News Asus Responds to AM5 BIOS Controversy: Warranty Covers Beta Fixes, EXPO Presets

[atomicWAR]

I agree with most if that. AMDs handling of this is poor across the board (pun intended). However while GamersNexus can indeed have some click baity titles/screen caps on youtube...that is utterly par for the course on youtube and tech news in general. GN did a great job here bringing attention to Asus's sus behavior. I for one am thankful Steve and his crew did their piece. And this is hardly the first time they have gone to bat for users like us. We need techtubers like GamersNexus. Point being while I agree with most of your compliants with prejudice, not so much your take on GN. Regardless though AMD botched this expo/soc/exploding cpus issue. You couldn't be more on point there.

Ouch. I checked my system thoroughly after this whole debacle dropped. I run DDR5 6000 with my 7950X and have a 7950X3D sitting on my desk waiting for these issues to be ironed out. I got sick when it showed up and by the time I was ready to drop it in the exploding CPUs had popped up all while being after the return window lol.

While my soc voltage measurements were only a tiny hair high at times, I was only looking at a 1.25V setting in my Taichi's bios which gives me in reality a voltage that jumps from 1.248 to 1.264...pretty decent but with the issues going on I certainly wouldn't try to use a DDR5 6200/6400 Expo kit that might ask for the full 1.3V because I have no doubt it would jump across the 1.3V line which from the look of things it should never be crossed. IDK maybe I am wrong but it is sketch times for 7000 series users and I rather be safe then have a indoor fireworks show.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

I got sick when it showed up and by the time I was ready to drop it in the exploding CPUs had popped up all while being after the return window lol.

I was sick when mine blew up... someone here on these forums even grilled me "I felt bad for you... but not as bad as I did since you used a beta bios."

Within 24 hours the news broke that it was a widespread issue and I was like "Now it makes sense."

I've kept an eye on it and my SoC is locked at 1.3v... I haven't changed anything manually. EXPO has remained on... too much performance left on the table not to run it... especially since it's part of AMD's marketing scheme.

 

[atomicWAR]

I was sick when mine blew up... someone here on these forums even grilled me "I felt bad for you... but not as bad as I did since you used a beta bios."

Some people man. Sorry someone on Tom's acted that way. As tech forums go these are my favorite for the fact usualy most people are helpful, respectful and kind. But ever so often you get idiots that ruin the experience. No one should be shamed for flashing their bios if they feel they need to for one reason or another. I flashed mine ten ways to tuesdays finding stable setting to run my CPU stock or Expo. Early Bios soc voltages were good but there were more BSOD issues (still not totally solved yet, stock and expo). The second bios cranked the soc voltage which I didn't catch at first but do to complete instability on the first boot in the first four seconds it didn't take me long to find they changed it. One I am on now is mostly good but I oddly still get BSOD at random when watching video or doing nothing at all. Any serious load on the system like a game, rendering, etc and its rock solid and never BSOD. I am guessing its the expo settings but maybe PSU... or the motherboard as I get a weird artifacting only when booting windows on the loading circle, a semi solid small white line pops in above it every second or two regardless of settings. May just do a new OS install on a usb drive today and finally rule out a bad OS install.

 

[PBme]

I hate how GamersNexus and AMD is playing this.

GamersNexus just does it for the views. Completely over the top clickbait thumbnails and videos, with sensationalist claims that Asus motherboards are "blowing up!" in a sensationalist video, where he purposely misinterprets pretty much everything Asus has said on the matter and completely ignores other mobo makers had similar issues with the 7000 series.

AMD is now whisper quiet and says nothing. All the focus has shifted away from AM5 and AMD and has come down onto Asus. AMD is clearly not without blame for all the AM5 issues, but Asus has now become the perfect scapegoat for all AM5 issues.

I wonder if these events are really that random or if they're orchestrated. It is somehow extremely convenient that Asus now gets all the blame, even though other mobo makers had similar issues. And it is extremely convenient that this removes all the blame from AMD's AM5 platform. Are these social media driven events really random, or orchestrated.

Meanwhile, you have people new to PC building asking if "Asus is really that bad". You have one clown Youtuber literally ruining the reputation of a perfectly reliable brand with a very good track record.

Seriously, you wonder if these "events" are orchestrated so Asus gets the blame?? And literally quoting Asus and showing what they put in writing is misquoting them?? That is some world-class tin-foil hat, irrational, die-hard-fan-boy, level defensiveness.

