Scumbag ASUS: Overvolting CPUs & Screwing the Customer

The Scumbags still make good hardware and have good board(s) at least on the high end. Other than wonky BIOS(s) - it's solid. It will get fixed.. whatever. Got bored waiting for Zen5.

I've had good luck with MSI MB's too. Almost 15 years running on and off a couple MSI's (Military Class). One has been up 24/7/365. My last MB before my latest was a Rampage IV Extreme. Thing won't die.
 
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Everyone likes piling on, I have faith they will come up with a solution.
 
Everyone likes piling on, I have faith they will come up with a solution.
In this case I wonder about that. Is it piling on or is it pent up aggression that has all popped under provocation? I honestly think it’s the later.

ASUS/Gigabyte support have long been terrible. I haven’t heard of a good story with either in two decades. It’s always a nightmare that takes multiple weeks to a month and they may not even do anything.

I wish Abit was still around so we could have decent motherboards and support. Or perhaps EVGA could make more mobos to fill the void.
 
Maybe I should throw some money Evga’s way when I upgrade eventually. Any known issues with their motherboards lately? I haven’t used one since they sold nvidia motherboards.

Always have niggling problems with any Asus/GB/MSI I’ve bought in the last few years. (Bad bios design, killer nics randomly dcing unless I reboot once after powering up etc)

haven't heard of any issues with their boards but even if they did have issues they'd take care of it quickly. they're the only ones with a customer service that's worth a damn. XFX before the nvidia 400/500 series fiasco where they decided to walk away from nvidia like EVGA did with the 40 series was quite good but was also abused to the point where they had no choice but to limit their warranties.

Everyone likes piling on, I have faith they will come up with a solution.
they will band-aid solution it like they've always done but i trust that solution about as much as i trust newegg to pull their heads out of their arses and fix the blatant customer service issues they have.
 
AsRock blacklisted HardOCP over that review and never sent us another product for review for ~15 years. We bought a few more after that, but honestly back then, the AsRock quality was shit. I would rather spend money on "good" products to review than those that sucked. Reviews on products that have issues, take up an exponential amount of resources...
Kind of like that review you guys did with crappy power supplies? If my memory is right one blew up the test gear lol
 
I thought the solution here was just to avoid Gigabyte like the plague going forward, but if Asus is also pulling this shit, then who the hell do we all by from? MSI? It seems we are rapidly running out of good options...
Asrock is my go to, as it is several others. Burrito of Peace on bluesnews
Jay mentioned ASRock in his video and I have to agree with his assessment. ASRock boards are now as rock solid as the boards Intel used to make (back when Intel made motherboards). I have 8 of their X570 based boards and 2 of their B550 based boards in production here at home. I had one spot of trouble with one the the X570 boards (One of the X570 Pro4 boards) and their support was fantastic. None of that "You'll only get one useless email per day" bullshit. The problem was the board was a touch finicky about ECC memory. Same memory and CPU worked absolutely fine in another identical X570 Pro4 board. Just this particular board was finicky about it. Got in contact with support, we swapped about half a dozen emails in one day, and the tech sent me a new BIOS to try which solved the problem. The BIOS update went live on their site a couple of weeks after but I appreciated dealing with someone competent who wasn't following a flowchart and could actually understand diagnostics.
 
All manufacturers will have bad batches of boards, as well as compatibility issues, etc., at various times.

It's true that Gigabyte has had some bad batches, and that especially during the 2020 pandemic, they gave many a customer the middle finger when it came to warranty work. Yes, including myself.

It's also true that Asus has its own issue right now, and that MSI has had issues with certain boards as well.

Before you buy something, check the honest reviews, and make an informed decision. If things look dicey, then hold onto what you have for a bit longer.

Ever since the early 90's, I've built thousands of systems with boards from various manufacturers. Supermicro, Micronics, and Vega were my favorites, but alas, the latter two are defunct, while Supermicro has basically catered to the server end almost exclusively. I have good memories of dealing with those companies, since in the rare instances I ever had to return a board, they bent over backwards to help out, even reimbursing me for shipping.

