ASUS recalls motherboards that flame out thanks to backwards capacitors
- Reference: 1641279851
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/01/04/asus_recalls_z690_hero_motherboards/
- Source link:
Reports of smoldering boards started surfacing on [1]Reddit and various forums.
ASUS [2]issued a recall on the product, or rather what they call a “replacement program.”
[3]
With the internet ablaze with reports of faulty ASUS motherboards, a few netizens got to work on finding the root cause, and it turned out to be a simple manufacturing and assembling mistake rather than a design flaw. Netectives noted that a single capacitor was installed in a reverse position causing reversed polarity, and enough heat for the components to fail and catch fire.
[4]
[5]
That's a simple, but big, oops.
“In our ongoing investigation, we have preliminarily identified a potential reversed memory capacitor issue in the production process from one of the production lines that may cause debug error code 53, no post, or motherboard components damage,” said ASUS in an announcement.
[6]Bolt electric car battery recall might have hurt General Motors, but LG will pay $1.9bn to sooth troubled feelings
[7]ASUS baffles customer by telling them thermal pad thickness is proprietary
[8]PCs continue to sell like hot cakes and industry can barely keep up with demand – analyst
[9]China to crush secondary market providing forbidden gaming accounts to kids
[10]Low on passengers, low on memory: A bad day on the London Underground
The Taiwanese computer manufacturer said the issue only affects some 2021 units with part number 90MB18E0-MVAAY0 and serial numbers starting with MA, MB, or MC.
Owners of the motherboard can examine the product packaging to see if their hardware is affected. Asus also popped up a [11]webpage where their customers can type in their serial number and find out.
[12]
Or, one can always look at the motherboard and just tell for themselves. If the positive end of the capacitor points at the MOSFETs, there’s danger. Youtuber Buildzoid, who is credited with diagnosing the problem, shows how to spot the problem in the video below.
[13]Youtube Video
“I’m guessing they just put the cap backwards,” says Buildzoid around eleven minutes in.
[14]
Not everyone has had the issue, so it appears someone’s just messed up a batch of the boards. The Register reached out to ASUS to inquire if the issue was caused by a contractor (perhaps a reel of capacitors from a supplier was randomly reversed?) or if ASUS itself is to blame.
We're yet to hear from the company, but it is clear someone in quality control didn't do their job very well.
While some customers have been pleased with what they feel is adequate accountability from ASUS, others are miffed by spending $600 on boards that are not working and may take weeks to replace.
Others feel ASUS has done well. YouTuber JayzTwoCents also tracked the incident, [15]calling it the “fastest we’ve seen a brand go from there’s a problem to we’re handling it, that we’ve ever seen.” He caveated “it’s kind of sad because that should always be the case.”
ASUS technical product marketing manager Juan Jose Guerrero III [16]reassured members of an unofficial ASUS PC DIY support channel on Facebook that no other ASUS Z690 boards appear likely to burst into flames. ®
Get our [17]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ASUS/comments/rq2rba/another_z690_hero_burns_up/
[2] https://www.asus.com/us/news/u5866wtjwmbj1fue/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YdQo4GxGAJ5mbenf1171aQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YdQo4GxGAJ5mbenf1171aQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YdQo4GxGAJ5mbenf1171aQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/12/lg_gm_bolt_recall/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/20/asus_thermal_pad_thickness/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/26/idc_pc_figures/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/21/china_refines_internet_bans/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/29/bork/
[11] https://www.asus.com/support/rog-maximus-z690-hero-checking?fbclid=IwAR2i1n3mW-lsnCKO8sqsMsm5RNQajtJZrdTQTHBcPz_RsSXED9D_VcDW8zM
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YdQo4GxGAJ5mbenf1171aQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VkO4wiEAY4
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YdQo4GxGAJ5mbenf1171aQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58a2VLXZd6A
[16] https://www.facebook.com/groups/ASUSPCDIY/permalink/4773559936060389/
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
A board that gives the capacity to smell the burning in a hot game.
Reminds me of a place I used to work at
They used to get part-time staff in to work nights when they needed extra capacity.
They paid them peanuts, gave the first group no training, and were surprised when all of the first batch of board failed when they hit the test cell the next day.
Turns out it would have been a good idea to teach them that diodes and some capacitors needed to be put in the right way round.
OS reactivation
Not being a windows user any more, do they still lock the OS licence to the motherboard ?
If so, then who pays for the OS reactivation after the failed motherboard has been replaced
Re: OS reactivation
El Reg readers typically being wise enough to avoid being early adopters I'm not sure how many we'll see here to report back, but yes, I would love to hear how this plays out.
New laptop board? It's a new laptop according to MS activation. Get a new license.
Re: New laptop board? It's a new laptop according to MS activation. Get a new license.
Much as I am averse to MS and their products, I think that changing such a core component is almost always likely to end up looking like a new laptop, and so I would expect any bog-standard MS activation attempt to indeed come to that conclusion.
And at best you would have to expect to jump through a few hoops to convince them otherwise (which is not to say I don't think the hoops should exist -- there should be a way, but I would still expect it to be more than a little annoying)
Re: New laptop board? It's a new laptop according to MS activation. Get a new license.
It's more likely these boards were part of self builds or small company builds so they would not have OEM licenses for windows.
I originally purchased a Win7 license when it was released (not OEM tied).
I've been thru this when I had an i7 die and the cost of a replacement was laughable, it was more cost effective to build a new machine and transplant some bits that I could (decided to do a pimped out box, with RGB lighting and stuff - never again will I do this after the 12-14 hours it took over 4 days with huge amounts of internal wiring!)
So, new case, motherboard (switched to AMD), RAM - only things that remained were the original SSDs and the graphics card.
I booted it and rather expected it to blue screen and die and have to reinstall windows, instead it installed all the correct drivers, didn't complain and asked to relicense which took less than 5 minutes to sort with the license key.
So as much as I hate to say it, but kudos to M$ for making a seemless migration with the same install into what was pretty much a totally different PC with a different CPU and drivers and not had any problems since in the 2 1/2 years since it was built.
Re: OS reactivation
I don't think a new license will be required. Borkzilla is capable of understanding that you change your hardware. I think that you have five activations possible before they lock down activation, but even then, you can call them and explain the situation.
Of course, we're talking honest people here. If you activate your license on four different computers and use them concurrently or within a given time frame, don't be surprised if your key gets rescinded.
In this case, the situation is pretty clear : yes, you had activated on a certain configuration, but that config is gone and you're activating on a new one.
Honest people should not have any trouble.
Re: OS reactivation
Windows 10 does. I learned it the hard way.
Never cross the streams!
Or capacitors it seems.
“fastest we’ve seen a brand go from there’s a problem to we’re handling it, that we’ve ever seen.”
Fire damage related lawsuits wait for no one. Not even if they involve personal injury.
At least it wasn't one of the big ones... https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5acb313ded915d5a90e44be4/R052018_180320_Guildford.pdf
Shocking.