Not calling out a company for shady practices because you like a lot of other things they do would be absurd and for any tech news site, would be a disservice to all consumers. You can criticize GN for their click-baity thumbnails (that are essentially required on youtube at this point) but it is absurd to criticize them for accurately calling out a company in the interest of consumers. This is something they have done repeatedly with the depth of investigation that almost no one ese is doing. Be it with Asus or Newegg, they have driven actual positive change with these companies that would have never happened without them. As consumers with zero individual power to get change to stop aspects of unethical behavior, we should all thank them for coverage like this. As should Asus as it makes them a better company when the crappy things they are doing are fixed while they are continuing doing the things we like.

 

[helper800]

Some people man. Sorry someone on Tom's acted that way. As tech forums go these are my favorite for the fact usualy most people are helpful, respectful and kind. But ever so often you get idiots that ruin the experience. No one should be shamed for flashing their bios if they feel they need to for one reason or another. I flashed mine ten ways to tuesdays finding stable setting to run my CPU stock or Expo. Early Bios soc voltages were good but there were more BSOD issues (still not totally solved yet, stock and expo). The second bios cranked the soc voltage which I didn't catch at first but do to complete instability on the first boot in the first four seconds it didn't take me long to find they changed it. One I am on now is mostly good but I oddly still get BSOD at random when watching video or doing nothing at all. Any serious load on the system like a game, rendering, etc and its rock solid and never BSOD. I am guessing its the expo settings but maybe PSU... or the motherboard as I get a weird artifacting only when booting windows on the loading circle, a semi solid small white line pops in above it every second or two regardless of settings. May just do a new OS install on a usb drive today and finally rule out a bad OS install.

Have you reset CMOS since the BIOS updates?

 

[atomicWAR]

Have you reset CMOS since the BIOS updates?

Oh yeah...tried everything I can think of almost. Two different RTX 4090s even. I was one of the fateful Taichi owners to get the ram sticker bits of paper and glue stuck to the dimm slots, picking them off/out with tweezers. A great two hours of ridiculous repair btw. It was like a high stakes version of the board game Operation, let me tell you how thrilled I wasn't. So there a few things I can't rule out like mobo being bad, dimm damage from the sticker, the forementioned comment about s fresh OS install (maybe bad CPU). But the list is getting short real quick.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

How hard is it for all the MoBo vendors to allow users to LOCK their CPU & SOC Maximum Voltage so that it doesn't exceed user stated Maximum Voltage values?

Not 1 milli-volt over.

Stop trying to OC the CPU when the user isn't asking you to.

If the user says "NO", that means "NO"; not change it when I change one little part.

Follow AMD's guidance on voltage limits, don't just ignore them because you want to have a OC pissing contest with the other MoBo vendors.

Nobody cares about MoBo's performing a little bit faster because you tried to OC for the end user.

Stability > OC by a few percentage points.

This MoBo vendor OC pissing contest needs to really stop.

The days of OCing the CPU being of great value to the majority of users is long dead.

We need stability, OC is for those who care about spending alot of extra money for a minor amount of performance benefits.

Most people don't really care about OCing to that level.

A minor OC, just to what AMD states is easily reach-able, good enough.

 

[bigdragon]

Good for Asus to back up their marketing and deliver the promised warranty, performance, and compatibility. All companies need to stand behind their products. Sad that Asus had to be bullied by tech YouTubers into doing the right thing.

Seems like Asus has had one major blunder after another ever since the pandemic hit. Flipped motherboard capacitors, melting screens, wildly inconsistent laptop quality, software issues, and so many other things make Asus, ROG, and TUF potential time-sucking nightmares rather than premium products. Hopefully this exploding CPU fiasco motivates Asus to step up their quality control to where it was when they were trying to establish ROG and TUF as premium names.

 

[palladin9479]

I'm seeing the over volting of the SOC with EXPO enabled as a way for them to "easily" get a ton of memory kits working with their platform without needing to validate or verify them individually.

 

[cyrusfox]

Meanwhile, you have people new to PC building asking if "Asus is really that bad". You have one clown Youtuber literally ruining the reputation of a perfectly reliable brand with a very good track record.

Asus is that bad... No longer guaranteed quality. Asrock is a safer bet, strange times indeed...

I had an Asus Z690 board that would only boot with memory in one of the channels, forced to use as a single channel configuration. It got returned, lucked out on second Asus board, fully functional. I am not a fan of their Armory Crate. Please remove these attack vectors.

I buy based on ports and IO I need at the form factor and lowest price available. Asus and MSI like to be the most expensive. I usually grab Asrock and Gigabyte. There was no supply for the ports I needed so Asus it was.

