailer from which the customer bought it. ASRock is not recommending users RMA this way; rather, this was to clarify what happens if this scenario occurs (particularly for less tech-savvy focused customers).
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Interview:
Steve: Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. The recommendation from ASRock is to update to 3.25; if you buy a new board don't assume it has 3.25 on it because it might have been at the retailer already, even before the change. If there's a defect, then ASRock will pay for shipping both ways, and I guess either swap the board if it's broken or... if there's a CPU issue, I mean, are you replacing the CPUs? Or you send it back to the customer and tell them to go to AMD? Or how does that work, if they send both in and the CPU's the problem?
Chris: I mean, ASRock, we only sell the motherboards, right? So, the CPU, if they buy from, let's say, any e-tailer or retailers, they just send it back and say it's defective.
Steve: So then you would send it back to them?
Chris: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve: And then they go through AMD, I guess, to warranty the CPU. Or the retailer, yeah.
Chris: Yeah, if that happens.
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I interpret this as Chris saying that ASRock will send the CPU back to the customer and then the customer would have to RMA it with AMD or whoever they bought the CPU from. Not sure how the article writer interpreted it as basically the opposite.
 
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flamingspinach said:
I think this article misinterprets some parts of the interview.

Article:

Interview:


(IMO "we're not saying it's an AMD issue" is pretty different from "we are saying it's not an AMD issue")

Article:

Interview:


I interpret this as Chris saying that ASRock will send the CPU back to the customer and then the customer would have to RMA it with AMD or whoever they bought the CPU from. Not sure how the article writer interpreted it as basically the opposite.
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This. Thank you for the good call-out.

I watched this earlier and there are three categories that ASRock is attributing failures to, but stops short of saying "we're responsible".

If you're going to rehash another outlets news, please do it justice by actually being informed about it's content.
 
TBF it does seem like it's an Asrock issue, as so far it's very concentrated that the Asrock boards are frying the CPU as opposed to the 7800X3D or intel raptor lake pattern. It sucks for the consumer to get "lucky" and hope they can find out the root cause sooner than later
 
I dont get it , excuse my ignorance but from what i have taken away from this Asrock have said the issue is the Bios settings, but if you have a failed CPU due to the settings then you need to take that up yourself with AMD or retailer?
WTH?
Guess I have bought my last Asrock but then again what else do you expect from an Asus offshoot
 
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flamingspinach said:
I think this article misinterprets some parts of the interview.

Article:

Interview:


(IMO "we're not saying it's an AMD issue" is pretty different from "we are saying it's not an AMD issue")

Article:

Interview:


I interpret this as Chris saying that ASRock will send the CPU back to the customer and then the customer would have to RMA it with AMD or whoever they bought the CPU from. Not sure how the article writer interpreted it as basically the opposite.
Click to expand...
Thanks flamingspinach, I scrolled to the comments immediately after that first statement hoping that someone would point this out.

The article is just wrong and misrepresents the tone of the interview also. This was an ambush from Steve and not an example of AsRock being accountable.

"However, it notes that it has not seen a single damaged motherboard in this whole ordeal."

This line seems a bit out of context. The VP seemed to be implying that it was an issue with the CPU when he said this (without explicitly blaming AMD). A far cry from taking sole responsibility.
 
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So AMD is on the hook for replaying CPU's fried by A$$Rock, but A$$Rock will replace any damaged motherboards, yet no boards have been damaged, only CPU's.

Translation: "ASrock: stay away from us because we are a scummy brand".

Got it. Thanks for the tip!
 
craigss said:
I dont get it , excuse my ignorance but from what i have taken away from this Asrock have said the issue is the Bios settings, but if you have a failed CPU due to the settings then you need to take that up yourself with AMD or retailer?
WTH?
Guess I have bought my last Asrock but then again what else do you expect from an Asus offshoot
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I think partly for Asrock is that they won't have stock or even with some legal issues if they stock various AMD CPUs for replacement? The issue for customer is obvious that AMD or local dealer could reject RMA due to the burnt marks. IMO they can at best pay the customer to buy their burnt CPU with the original reciept.
 
randomizer said:
ASRock wouldn't even know where the CPU was purchased from.
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It doesn’t matter....the CPU should never have been RMA’d. It was functioning perfectly.

