Allegations of Unusually High Failure Rate Among Ryzen 5000 and 500 Series Motherboards by System Integrator

[leadeater]

11 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Just noticed that I didn't post the most up to date article. Here is the last one published. It's for the second half of 2016.

Les taux de retour des composants (S2 2016) - HardWare.fr

Honestly again Sapphire, not filling me with confidence and they are supposed to be one of the best AMD brands.

[LAwLz]

29 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Honestly again Sapphire, not filling me with confidence and they are supposed to be one of the best AMD brands.

To be fair, 2.9% isn't THAT much, and the stats are about 4 years old at this point.

I wouldn't put too much weight into those stats.

 

PSU, HDD and SSD stats on the other hand. Now those are what I'd consider important, since a failure with those components can result in more than just "oh well, I'll just send it back".

 

I wish hardware.fr would have kept doing that series. Failure rate of components is one of those areas where you need such massive sample sizes that a regular reviewer can't do it alone.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

To be fair, 2.9% isn't THAT much, and the stats are about 4 years old at this point.

I wouldn't put too much weight into those stats.

What raised my eyebrow was this

 

 

NITRO+ is supposed to be their high end and the 480 was the best AMD card at the time, the worst 1080 was 3%.

[hihihi8]

Not sure about dead on arrival, but certainly a lot of ryzen 5000s that are plagued with instability and crashes. Check out the 40-page long post on the AMD forum, as well as the plethora of issues on the ROG forums regarding ryzen CPUs, 5000s included. It seems a lot of ryzen 5000s are not quite dead on arrival, but faulty and unstable. 

 

My 5950x will not stand global C-states being enabled. With C-states enabled, it will randomly crash to a black screen with post code 00 and power/reset buttons unresponsive during idle/low load every 30mins-3hours or so (with newest BIOS, everything stock no XMP). disabling C-states fixes this.

Since 5950x's all have one "good-binned" CCX and one "average/poor-binned" CCX, my hypothesis regarding what's wrong with my chip is that with global C-states enabled, it's automatically undervolting to voltages no longer sufficient to keep CCX2 stable. They are night and day when it comes to clock speeds achievable for a given voltage. For example, CCX1 on my 5950x can achieve 4725MHz at 1285mV, yet CCX2 can only achieve 4350MHz at the same voltage, hence the popularity of per-ccx overclocking. The fact that we're seeing so many forum posts on ryzen 5000 issues despite the nearly non-existent supply should indicate something not being quite right. How frequently did we have intel CPUs that were just DOA or faulty? Very infrequently.

[D13H4RD]

33 minutes ago, hihihi8 said:

The fact that we're seeing so many forum posts on ryzen 5000 issues despite the nearly non-existent supply should indicate something not being quite right. How frequently did we have intel CPUs that were just DOA or faulty? Very infrequently.

I mentioned that this is potentially due to perhaps the supply shortages and whatnot alongside potential pressure to meet demand perhaps causing some CPU dies that didn't quite meet metrics above minimum specifications getting pushed out the door when they would've otherwise been classed as reject parts. This is 100% speculation on my part, however.

 

And I think Intel's generally superior silicon quality comes down to tighter control as their chips are made in-house?

[circeseye]

havent seen a bad 5000 cpu yet. 10 known systems 5600x's and 5800x's. and out of the 10 systems only had 1 dead x570 asus tuff. bios chip was bad

i mean it does happen. and seeing they are short supply im guessing rushed also

[porina]

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

1) They might have gotten a bad batch from AMD with abnormally high failure rates.

Absent further info, I'd guess this is a likely scenario. It would still be a concern even if there was a one-off for that to happen at all.

 

For those questioning the capability of the system builder, they have said:

• Before Ryzen 5000 series, they were doing 80% Intel, 20% AMD.
• They only ever had one Intel CPU DOA. They had one Intel CPU DoA in 2 years.
• Implied problems only with Zen 3, not with Zen 2.

We don't know if they received those CPUs in one shipment for example, but let's say they did, then they would likely be from the same/similar batch. If there was any problem at manufacturing, it would be more likely to be grouped together. If the problems were limited in scope, then that would also explain why more haven't experienced such. It depends on your luck of shipment. A different kind of silicon lottery there.

 

1usmus (creator of Ryzen Memory Calculator and CTR) also said that didn't include problems relating to some Zen 3 CPUs reporting incorrect info, which might explain other problems unrelated to DoA.

 

Also we should distinguish between DoA rate and return rate. Where I used to work making consumer and business electronic goods, a target return rate of 2% was considered reasonable. DoA rate is only a subset of that and should be much lower. For something as mechanically simple as a CPU I'd expect much lower DoA rates than that. As long as the CPU isn't physically damaged there is little to go wrong with it in shipping.

