level1tech watching three ASROCK AM5 mobos like a hawk!

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igor_kavinski

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Attempting to Troubleshoot the ASRock Motherboards of Death!

This is a companion thread for this video: What’s going on with ASRock AM5 Motherboards Killing CPUs (particularly X3D CPUs)?? Something’s going on, but it isn’t as universal/widespread a problem as the intel CPU degredation. We know the failure is ‘elevated’ and we know AMD and...
forum.level1techs.com forum.level1techs.com

I made my first post there. Fingers crossed whether it gets approved.

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Interesting.

Just at first read, and I don't know all the particulars about it... but it's gonna be really hard to stand on anyone having done anything wrong when you have an overclock in play. Doesn't matter that it's two different components.

Now - that doesn't make it right. Probably is something going on there. But we all know as soon as you overclock, all bets are off on support/warranty.

Also, if it's only happening on ASROCK boards, and not on Gigabyte or Asus or what have you... how are you not blaming ASROCK and trying to spin it on AMD? And I'm not familiar with the particular issue to know if it's widespread, or if the issue just isn't common and you just got a bad bin - that does happen from time to time.

As far as the fear about changing motherboards... in my experience it's either gonna fail, or it's not. But the act of moving it to a more secure location won't be what causes it to break.
 
Brian_B said:
Also, if it's only happening on ASROCK boards, and not on Gigabyte or Asus or what have you... how are you not blaming ASROCK and trying to spin it on AMD? And I'm not familiar with the particular issue to know if it's widespread, or if the issue just isn't common and you just got a bad bin - that does happen from time to time.
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So, my bet is that it's both. That there's a weak bin of CPUs, and that ASRock is pushing things a little too far, but still within AMD guidelines.

I also do not at all discount user error, and deceptive reports. Up until this mess started 'happening', ASRock was by and large the most popular AM5 board manufacturer, mostly because they tend to offer more features for the price and, again up until this point, AM5 was just so hard to mess up. You could drop a 9800X3D in any AM5 board, update the BIOS if needed, and have the fastest gaming CPU available.

That said, when this fiasco started early this year (2025), there were reports of it happening with all motherboard manufacturers. Just more and more persistently from ASRock boards.

I'm also running an ASRock X870E Nova with a 9800X3D. I'll say something if I run into issues.
 
Brian_B said:
Also, if it's only happening on ASROCK boards, and not on Gigabyte or Asus or what have you... how are you not blaming ASROCK and trying to spin it on AMD?
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Because ASROCK AM5 customers are primarily AMD customers. ASROCK is AMD's partner. AMD has a dual responsibility towards their customer and their partner. If they think ASROCK is no longer fit to create reliable AM5 mobos, they should publicly terminate their relationship. Otherwise, help ASROCK to root cause the issue and put out a public statement reassuring customers that burnt AM5 CPUs are now a thing of the past. Their silence is bordering on negligence and apathy. Not a good look for them and arguably much worse than Raptor degradation, though on a much smaller scale, because degraded Raptor Lake customers can at least get errors in Windows. A dead system only confuses the customer whether it's the CPU or the mobo that has died. Yes, Intel didn't handle their degradation issue well and only jumped into action after major media outlets started reporting on the issue. But what AMD is doing is almost no better. Yes, it impacts a much lower number of customers but that's no excuse for keeping quiet.
 
igor_kavinski said:
Because ASROCK AM5 customers are primarily AMD customers. ASROCK is AMD's partner. AMD has a dual responsibility towards their customer and their partner. If they think ASROCK is no longer fit to create reliable AM5 mobos, they should publicly terminate their relationship. Otherwise, help ASROCK to root cause the issue and put out a public statement reassuring customers that burnt AM5 CPUs are now a thing of the past. Their silence is bordering on negligence and apathy. Not a good look for them and arguably much worse than Raptor degradation, though on a much smaller scale, because degraded Raptor Lake customers can at least get errors in Windows. A dead system only confuses the customer whether it's the CPU or the mobo that has died. Yes, Intel didn't handle their degradation issue well and only jumped into action after major media outlets started reporting on the issue. But what AMD is doing is almost no better. Yes, it impacts a much lower number of customers but that's no excuse for keeping quiet.
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Hmm.. That is a fair point.
 

This guy says ASROCK blames AMD for the varying chip quality that sometimes is ill-suited for overclocking and thus the chips die. Come to think about it, turning on EXPO is overclocking so maybe all some chips can handle is stock 5200 RAM speed and stock voltages and these are the ones dying in ASROCK mobos? But the real mystery is why most of these chips are dying in ASROCK mobos and not other brand mobos? I guess AMD's silence makes sense if they don't want to take responsibility or to be held responsible.
 
igor_kavinski said:
Come to think about it, turning on EXPO is overclocking so maybe all some chips can handle is stock 5200 RAM speed and stock voltages and these are the ones dying in ASROCK mobos? But the real mystery is why most of these chips are dying in ASROCK mobos and not other brand mobos?
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It's not just ASRock - it's just mostly ASRock being reported. We have no way to know how widespread this failure mode is, let alone the distribution of failures between motherboard manufacturers - or AMD CPU lot numbers etc.

igor_kavinski said:
I guess AMD's silence makes sense if they don't want to take responsibility or to be held responsible.
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After Intel's Raptor Lake failures... you'd figure enthusiasts would understand. We won't like it of course, but AMD is the only entity that has any idea what the global failure rate here is, and what batches are represented. They have to weigh the risk of being silent and following their warranty process with... throwing a grenade into the public sphere and blowing up their public relations. Just like Intel did, and pretty much every other company will do. At least these things aren't killing people yet!
 
igor_kavinski said:
Yeah but it isn't happening to Arrow Lake so they have a way out.
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I mean, if they're gamers, then that's a step backward...

I'd just recommend going MSI for an AM5 board. I only slightly regret grabbing my X870E Nova over an MSI Carbon. Slightly. And that's just because of this issue, as the board is rock solid otherwise.
 
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