The next tier of companies, such as Gigabyte, MSI, Asus, DFI, Epox, Tyan, and Vextrec, have / had all been decent companies to work with. RMA processes took a bit longer, but other than the bad board in 2020 from Gigabyte, I've been lucky that none of them gave me the one finger salute. I was more forgiving towards Gigabyte, since at the time, components for those boards were in shorter supply, and manpower was significantly down.

That, plus the board I had was an older model, with a warranty almost gone anyways.

My only source of which board companies had bad batches for the earlier part of those times was Usenet, and later, here, but by the time I actually started actively posting on this forum, I was winding down my computer build operations.

Today, we have several sites available, and yes, including this one, where we can get honest reviews and links. It's up to each of us to do some internet "legwork" to know where the black marks currently are. If this means favoring MSI or Gigabyte over Asus for now, so be it.

I still use the above three (Gigabyte, Asus, and MSI) on a regular basis.
 
I tried Gigabyte ASROCK and ASUS only I like ASUS the best less hardware conflicts. Plus I had one that lasted a decade untill I upgraded back in 2011.
 
Everyone has good releases and bad releases, and every generation has good companies and bad companies. The company reaction is what matters, and this is a shitty reaction to have for sure. That being said - X570 Asus boards were good, Gigabyte was questionable at times, MSI was best for 4 sticks at XMP, and so on... Looks like this time around it's "avoid ASUS" for X670, and the others are... better. I'd decided to skip this gen anyway, and I'm glad I did.
 
Everyone likes piling on, I have faith they will come up with a solution.
Maybe. It depends on what's required. With the voltage component fiasco, they had to RMA all of them. Some issues can be fixed or mitigated with software. Others are intrinsic to the hardware's design. I can't recall which one it was, but one of the Crosshair Boards we reviewed at [H]ardOCP was a huge piece of shit. Between Kyle and I we killed three of them on the test bench. There were tons of end users reporting issues with them. That board seemed as though it had a design flaw. The solution? As far as I know there never was one. It wasn't really fixed until the subsequent generation.
I tried Gigabyte ASROCK and ASUS only I like ASUS the best less hardware conflicts. Plus I had one that lasted a decade untill I upgraded back in 2011.
What hardware conflicts? Hardware conflicts largely went away with the introduction of PCI-Express.
 
I have an ASUS board now no problems, and built tons of cheapo $50 HTPCs with ASUS boards, had a Gigabyte board for 7 years before that, main system before that was Gigabyte too for better part of a decade, ASRock embedded is my go-to HTPC/Mini Server board now for a while.

Just buy whatever it's all luck of the draw as mentioned. Every company is gonna have some bullshit happen sometime or another whether bad batch of some component or them just fucking around. It happens to them all they're all the same essentially nowadays. All out of the same 5 factories if that essentially.
About my experience with it. I have no strong loyalty to a brand.
 
Maybe I should throw some money Evga’s way when I upgrade eventually. Any known issues with their motherboards lately? I haven’t used one since they sold nvidia motherboards.

Always have niggling problems with any Asus/GB/MSI I’ve bought in the last few years. (Bad bios design, killer nics randomly dcing unless I reboot once after powering up etc)
biggest issue with them is they have what I would say barely counts as software support for their boards (bios, etc.), also their post code LEDs have been burning out quickkly since z490 and I haven't seen any fix for it.
 
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ASUS' actions relating to the Exploding Ryzen CPU debacle are disgraceful and abrasive to the trust that the brand has earned. ASUS has demonstrated clearly it wishes to not only avoid supporting users, but actively engineers ways to abandon them. ASUS' updates haven't even fixed the problems, yet they posture as if they have while simultaneously suggesting that users 'just run defaults' on their $700 motherboards, as if that makes any sense whatsoever. So, to accommodate ASUS' request, we ran defaults and re-benchmarked the Ryzen 7000 series. It sucks. Big surprise. They also don't support their own BIOSes for the ASUS ROG boards.



