Past week prevalent reports of melting MOSFETs on Asus’ Z690 Hero motherboards emerged across numerous social media platforms, with shots of motherboards that met a fiery fate spurring a bit of investigation from the fanatic local community. We adopted up with Asus to discover a lot more, and the firm acknowledged the troubles to Tom’s Components and provided a comprehensive assertion on the underlying results in (beneath). The business is also beginning a recall/replacement plan for impacted people, but that will acquire some time to arrive into impact. If you have a Z690 Hero, be confident to read through our define down below that tells you a couple approaches to establish if your board is impacted — if it is, you really should prevent applying it suitable absent.
Interestingly, YouTuber Buildzoid’s theory of the root lead to was right (more on that immediately after the statement). It all boils down to a capacitor that Asus inadvertently set up backward. This is Asus’ assertion:
“To our valued ASUS Clients, ASUS is dedicated to producing the maximum good quality merchandise and we get each incident report from our valued customers very seriously. We have not too long ago received incident reports regarding the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard. In our ongoing investigation, we have preliminarily recognized a probable reversed memory capacitor problem in the manufacturing course of action from 1 of the output lines that might trigger debug mistake code 53, no submit, or motherboard factors damage. The challenge most likely influences models produced in 2021 with the portion variety 90MB18E0-MVAAY0 and serial selection beginning with MA, MB, or MC.
You can recognize your part quantity by referring to the products packaging:
As of December 28, 2021, there have been a number of incidents described in North The us. Going forward, we are continuing our complete inspection with our suppliers and buyers to establish all achievable affected ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboards in the current market and will be functioning with applicable authorities organizations on a substitution method. Thank you so significantly to everyone for your patience and aid when we are doing work as a result of the alternative program.
If you have any inquiries or concerns remember to come to feel cost-free to contact ASUS shopper assistance. Greatest regards, The ASUS Crew.”
Soon after common experiences of the problem washed about many enthusiast message boards and Reddit, YouTube Buildzoid carried out his very own investigation, which you can see in the movie down below.
In small, all of the impacted motherboards had a single commonality: two burned-out MOSFETs that are liable for offering 5V power to a quantity of elements on the motherboard, together with the ability supply subsystem for the DDR5 modules.
Buildzoid properly surmised that the difficulty did not stem from the MOSFETs, but rather the capacitor correct subsequent to them. Comparing photos of the impacted motherboards to fully-working boards reveals the capacitor is set up backward, consequently reversing polarity and main to the MOSFET failures.
If you very own an Asus Z690 Hero and are not conscious of the batch variety, you require to verify the capacitor that you see circled in the image over (it is between the DIMM slots and Q-Code reader). If the “150” is aligned upside down, it is ideal to halt working with the motherboard and contact Asus purchaser assist.
It really is encouraging to see Asus stage up and accept the troubles immediately and acquire ways to start a substitution software straight away. We’re told that Asus is performing with the Customer Item Basic safety Fee (CSPC) to label the alternative system as an formal recall, at which time users can start out the replacement approach. We’ll update you as more details become offered.