It appears to be like like ASRock has lastly discovered why AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPUs maintain burning out on its motherboards. Whereas the corporate hasn’t made an official assertion, ASRock engineers reportedly mentioned the trigger, off the document, on the Computex 2025 commerce present final week, with the problem now reportedly mounted with a brand new set of BIOS updates.
Reviews of burned-out AMD Ryzen gaming CPUs have been racking up on Reddit for months, however the trigger hasn’t been fully clear, leaving house owners of one of the best gaming CPU in danger when utilizing ASRock motherboards. ASRock initially sought to downplay the state of affairs in public, nevertheless it appears to be like like the issue was extra problematic than the corporate initially realised.
ASRock engineers, talking off the document, spoke to YouTuber Tech Sure Metropolis at Computex 2025 in regards to the motherboard points. The YouTube channel studies that the problem with ASRock motherboards and up to date AMD Ryzen CPUs burning out is because of the present provided to the CPU utilizing AMD’s Precision Enhance Override (PBO), a characteristic utilized by Ryzen CPUs that robotically adjusts your voltage and clock velocity limits for greatest efficiency.
In accordance with the engineers, energy settings for AMD Ryzen 9000 sequence CPUs on these motherboards had been “too aggressive” for the CPUs to deal with. Nonetheless, the engineers additionally say that the problem has been resolved with the newest updates rolled out for mid-tier and high-end motherboards, whereas lower-end boards should not have been affected in any respect.
ASRock has reportedly been capable of regulate hidden voltage settings, named “shadow voltages” by the engineers, within the BIOS for Ryzen CPUs that the corporate was beforehand unable to change. The electrical design present and thermal design present limits for PBO, which had been beforehand too aggressive, have additionally been apparently modified to satisfy AMD’s design specs for these latest CPUs.
Whereas that is excellent news on the entire, it does go away some unanswered questions, not least about what’s going to occur for house owners of CPUs that will have been broken earlier than the repair was issued. Neither ASRock nor AMD has confirmed this info independently, so we’ll be hoping that these current BIOS updates actually have resolved the problem for these players with so-far unaffected programs.
There’s additionally a robust chance that players might have been affected with out even realizing the setting was lively. In accordance with tech journalist Dr Ian Cutress in a current X submit, merely putting in sure variations of the AMD Ryzen Grasp overclocking software program on programs with ASRock motherboards would allow PBO, even when it wasn’t being reported within the software program or within the BIOS itself. The one repair for that drawback can be to allow the setting manually, then disable it once more, to cease it from working.
If you happen to’re utilizing an AMD Ryzen 9000-series CPU on an ASRock motherboard, we advocate updating to the newest accessible BIOS launch as quickly as attainable – you’ll be able to try the newest launch to your board through the ASRock web site, which lists current updates with “Optimize PBO settings” as an replace merchandise. If you happen to’ve by no means carried out a BIOS flash earlier than, try our information on learn how to replace a BIOS first.
If you happen to’ve been utilizing AMD Ryzen Grasp, you must also be certain the software program is up-to-date and observe the steps to manually allow, then disable PBO if you do not need the characteristic to be lively.
You must also make a copy of your guarantee and buy particulars to be sure that, within the occasion of a failure, you’ll be able to request a restore or refund.
Fascinated about a CPU improve? Take a look at our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D overview subsequent to see why this eight-core powerhouse remains to be one of the best for gaming, because of its 3D V-cache know-how. Our learn how to set up a CPU information additionally explains learn how to change your processor with none fuss.
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