I would also hold AMD partially responsible for this debacle. They have enough power, and certainly obligation, to influence their partners' behavior and practices when it directly compromises AMD's reputation and business. Intel is, for better or worse, much better in that regard. Asus and its customer relation is standard MO for them.

Shady business allegations embroil ASUS https://www.windowscentral.com/hard...tions-embroil-asus-at-the-worst-possible-time
 
Maybe its just me, but some aspects of this discussion seem to be getting rather shady or potentially unfair? Don't get me wrong, Asus absolutely has some potential blame here, but it seems like there's a hyperfixation on Asus when the same sorts of problems have been reported on other mobos but neither they nor AMD themselves are receiving the kind of hostility that is being aimed at Asus.

For instance, on the previous page the GN tweet about "Oh Asus said they'd fly us out on their dollar, but we said we wanted to record the whole thing and they didn't get back to us in 5 days" is designed to imply that Asus is trying to hide something shady, will attempt a bribe, and has ghosted them upon their desires to record what they saw. While it is possible this could be what really happened, it may also be not a particularly good faith assertion. Maybe Asus' legal team will take a few days to approve or deny what's been asked? Maybe Asus doesn't want to foot the bill and generate a high profile episode for GN without having a say in what is on the record/can be showed/how it will be edited etc , or some part of GN's reply to their invitation gave them pause etc.. There are plenty of possible situations but this is not something verifiable unless both GN and/or Asus provide documentation that is uncontested showing both sides of the story, its not something we can really verify, so instead GN's tweet stands atop their other accusations and I'm not sure that's really a great thing.

Regarding the JayzTwoCents video, one of the bits discussed regarding the recent X670E mobo issue is about the new beta BIOS. Given the screencap, this seems to have been taken from the GN video as well. He talks about how horrible it is that the beta BIOS has been released for something this important and also mentions using it voids your warranty. However, unless there is something to add to the context of which I am unaware, this does not seem to be true. Both the picture in the video and going to the Asus support site shows the text to be.....
"Please note that this is a beta BIOS version of the motherboard which is still undergoing final testing before its official release. The UEFI, its firmware and all content found on it are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. ASUS does not give any warranties, whether express or limited, as to the suitability, compatibility, or usability of the UEFI, its firmware or any of its content. Except as provided in the Product warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by law, ASUS is not responsible for direct, special, incidental or consequential damages resulting from using this beta BIOS.""
Bold emphasis mine. This seems like standard legalese for a beta release and does not suggest its use voids your warranty, but rather that it conveys no additional special protections above that of the warranty. Now, there's an argument to be made if they should be offering additional support because of the nature of the problem here, but that isn't what Jay / GN is saying, they're asserting that it voids your warranty to use it and that if anything bad happens when a user is using the beta BIOS, they will be denied any warranty support and at least as I read what is written, that doesnt' seem to be accurate. There's also the issue that I have a feeling that GN, JTC etc would be impugning the company if it did NOT offer an updated firmware (beta or otherwise) as soon as possible to fix what is presented as a serious problem. In fact, it seems that Asus was one of the first to offer BIOS updates and this is the result, whereas other mobo companies took equal or longer times to release it, also offering beta status and apparently having similar potential bugs (ie AGESA 1.0.0.7 , 1.0.0.7a etc ) but less focus is given there. This does not absolve Asus of responsibility for their mistakes, but it does seem odd how they seem to be the primary focus.

The rest of his video talks about his experiences with RMAs which (putting aside the "creator/influencer/sponsor" experience which may deviate from the standard rank and file customer in both expectations and other parameters) while certainly are worth talking about when negative, but seem to fall into the "person X has repeated bad experiences with company Y, leading them to choose Company Z instead , but person W had great experiences with Y and thinks that Z is garbage" variation that seems to repeat itself between different users. Likewise with the "I had a bunch of disparate issues on stream" thing which could have many factors. If he doesn't want to use Asus that's fine, but both his large presence online and the cases of other content creators discussed in the thread , it begins to feel more like there is some degree of generation or amplification of controversy and how it is presented for the purpose of gaining more viewers/views.
 