 

[SethNW]

This statement still took way too much time and it came on back of way too many mistakes. Like what should be no brainer statement for any company that cares about its public image had to come on back of huge backlash and attempts to shift blame on consumers. Like that ever saved any brand. So yeah, I will stay clear off Asus stuff for now. Mistakes do happen and I don't bland them as much for that, but what matters is how company responds to finding out.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm seeing the over volting of the SOC with EXPO enabled as a way for them to "easily" get a ton of memory kits working with their platform without needing to validate or verify them individually.

So you're saying that ASUS was being lazy bums and not trying to do Memory Validation the HARD WAY.

 

[waltc3]

I had something like this happen years ago with an MSI AMD-FX chipset motherboard. MSI put a beta bios on its main website sans a warning of any kind (not on the separate site strictly reserved for MSI beta bioses) and I downloaded it, installed it, and the mboard was promptly bricked! I ordered another identical mboard in overnight and then RMA'ed the bricked board and MSI replaced it, no questions asked. Took about three weeks, but I got a new board--and got stuck with an extra 990Pro FX AMD board. That prompted me to go with the manually switched, dual bios x570 Aorus Master later--so that I'd never have that problem again! And I haven't. Looks like Gigabyte dropped the ball with its AM5 motherboards so far, as I'm having difficulty finding one with the same dual bios setup as the x570 Master.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

I buy based on ports and IO I need at the form factor and lowest price available. Asus and MSI like to be the most expensive.

My MSI Mag x670e Tomahawk was $309.99... which according to my research made it one of the lowest cost boards out there with that chipset.

I've always used MSI boards though so never really considered anyone else. I just made this choice out of their lineup and not disappointed. 4x m.2 slots... PCIE 5.0... strong VRM...

 

[waltc3]

Why? I live in Los Angeles. I’m supposed to be protected by the US Bureau of Consumer Protection, the California Department of Consumer Affairs, and the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs. And yet none of them are doing anything so I’m forced to rely on clickbait youtubers.

It's like I uniformly urge people to realize, nobody will do a better job of looking out for you than you. It's a caveat emptor world (Buyer Beware.) The Youtubers sometimes get things right, and sometimes get things wrong, and most of them become very adept at making mountains out of molehills. So the more personal knowledge through hands-on experience you can accrue, the better protected you are, and you'll find the Youtubers quickly become optional at best! And that's a very good thing, imo!

 

[Jaxstarke9977]

I've always been under the impression that using a beta BIOS is very risky and it is a "use at your own risk" situation . I personally would NEVER use one.

 

[palladin9479]

So you're saying that ASUS was being lazy bums and not trying to do Memory Validation the HARD WAY.

I think all the HW manufacturers do this to some extent, the cutting of corners. With tight development timelines and the pressure to rush to market, they don't have the time to individually test every single motherboard + CPU + memory combination. Remember memory controllers are now on the CPU, two different model CPU's might have memory controllers that behave differently, paired with much lower voltages today, I can see companies like ASUS just using the old OCers rule of "when it doubt use more voltage" to achieve higher stability across a wide number of DRAM chip configurations. Of course the newer AMD CPU's just happen to be super sensitive to such voltages, so automatically pushing more voltage can blow them up.

 

[daworstplaya]

Seriously, you wonder if these "events" are orchestrated so Asus gets the blame?? And literally quoting Asus and showing what they put in writing is misquoting them?? That is some world-class tin-foil hat, irrational, die-hard-fan-boy, level defensiveness.

Not calling out a company for shady practices because you like a lot of other things they do would be absurd and for any tech news site, would be a disservice to all consumers. You can criticize GN for their click-baity thumbnails (that are essentially required on youtube at this point) but it is absurd to criticize them for accurately calling out a company in the interest of consumers. This is something they have done repeatedly with the depth of investigation that almost no one ese is doing. Be it with Asus or Newegg, they have driven actual positive change with these companies that would have never happened without them. As consumers with zero individual power to get change to stop aspects of unethical behavior, we should all thank them for coverage like this. As should Asus as it makes them a better company when the crappy things they are doing are fixed while they are continuing doing the things we like.

^This! Steven @ GN is doing a huge service to the tech community by being the voice for the little people that are getting screwed over.
I guess PlaneInTheSky would prefer to get his warranty denied on the products he owns through no fault of his own.

 

[palladin9479]

Honestly I highly doubt ASUS was ever going to deny warrantee to damaged boards, I find it more likely that whomever posted the BIOS's just used copy paste / boiler plate language. The content manager might not even speak english and just went with the "standard" for beta BIOS descriptions.

 

[Gpz1100]

I'm glad this isn't the year of upgrades for me. Lets hope by the time third gen am5 (9000 series?) cpu's come out, these bugs are all worked out.

Price one pays I suppose to be an early adopter.

 

[Amdlova]

For those who dares no warranty.