Source: XDA-Developers
Last month, Ryzen 7000 users began to report that their CPUs and motherboards had died and showed signs of burns and melting. In statements to publications like Tom’s Hardware, AMD confirmed this problem stems from Ryzen 7000 chips operating at a higher-than-safe voltage, and has since deployed new firmware to its motherboard partners that is supposed to fix the problem. Asus, however, is coming under heavy fire for failing to correctly implement the new firmware and for doing it through beta BIOSes which voided users’ warranties.
In a scathing report from PC hardware reviewer Gamers Nexus, it was revealed that Asus’s latest beta BIOS patches didn’t actually limit the CPU voltage to 1.3 volts, which AMD says is the maximum safe voltage. Instead, testing showed that the ROG Crosshair X670E Hero reached up to 1.34 volts in a heavy CPU load, whereas other motherboards from different companies ranged from 1.2 to 1.25 volts in the same workload. To make matters worse, the beta BIOS hardly worked at all with default settings, which is what Asus recommended its users use with the latest update.
Although issuing faulty firmware is bad enough, an even bigger issue might be the fact that Asus cautioned users that using beta BIOSes would void the motherboard’s warranty. Gamers Nexus pointed out that previous non-beta BIOS versions caused Ryzen 7000 chips to hit up to 1.4 volts under heavy load, leaving users to choose between either a BIOS that may very well kill their CPU or a BIOS that had a lower (yet non-zero) chance of CPU death while also voiding the warranty. Steve Burke, the host of Gamers Nexus, opined that “Asus is acting either negligently or extremely maliciously.”
Asus seems to be walking back its beta BIOS policy, however. In a statement to Windows Central, Asus UK said the company would begin to honor warranties “on a global level” whether AM5 motherboard owners use stable or beta BIOSes. It’s not clear however if this will retroactively apply to users who installed the beta BIOS and experienced fatal hardware damage. We’ve reached out to Asus for further confirmation.