Nothing repairs trust like a "we aren't responsible if this makes our product explode" warning:ROFLMAO:.
Let's be fair, Ryzen CPUs are exploding all on their own. ASUS just happen to be the brand with boards that explode with the CPU. In all honesty I'm still flabbergasted that this thread is 3 pages long and AMD isn't being held accountable yet again. 🤯
 
Maybe its just me, but some aspects of this discussion seem to be getting rather shady or potentially unfair? Don't get me wrong, Asus absolutely has some potential blame here, but it seems like there's a hyperfixation on Asus when the same sorts of problems have been reported on other mobos but neither they nor AMD themselves are receiving the kind of hostility that is being aimed at Asus.

For instance, on the previous page the GN tweet about "Oh Asus said they'd fly us out on their dollar, but we said we wanted to record the whole thing and they didn't get back to us in 5 days" is designed to imply that Asus is trying to hide something shady, will attempt a bribe, and has ghosted them upon their desires to record what they saw. While it is possible this could be what really happened, it may also be not a particularly good faith assertion. Maybe Asus' legal team will take a few days to approve or deny what's been asked? Maybe Asus doesn't want to foot the bill and generate a high profile episode for GN without having a say in what is on the record/can be showed/how it will be edited etc , or some part of GN's reply to their invitation gave them pause etc.. There are plenty of possible situations but this is not something verifiable unless both GN and/or Asus provide documentation that is uncontested showing both sides of the story, its not something we can really verify, so instead GN's tweet stands atop their other accusations and I'm not sure that's really a great thing.

Regarding the JayzTwoCents video, one of the bits discussed regarding the recent X670E mobo issue is about the new beta BIOS. Given the screencap, this seems to have been taken from the GN video as well. He talks about how horrible it is that the beta BIOS has been released for something this important and also mentions using it voids your warranty. However, unless there is something to add to the context of which I am unaware, this does not seem to be true. Both the picture in the video and going to the Asus support site shows the text to be.....
"Please note that this is a beta BIOS version of the motherboard which is still undergoing final testing before its official release. The UEFI, its firmware and all content found on it are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. ASUS does not give any warranties, whether express or limited, as to the suitability, compatibility, or usability of the UEFI, its firmware or any of its content. Except as provided in the Product warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by law, ASUS is not responsible for direct, special, incidental or consequential damages resulting from using this beta BIOS.""
Bold emphasis mine. This seems like standard legalese for a beta release and does not suggest its use voids your warranty, but rather that it conveys no additional special protections above that of the warranty. Now, there's an argument to be made if they should be offering additional support because of the nature of the problem here, but that isn't what Jay / GN is saying, they're asserting that it voids your warranty to use it and that if anything bad happens when a user is using the beta BIOS, they will be denied any warranty support and at least as I read what is written, that doesnt' seem to be accurate. There's also the issue that I have a feeling that GN, JTC etc would be impugning the company if it did NOT offer an updated firmware (beta or otherwise) as soon as possible to fix what is presented as a serious problem. In fact, it seems that Asus was one of the first to offer BIOS updates and this is the result, whereas other mobo companies took equal or longer times to release it, also offering beta status and apparently having similar potential bugs (ie AGESA 1.0.0.7 , 1.0.0.7a etc ) but less focus is given there. This does not absolve Asus of responsibility for their mistakes, but it does seem odd how they seem to be the primary focus.

