ASRock claims that the reason some owners of its 800-series motherboards have found their new PCs unable to boot, or even damaging their CPUs, is because of debris in the socket. Reportedly, after cleaning the sockets of some of the motherboards sent back to it for testing, they worked perfectly, without any boot issues whatsoever.
Over the past few weeks several owners of ASRock motherboards and 9800X3D CPUs have complained of the boards cooking their CPUs, showing dramatic burn marks on their underside. The blame was placed squarely on ASRock, but it denies that, instead claiming that if the owners had merely ensured the sockets were clear of dirt and debris before installation, that the problems wouldn’t exist.
“We take these incidents very seriously and have quickly contacted multiple affected users to collect and clarify relevant information, and have recalled some motherboards for detailed testing,” ASRock said in a statement (via Uniko’s Hardware). “In one case where the CPU was burned and damaged, we retrieved the motherboard. After testing, we found that this motherboard had no obvious damage or burn marks in the CPU power supply area (VRM), and all measurement data of the motherboard still met the specifications. After carefully cleaning the CPU socket and removing foreign objects, the motherboard was successfully powered on without any repairs.”
It went on to suggest that the CPU and motherboard survived some very demanding burn-in and heavy-load tests after the cleaning, further cementing that there aren’t any further issues.
Credit: ASRock/Uniko’s Hardware
Debris in a socket could conceivably cause a CPU to short out, resulting in burn marks. But that’s not a common occurrence, and there have been several instances of this problem cropping up. As WCCFTech highlights, ASRock has also released a BIOS update to help fix this problem. That would suggest the issue was also related to settings within the motherboard’s control rather than merely user error during installation.
The megathread on Reddit collating issues related to this suggests that there is little consistent pattern to the failures. They don’t just happen on ASRock motherboards, but on Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI boards, too. Some CPUs appear to die straight away, while others could take days or weeks. One CPU seemed to even come back to life after a BIOS update.
If you have a 9800X3D, make sure you’re running your motherboard manufacturer’s latest BIOS to give yourself the best chance of avoiding these issues, and be extra careful to avoid debris in the socket during installation.
If you’re intersted in buying a 9800X3D, have you considered buying unlidded and pre-overclocked?