Scorched Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Manufacturers continue to investigate cases

Asrock tested a motherboard in which a Ryzen 7 9800X3D suffered heat damage. Meanwhile, a new MSI case emerged two weeks ago.

(Image: c't)

Mar 25, 2025 at 10:30 pm CET

2 min. read

By

Mark Mantel

In recent months, there have been numerous cases of desktop PCs with AMD's Ryzen 9000 processors failing to boot. The most prominent was the combination of AM5 mainboards from Asrock and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming processor. Manufacturer Asrock is investigating the cases and has initial findings on the possible causes

In a short press release, Asrock provides an update on its own investigations. In it, the manufacturer emphasizes that there are two different problems: The one that occurred more frequently concerned older BIOS versions that aborted the boot process due to memory incompatibilities. Asrock has been distributing the BIOS update 3.20 for its AM5 mainboards since the end of February, which apparently fixes the boot problem.

A second problem occurs less frequently, but is all the more serious: damaged processors with scorch marks on the underside. A user on Reddit summarizes the known cases: Among dozens of boot problems, there were only six heat damage cases according to this, four of which were on Asrock mainboards and two on MSI boards. In the case of one MSI case, it is now considered likely that the processor was incorrectly inserted into the CPU socket.

Two mainboard sockets next to each other, one of them with heat damage — Asrock has examined the motherboard of an affected Reddit user with heat damage. After cleaning the CPU socket, other processors in it worked perfectly, according to Asrock.

(Image: Asrock / Reddit-Nutzer "t0pli")

Investigations are underway

The second MSI case happened just two weeks ago. According to the user, the PC no longer booted after he had activated an overclocking profile for his DDR5 memory in the BIOS, a so-called Extended Profile for Overclocking (EXPO). It is not clear whether this was the cause. The predecessor Ryzen 7 7800X3D already had defective models after activating EXPO due to excessive voltages.

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Asrock writes that the mainboard should be fine per se. After cleaning the CPU socket, other AM5 processors functioned normally according to their own statements. Long-term stress tests are also said to have run without any problems. In less serious cases, the CPUs showed heat damage, but not the pins or voltage converters on the mainboard.

AMD is probably also investigating the defects in the background. In view of the sales figures, however, the risk seems low. Anyone experiencing problems should contact AMD support.

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