The rest of his video talks about his experiences with RMAs which (putting aside the "creator/influencer/sponsor" experience which may deviate from the standard rank and file customer in both expectations and other parameters) while certainly are worth talking about when negative, but seem to fall into the "person X has repeated bad experiences with company Y, leading them to choose Company Z instead , but person W had great experiences with Y and thinks that Z is garbage" variation that seems to repeat itself between different users. Likewise with the "I had a bunch of disparate issues on stream" thing which could have many factors. If he doesn't want to use Asus that's fine, but both his large presence online and the cases of other content creators discussed in the thread , it begins to feel more like there is some degree of generation or amplification of controversy and how it is presented for the purpose of gaining more viewers/views.
Boiling this down to: believe a narrative that GN is playing 5D chess with youtube ratings or ASUS continues to fuck people as they have done for the last 15 years of mobos + gpus. ASUS has definitely refused RMA over "burn marks" which could easily have been caused by the board/GPU itself over the last 15 years. Also some of these equivocations thrown out around here are strange. If Gigabyte and Asus both have trouble but Gigabyte offers a replacement and Asus doesn't is that ?AMD's fault that Gigabyte honors RMA and Asus doesn't?
 
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Let's be fair, Ryzen CPUs are exploding all on their own. ASUS just happen to be the brand with boards that explode with the CPU. In all honesty I'm still flabbergasted that this thread is 3 pages long and AMD isn't being held accountable yet again. 🤯
Whys it amds fault
 
Boiling this down to: believe a narrative that GN is playing 5D chess with youtube ratings or ASUS continues to fuck people as they have done for the last 15 years of mobos + gpus. ASUS has definitely refused RMA over "burn marks" which could easily have been caused by the board/GPU itself over the last 15 years. Also some of these equivocations thrown out around here are strange. If Gigabyte and Asus both have trouble but Gigabyte offers a replacement and Asus doesn't is that ?AMD's fault that Gigabyte honors RMA and Asus doesn't?
Check your stove, didn't boil that down very well. We're not talking about any disparate companies' behavior over 15 years, we're talking about this particular issue and how certain people have replied to it.

I didn't chastise GN for their investigation video, only for leaving a tweet which adds nothing to the investigation and only makes an unverifiable implied accusation. J2C (unsure to the degree the assertion is echoed by GN save for their slide being used in the video) so far has made a seemingly untrue statement that the use of the Asus beta BIOSes to resolve these issues voids the existing warranty, unless someone can add further context to prove its accuracy. As others have mentioned all of these companies have offered bad products, exposed at least some users or reviewers to a bad customer service experience, or otherwise acted poorly over the past decades. Vague accusations about sometime in the past 15 years they refused RMA over burn marks is impossible to assess, as the situations could have been very different over that period of time, individual users, products and more.

As far as I am aware these sort of CPU issues have happened on an assortment of AMD AM5 socket boards and there is nobody who is offering a blanket replacement ( checking the news / press issues for the companies in a cursory fashion while writing this) so I'm not seeing one company do better than another in this regard, all of them are putting forth firmware/BIOS update, beta or otherwise, utilizing AMDs's AGESA, 1.0.0.6, 1.0.0.7, 1.0.0.7a etc...updates designed to, among other fixes, cap SoC voltage. The issue is still emerging but lets not pretend that the tone, content, and perceptions of those reporting upon it aren't coloring the response and focus especially in the social media era
 
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Check your stove, didn't boil that down very well. We're not talking about any disparate companies' behavior over 15 years, we're talking about this particular issue and how certain people have replied to it.

I didn't chastise GN for their investigation video, only for leaving a tweet which adds nothing to the investigation and only makes an unverifiable implied accusation. J2C (unsure to the degree the assertion is echoed by GN save for their slide being used in the video) so far has made a seemingly untrue statement that the use of the Asus beta BIOSes to resolve these issues voids the existing warranty, unless someone can add further context to prove its accuracy. As others have mentioned all of these companies have offered bad products, exposed at least some users or reviewers to a bad customer service experience, or otherwise acted poorly over the past decades. Vague accusations about sometime in the past 15 years they refused RMA over burn marks is impossible to assess, as the situations could have been very different over that period of time, individual users, products and more.

