In April 2023, we reported a significant issue with AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series processors, which randomly burned and sometimes even bring the attached motherboard with them. The issue, due to the excessive voltages of the SoC running on the CPU, affects the Ryzen 7000X3D and regular Ryzen 7000 CPUs, although more the former than the latter.
Asus offers support to users who install beta versions of its motherboard BIOS software, by extending its warranty period for AM5 motherboards. According to PC Gamerthe manufacturer confirmed its warranty includes XMP and EXPO memory overclocking profile.
AMD fixed the problem rather quickly via a timely AGESA firmware update for 600-series AM5 motherboards that support next-gen CPUs, with said update limiting the chip’s voltage to 1.3V. The manufacturer also released an official statement, saying that “anyone whose CPU may have been affected by this issue should contact AMD customer support.”
The problem is that at the time it was unclear if AMD would honor warranties for this particular issue. as we pointed out in the previous articlethat statement about the customer service report may be for data collection purposes as damage caused by hardware overclocking is clearly not covered by Ryzen product warranties.
TechRadar has reached out to AMD for clarification on this situation and will update this story with any statements we receive.
Asus is stepping up to the plate while AMD is overflowing
Looking at the evidence it is clear that the AMD EXPO memory profiles are the main culprit. The memory overclocking setting in the motherboard BIOS is what leads to the overvoltage of the chips, and it is not clearly stated that users are overclocking the chips themselves, only the RAM, with the presets provided by the manufacturer.
However, Asus isn’t completely wrong either. as Gamers Nexus Noticed when investigating this issue, the Asus motherboards were still running the EXPO memory profile beyond 1.3V, which is supposed to be the SoC voltage cap set by AMD. And although this is a big oversight on the part of Asus, it owns this defect and pays the buyers, while AMD does not say one way or the other.
The fact that Asus is covering up for a problem that is the fault of AMD’s own Ryzen 7000-series chips and Asus’s motherboard is completely bonkers. It doesn’t matter if it mostly covers incidents related to overclocking, it’s clear that it’s the fault of both companies. AMD EXPO is AMD’s own creation, after all, so it can’t be entirely blamed on Asus.
Overclocking is a common practice for gamers and tech enthusiasts alike, to the point that manufacturers almost always list overclocked specs for their components and even provide tools to overclock their hardware. The idea that AMD didn’t make a clear statement of intent to correct that issue when it should have been covered under warranty is a terrible business practice.
Hopefully, AMD will fix this by honoring warranties for replacement CPUs, because AMD EXPO’s own technology seems to be the cause of all these problems and buyers will have to replace such an expensive one that chip in their own budget is unfair.
