https://www.reddit.com/r/ASRock/
Looking at the subreddit it is every few hours people are reporting dead cpus. ASUS had a similar issue with 7000x3d now it seems asrock is having a similar issue with 9000x3d.
I am worried because I have a 7950x on a asrock board. I have memory training happening frequently. But not really crashes. Restarts take like 2 minutes. But some reports are saying 7000 cpus are dying too.
ASRock changed the spec on a board I got for a FX-8350 years ago (when those were high-end 
). Newegg had it 140W, ASRock’s page also had 140W, but later lowered it. The board didn’t have a VRM heatsink, and I’m guessing they later tested 140W to not be ideal.
I tried to get ASRock to RMA because of that and they denied it (was only a month after the purchase). That was my last ASRock purchase.
Edit: I blogged about it 2014 (totally forgot they partially honored the RMA, by sending the same exact board and ignoring the request 
)
I’ve heard of sketchy RMAs with ASUS and wouldn’t be quick to buy from them either, but the X470-PRIME I had was pretty good with a 2700X.
I’m thinking AMD’s involved in some way too since they have the logistics behind AGESA and just give that to mobo vendors.
Years of ASRock’ and ASRock Rack’s BIOSees and firmwares have made me switch to ASUS motherboards.
@MisteryAngel started a thread for this a while ago. 9800X3D stability issues and boot failures on Asrock and other brand boards
reddit for this latest blowup seems to be this one. Doesn’t seem to be anybody on it at the moment that’s actually hit a failure to post.
Years of Asus BIOSes have made me switch to ASRock motherboards. Guess we cancel each other out. 
More seriously, the Armoury Crate lock in that started with AM4 (if not earlier, not sure how infested their AM3 boards are at this point) is a nonstarter under our policies.
Got 5900X, a small 5950X herd, 7950X, 9900X, 9950X, all on ASRock. 7950X, 9900X, and 9950X are on the 3.20 BIOS that’s supposed to fix the occasional memory compatibility issues but none of them had problems before 3.20. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
5900X and 5950X have been stable for us at stock on Asus for a while now but it took like 18 months for Asus to bother making a fix. Bought ASRock and MSI while waiting and don’t have any reason to go back.
What’s the Armoury Crate lock about?
I had PRIME-X470 PRO and recall ASUS’s driver page mentioning Armoury Crate, but I never installed it and thought it was RGB.
Armoury Crate is Asus’ bloatware suite. Aura (RGB) is part of it, so is AI Suite (fan control). Asus seems to do different things on different boards but with AM4 TUF I’ve worked with some BIOS lighting settings are not in the BIOS menus and jumping the BIOS hoops to unlock fan control changes other BIOS settings also not in the menus. It’s possible to work around the latter by plugging in different fans when re-running the unlock and then changing back to the fans you actually want to use. But turning lighting all the way off requires booting Windows to run Armoury Crate after every BIOS update.
I’m not sure I’ve actually found all of the components Armoury Crate installs but there are multiple services as well as the apps you interact with. Normal uninstall is broken so Asus has a separate cleaning utility. Checking whether it gets everything is involved and the BIOS’ll install Armoury into Windows if you forget to turn that off.
Or you can… not pay the Asus brand tax and not have to try to figure out whether ROG Gaming Service removal or whatever left a port open. That works better for me.
Every mobo I’ve built recently has stupid problems. Light load coil whine on MSI Tomahawk. ASRock AM4 has on and off reversed in one menu option. With ASRock AM5 restoring settings from USB after a BIOS update does absolutely nothing. But my recent-ish experiences with Asus are pretty extra in comparison.
Just spent a while scrolling through r/Asrock and couldn’t find support for the claims of new death posts every few hours. Found one from yesterday, one from two days ago, and the one before that was 20 days ago. None of those indicated a BIOS version and in only one thread was there a mention of trying 3.20 flashback to see if it made a fix. Perhaps there’s something new on the issue but so far it looks to me like reddit being reddit as usual.
He’s on some of the recent reddit threads offering to buy failed CPU + mobo combos. More GNCA RMA rescue episodes, maybe.
They are a mixed bag. I had a horrible experience with a laptop RMA with them… was a dumpster fire of an experience.
My other RMA with them was for an ASUS Strix B450-F and it went surprisingly smoothly. So no idea if their devices group(Laptops, handhelds, etc) and their hardware(mobo, GPU, etc) have different policies but definitely would consider buying from them as a roll of the dice.
I can’t forgive ASRock taking months more time to release BIOSes with security updates, if they come at all. I prefer getting those updates and maybe have to purchase another motherboard in case of a hardware defect because of their shitty customer RMA service compared to a great RMA service without getting timely BIOS/firmware updates.
At the same time I fully agree that it’s a giant dick move by ASUS enabling their automatic bloatware software installations (which of course pose a separate security risk) by default in the UEFI options.
ASRock Rack? Yeah, they’ve got AM5 boards that still have only beta EPYC 4004 support, no manual, and lack a download for the release BIOS if you need to flashback. Something’s wrong there and I’ve avoided Rack in part for that reason. ASRock’s also got client software issues with a history of ignoring CVEs in Polychrome and GPU Tweak not even starting (I haven’t tried OC Tuner) but the BIOS level lighting disable just works so I’m good.
ASRock driver installer defaults to disabled in the BIOS but prompts to enable on the first Windows boot after a BIOS update anyways. MSI started pushing software before ASRock did so, between ASRock, MSI, Gigabyte, and Asus, it’s now mostly just a question of how bad the implementation is. I figure ASRock’ll probably fail at some point, but hopefully not as hard as MSI’s certificate compromises, Gigabyte’s insecure downloads, or Armoury.
ASRock desktop is pretty decent with BIOS updates, though, at least from AM4 to now. Not uncommon they’ll be a little faster MSI or Asus in my experience. They do typically go top to bottom, meaning Taichi’ll get updates before Steel Legend and such, so the timing does depend some on the specific boards you’re comparing.
I’d build MSI more frequently if they weren’t often ~25% overpriced compared to ASRock here. Gigabyte tends to run a similar brand tax and Asus usually goes even higher. There’s signs the gap may be narrowing as ASRock gets more popular, though.
The thread is not entirely accurate. Non 9800x3ds are dying. I will check it out.
For the record, I have an asrock board (X870E Nova Wifi) and 9800x3d, and all is fine so far. Been running a couple weeks. Original BIOS was 3.10, it is now flashed to 3.20. Althought there was a problem with that, flashback didn’t work at all. I had to use the in-bios utility. Probably not related to any of this.
Interesting. Any idea why? Rename to creative.rom, plug the FAT32 USB stick into the flashback port, push the button on standby power’s been successful for me so far. I haven’t tried using flashback to advance a BIOS version but that should be supported.
Don’t know, but haven’t fully investigated. funny part is it gave the indications of it working according to the manual, except it went WAY too fast. Turned solid red just about instantly.
