The AMD Ryzen 9000 series CPUs are generally great processors, but that sadly does not mean they are entirely free of issues. For some time, users of these new CPUs have been reporting problems with their CPUs becoming burned out. Investigation has shown that the fault may be tied to a voltage problem on the motherboard.

A number of burn-damaged AMD CPUs have been posted on social media, such as Reddit or Twitter/X, even some high-end gaming CPUs such as the Ryzen 9800X3D. Most of these incidents have seemed to be related to ASRock motherboards. However, CPUs mounted in boards from other vendors have now been reporting issues.

Same old problem?

Noted hardware blogger HXL posted on Twitter that users of Socket AM5 motherboards need to keep a closer eye on the voltages of the boards and ensure they stay within safe limits. This warning was accompanied by images from two different motherboard status screens.

The first was from an ASRock X870 board and showed the CPU vSoC Voltage jumping up from 1.190V to 1.815V. The second was from an MSI X870-P Wi-Fi and likewise showed a vSOC voltage jump from 0.943V up to 1.965V.

Some posters identified the damaged pins on the affected chips as belonging to the Core Voltage and Ground areas. Though this is unconfirmed, it would match the theory of runaway voltage being at fault.

Not everyone was convinced, however. User Reknez identified the issue as a software reporting error: “It is a reporting error, you can clearly see it because other values went up too. UCLK supposedly went from 1700 MHz to 2550 MHz, which is exactly 50% more. This indicates that the actual vSoC was 1.21 V and not 1.81 V when the reporting error happened.”

Until AMD and its board partners conduct a full investigation and release the results, users are going to keep looking for answers, and potentially running into dead ends.

About the Author

Rebecca Hills-Duty

Writing and journalism experience at VRFocus, UploadVR, The Escapist, HTC, PC Gamer, Tech Radar+ and Dexerto. Can sometimes be found playing with retro tech.