There have been multiple reports of late about AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D processors burning themselves out and, in the process of doing so, taking their respective motherboards along with them. It is both an alarming and disturbing situation, and one that we’re lucky didn’t occur when we had the CPU in our lab for testing.
Here’s the rundown: multiple reports across Reddit and YouTube are starting to show a number of Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs being killed through burn damage and the AM5 socket that they are connected to. Unsurprisingly, this process effectively kills both components, effectively leaving their owners with not one, but two paperweights. In the case of Redditor Speedrookie, they explain that they came home to his Ryzen 7 7800X3D system “idling full fan and QCode of 00”. They then reset the BIOS, played with the memory, and then proceeded to take it apart, at which point did they discover that the contact points of his processor were bulging.
7800X3D just killed itself and my mobo
byu/Speedrookie inAmd
It isn’t just 7800X3D CPUs that are literally being burnt. For Russian TechTuber Vik-off, they reported that their Ryzen 9 7950X suffered from the same burn-and-bulge issue, while Der8auer, the German DIY PC technician, also reported about a 7900X suffering the same fate too. Then, in another Reddit thread, a Redditor called Enwyi posted about their 7950X3D being burned too.
We’ve reached out to AMD regarding the issue but at the time of writing, the company’s representative has yet to get back to us. However, representatives from MSI have been able to share what it thinks is the issue, at least with regards to the 3D V-Cache SKUs like the 7800X3D. According to the brand, there is a possibility that AM5 chipset is feeding more voltage into the CPU than necessary. This is dangerous because Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs cannot be overclocked, at least not in the traditional sense. The only way these CPUs can even be tweaked are through AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) and EXPO memory.
On that note, MSI has already issued new AM5 BIOS updates that only supports negative offsets for voltage for all Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs. Likewise, ASUS has also taken down older BIOS versions for its AM5 motherboards and recently published a BIOS update that restricts CPU voltage options.
On a more positive note, Redditor Speedrookie did receive a “gesture of good faith” act for his 7800X3D and affected AM5 motherboard – Popular Techtuber Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus (GN) reached out almost immediately after he heard the story and offered to purchase the damaged components, lock, stock and barrel. Not only that, but Burke also agreed to pay full retail for both components, meaning that they wouldn’t have to go through the whole RMA process for both items.
(Source: Videocardz, Reddit [1] [2], MSI, The Verge, Der8auer, Vik-off)
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