It was clearly damaged by the motherboard, an ASRock board.....which means ASRock is responsible and should cover the cost of the CPU.

Suggesting to "just send it back and say it’s defective" is not only misleading, it borders on fraud and is an attempt to pass the blame onto AMD.

Please tell me you don’t actually think this is acceptable?
 
I think they're essentially claiming that because whatever they're doing on the motherboard is within spec according to AMD, then if any individual CPU gets damaged by their motherboard, then that CPU wasn't compliant with AMD's spec and was therefore defective. As long as AMD is honoring the RMAs (i.e. agreeing that the CPU was defective), I don't really see the problem. As others have said, this might just be a case of bad binning on AMD's part.

Has anyone had their CPU killed by an ASRock motherboard, RMA'd the CPU, gotten a new CPU, put it in the same motherboard, and had the new CPU die as well? That would be stronger evidence towards there being something wrong with the motherboard rather than the CPU.
 
It’s a bit misleading to suggest that only ASRock motherboards run into trouble. Boot issues pop up with every major brand—just browse any other motherboard subreddit and you’ll see reports of failed boots all the time. For example, less than an hour ago someone posted about new problems on an MSI board:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MSI_Gaming/comments/1l085nu/new_board_new_problems/

What tends to happen here is that as soon as a system won’t turn on, everyone immediately blames a dead CPU. In other communities, people actually try to troubleshoot first instead of assuming the worst. I remember a post recently where someone swore their 9800X3D was gone after a BIOS update, but they never even attempted a BIOS flashback. The very first mega-thread made it clear: in countless cases, the CPU was fine—the board or BIOS configuration was the culprit.

Honestly, if I picked up a faulty 9800X3D, I’d want to know right away rather than masking it behind artificially low power limits. This isn’t the first time AMD has run into trouble with their 3D V-Cache parts—remember the Ryzen 7 7800X3D burnout stories?
https://videocardz.com/newz/reddito...-out-gamersnexus-immediately-offers-to-buy-it


In both the 7800X3D and 9800X3D cases, AMD has been quick to honor RMA requests, regardless of which motherboard maker you’re using. So even if you end up on an ASRock board, AMD will replace any failed chip—just as they will on an MSI, ASUS, or anyone else’s.
 
Also the point of they stating they will cover shipping cost both ways is a lie. And I can prove it. As I am being asked to pay for my motherboard that doesn't post and killed two cpus one a 9950x3d and a 8600G so... yeah they dont cover jack.
 
They clearly learnt something from the ASUS fiasco.... but not the right lessons. I think they are caught between angry customers and fidgety investors/shareholders and are trying to placate everyone.... if they can set a comfortable precedent at the same time that helps them too.

Basically it seems the real lesson is to stop trusting motherboard defaults on new mobo's.... from anyone.

"Nothing to see here boys, just smile and wave..... and lets hope no one notices the smell."

The other half of the problem is people either did not know PBO is overclocking or have been lulled into the trap of thinking there is such a thing as safe automatic overclocking on systems that have near infinite numbers of setup configurations. This is one hell of a confused normalized mess that's been created.

Personally speaking if on my next upgrade cycle I get a highish end CPU I am in no way whatsoever going to risk anything but the safe settings... cause you just can't trust ANYONE anymore. I am even starting to doubt OC GPU models now.

Also the whole saga has reaffirmed my belief to STAY AWAY from high speed OC'd RAM, golden middle road is perfectly fine.

On the bright side it's not the Asrock or AMD hardware that's the problem here.
 
TerryLaze said:
But that's the issue, they did think that they had safe settings.
You would have to run everything way below any spec the companies tells you to be sure that you are safe.
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Which is why I pointed to people generally not knowning things like PBO actually is overclocking.
 
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