A Cautionary Tale: My Experience with the AMD 9800X3D and ASUS X670E Motherboard

Hello, fellow tech enthusiasts!

In light of the numerous reports shared across forums about various hardware failures, particularly involving ASRock motherboards, I felt compelled to share my own recent experience regarding my AMD 9800X3D processor, which decided to give up the ghost—despite being paired with a different brand’s motherboard.

This incident unfolded just a few days ago, on Tuesday, May 27th. My setup features an ASUS X670E ROG Hero motherboard, and both the CPU and motherboard were purchased in November of 2024. Until recently, everything was running smoothly and without issue. I had even been gaming without a hitch just a couple of hours earlier.

The trouble began when I powered down my PC for about an hour. I was preparing to connect my wife’s new system for testing and wanted to avoid overloading the circuit. When I attempted to boot my machine afterward, it presented a qcode 00 error and failed to post. Naturally, I embarked on a troubleshooting journey, which included resetting the CMOS, flashing the BIOS, testing each RAM stick individually, trying a different power supply, and reseating the CPU. It was perplexing, especially given that everything was stable beforehand.

After exhausting all troubleshooting options, I grew increasingly suspicious that the motherboard had malfunctioned. Consequently, I initiated the RMA process with ASUS. A friend at my gym, who recently acquired an AM5 CPU, generously offered to let me test it in my setup. To my surprise, when I installed his CPU, my system booted up flawlessly. I even reinserted the 9800X3D just to verify, but it simply wouldn’t cooperate.

While I understand that defective components can occur in any technology, and I acknowledge the possibility that my situation could be merely coincidental, I feel it’s crucial to spread awareness. Just because your system may not feature an ASRock motherboard (or even fall under the x870/b850 categories), it does not guarantee immunity from issues. I still have concerns regarding potential underlying problems with the 9800X3D or its associated motherboard BIOS that may extend beyond the well-documented “ASRock PBO Voltage” issues.

Additionally, I must mention that my experience with AMD’s RMA customer service has left much to be desired. Following a friend’s suggestion, I reached out to GamersN