As far as I am aware these sort of CPU issues have happened on an assortment of AMD AM5 socket boards and there is nobody who is offering a blanket replacement ( checking the news / press issues for the companies in a cursory fashion while writing this) so I'm not seeing one company do better than another in this regard, all of them are putting forth firmware/BIOS update, beta or otherwise, utilizing AMDs's AGESA, 1.0.0.6, 1.0.0.7, 1.0.0.7a etc...updates designed to, among other fixes, cap SoC voltage. The issue is still emerging but lets not pretend that the tone, content, and perceptions of those reporting upon it aren't coloring the response and focus especially in the social media era
Linus Tech Tips is parroting the same echo chambers too



They’re distilling it down to “A sus” with an emphasis on the sus part
 
If he doesn't want to use Asus that's fine, but both his large presence online and the cases of other content creators discussed in the thread , it begins to feel more like there is some degree of generation or amplification of controversy and how it is presented for the purpose of gaining more viewers/views.
This.
 
The LTT team from TechLinked says Linus’ 30 minute tirade against “a sus” will soon be uploaded as part of their latest WAN Show episode
 
Linus Tech Tips is parroting the same echo chambers too



They’re distilling it down to “A sus” with an emphasis on the sus part

This unfortunately is the state of mind we live in at the moment. Just keep piling it on. Mainly to gain views essentially. Again I'm not sticking up for any manufacturer here, but they have all made mistakes and handled things poorly in the past. Not so long ago: MSI gouging prices of video cards. and bullying a laptop reviewer to take his bad review down. Gigabyte exploding power supplies, and even Asrock blacklisting anyone who didn't like their products. This will all last for a bit and be forgotten about over time unless some catastrophic thing happens in addtion to this issue from Asus.
 
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Whys it amds fault

It could be. AMD creates the AGESA code and that's given to the motherboard manufacturers. Motherboard manufacturers do not modify that code directly.
100% AMDs fault. There have been reports of CPUs blowing up on others manufacturers boards. Steve not only mentions this in his initial video on the issue, he also included a photo of a exploded CPU and a Gigabyte board. The only thing ASUS is guilty of is killing the board when the CPU kills itself. And while that is certainly shitty, the buck should stop at AMD and so far people are giving AMD another pass.
 
I have had ASRock for my MB's for as long as I can remember. So maybe 8-10. No issues with any of them. And I simply like them. They just work. And I also feel that their quality has only gotten better.
I have always read from people that Gigabyte and Asus had crappy RMA service.

So definitely look at ASRock
 
Let's be fair, Ryzen CPUs are exploding all on their own. ASUS just happen to be the brand with boards that explode with the CPU. In all honesty I'm still flabbergasted that this thread is 3 pages long and AMD isn't being held accountable yet again. 🤯
I've got nothing against flaming them both. Does anyone have an idea on the number of CPUs have that have died? Has AMD been sending replacements?
 
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I've got nothing against flaming them both. Does anyone have an idea on the number of CPUs have that have died? Has AMD been sending replacements?
As far as I have read, AMD has been replacing CPUs with no hassle; which is great customer service. But the fact that there is little to no real coverage of this issue from a PoV other than, "ASUS bad" is just amazing.
 
I tried Gigabyte ASROCK and ASUS only I like ASUS the best less hardware conflicts. Plus I had one that lasted a decade untill I upgraded back in 2011.
I had an asrock from 2014 that was still working when I took it out of service for the gen 11 microcenter deal not long ago.
 
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The issue isn't that the boards are having problems. As many have said that happens to everyone eventually. The issue is Asus' response to the problems. That is 100% entirely in their control and completely their fault.
 
As far as I have read, AMD has been replacing CPUs with no hassle; which is great customer service. But the fact that there is little to no real coverage of this issue from a PoV other than, "ASUS bad" is just amazing.
I see, thanks. Piling on probably generates the most views and is easier and faster to spit out versus investigation of other aspects for a detailed report.
 
wouldn't surprise me if some on this forum are on the ASUS take. why replace a $500 mobo when you can pay a shill with a free $100 mobo inventory excess for fake praise. we are now literally seeing youtube tech reviewer collusion theories... that aren't jokes
 
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