AMD Issues Second Statement on Ryzen 7000 Burnout Issues: Caps SoC Voltages

Author: AnandTech

Yesterday, AMD issued statement surrounding the issues some users have been experiencing with their Ryzen 7000X3D processors. The problem reported widely across Reddit subforums, includes some Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs burning the CPU socket on AM5 motherboards and damaging the chips, rendering them dead. AMD has released a second statement regarding the issue, including what it is doing to rectify the problem and subdue any panic users and owners of the Ryzen 7000 series processors.

The official statement from AMD is as follows:

We have root caused the issue and have already distributed a new AGESA that puts measures in place on certain power rails on AM5 motherboards to prevent the CPU from operating beyond its specification limits, including a cap on SOC voltage at 1.3V. None of these changes affect the ability of our Ryzen 7000 Series processors to overclock memory using EXPO or XMP kits or boost performance using PBO technology.

We expect all of our ODM partners to release new BIOS for their AM5 boards over the next few days. We recommend all users to check their motherboard manufacturers website and update their BIOS to ensure their system has the most up to date software for their processor. 

Anyone whose CPU may have been impacted by this issue should contact AMD customer support. Our customer service team is aware of the situation and prioritizing these cases.

To counteract the problem, AMD has seemingly identified an issue with specific voltages going too high and is potentially happening when users enable AMD’s EXPO memory profiles. The cap on SoC voltages looks to be the primary change in the AGESA firmware rollout. However, AMD has identified possible voltage rails on certain AM5 motherboards that are causing the burnouts. Although it hasn’t specified the problematic voltage rails, it has placed a cap on SoC voltages. AMD has also put a limit within the latest AGESA firmware that prevents the Ryzen 7000 CPUs from going beyond specification.

What this actually means needs some further clarification, as AMD hasn’t specified what it means when it says it is preventing the CPU from exceeding its specification limits, such as complete lockdown of specific voltage controls or specific ones relating to the issue. Technically speaking, enabling EXPO memory profiles is operating the processor outside of specifications, as AMD’s Ryzen 7000 officially supports DDR5-5200 memory; we test at these settings as per our Ryzen 7000 reviews, including both Ryzen 7000 and Ryzen 7000X3D.

One interesting point about AMD’s statement is that it eludes to whether or not the issue is just on its Ryzen 7000X3D processors or whether it affects all of its Ryzen 7000 processors entirely. Regardless of the Zen 4 chip that users may have, AMD is ambiguous in its language, and it seems to be that AMD is recommended that ALL users with a Ryzen 7000 series processor should update to the latest firmware.

Enabling EXPO memory profiles on compatible DRAM does look to push SoC voltages beyond AMD’s safe spot on the Ryzen 7000 processors, which AMD believes is part of the root cause of the burning issue. AMD does, however, state that the changes it has made to their AGESA firmware, once flashed, shouldn’t affect the user’s ability to apply EXPO memory profiles on compatible kits of DDR5 memory.

AMD is actively working with its motherboard partners to release a new AGESA firmware, which they say has already been distributed, limits the SoC voltage to 1.30 V. AMD claims that all AM5 motherboard vendors and models should have a new BIOS version available to them within the next few days, and is recommending all users to update their BIOS at their earliest convenience.

Image source: Speedrookie/Reddit