 

Edit:

 

Looks like WCCF got (at least) one detail wrong in their article, they claimed 80% failure rates with Intel, 20% AMD, which doesn't make sense if you think at all about it.

Quote

PowerGPU also mentions that prior to the launch of AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs, the failure rate was 80% Intel and 20% AMD and they only had one CPU die on them in the past 2 years.

PowerGPU actually said they were buying 80% Intel at the time.

 

Looks like the original tweet that kicked this off has been deleted.

 

[Morgan MLGman]

37 minutes ago, porina said:

If there was any problem at manufacturing, it would be more likely to be grouped together. If the problems were limited in scope, then that would also explain why more haven't experienced such. It depends on your luck of shipment. A different kind of silicon lottery there.

Agreed, if Zen 3 was on a new process node then I guess it would be possible, but it's a node that AMD knows quite well already so it seems unlikely to be a wide scale issue

P.S. I hid your accidental post

[leadeater]

42 minutes ago, porina said:

Looks like WCCF got (at least) one detail wrong in their article, they claimed 80% failure rates with Intel, 20% AMD, which doesn't make sense if you think at all about it.

Did WCCF really say that?! What they hell were they smoking

 

Edit:

Quote

PowerGPU also mentions that prior to the launch of AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs, the failure rate was 80% Intel and 20% AMD and they only had one CPU die on them in the past 2 years.

Oh that's a hilarious typo there, I will give benefit doubt with that one. Seems clear to me they actually meant the correct thing lol

[leadeater]

Just now, Morgan MLGman said:

P.S. I hid your accidental post

No I just did, argh you!

 

Spoiler

I did not shoot first 

 

[Arika]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Did WCCF really say that?! What they hell were they smoking

it's in their name

WCCF

 

We

Can't

Communicate

Facts

[Sauron]

Fortunately this shouldn't affect end users beyond potentially having to RMA a motherboard or CPU upon first purchase, which is a nuisance but has no long term consequences.

[paddy-stone]

Well for me, in roughly 20 years I have been building PCs for myself/family/friends and some others, I have only experienced around 10 - 15x DOA parts, most of which were RAM modules, or kits... and even then DOA is not the absolute, as they generally allowed boot, but caused system failure, and when tested had major errors.

 

I did have a few motherboards that were DOA though, from memory 2 of those had problems with the wifi modules connectors come loose right out of the packaging and were hanging off (same motherboard model each time), in the end I just got a different brand as I figured it was a common fault after finding it 3 times. And one or 2 others were really DOA, as in not any visual faults but failed to have any life in them after trying many components.

 

 

 

[Nena Trinity]

Glad I got 3000 and 400 board.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

I don't think I've ever had a bad CPU mount on PGA, not on LGA either for that matter 

 

But it should be less common on PGA not more.

Theory = more parts, more problems.

 

I'd say out of 50 processors, at least a few the reseat did the trick.

Also, too tight of a mount PGA will no post just the same as LGA.

 

In my small career benching maybe 125 processors in total, I would put a reseat on the rare side of things be it L or P GA. 

[mariushm]

3 hours ago, leadeater said:

What raised my eyebrow was this

 

 

NITRO+ is supposed to be their high end and the 480 was the best AMD card at the time, the worst 1080 was 3%.

 

There was that panic about RX 480 cards drawing more than 75 watts from the slot and damaging motherboards ... Tom's Hardware had a blog post about that : https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-power-measurements,4622.html

So you can bet there were a lot of returns of good cards for that reason. 

 

Also, RX 470 and RX 480 cards were already used a lot for mining Ethereum - the data is compiled from orders returned in the first half of 2017 ... Ethereum jumped to around $370 in June 2017 ... everyone was mining. Lots of failures due to bios modding and overclocking ram and stuff like that. 

 

Quote

Even if past performance is no indication of future performance, we are therefore publishing today part of the breakdown return rate statistics available to us. They relate to parts sold during the second half of 2016, for returns created before the second half of 2017, i.e. a maximum of one year of operation. The evolution of the failure rate during the life of a product generally forms a spread U, with a practically flat bottom, and these figures therefore cover the first part of their life, a time when the rate is high.

 

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, mariushm said:

There was that panic about RX 480 cards drawing more than 75 watts from the slot and damaging motherboards ... Tom's Hardware had a blog post about that : https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-rx-480-power-measurements,4622.html

So you can bet there were a lot of returns of good cards for that reason. 

Hmm I knew about the 75W thing but I didn't actually think people would care, not to RMA the GPU anyway. It's not like all the high end boards can't do well more than 75W anyway.

 

8 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Also, RX 470 and RX 480 cards were already used a lot for mining Ethereum - the data is compiled from orders returned in the first half of 2017 ... Ethereum jumped to around $370 in June 2017 ... everyone was mining. Lots of failures due to bios modding and overclocking ram and stuff like that.

Well to throw miners under the bus if I was BIOS modding my GPU and broke it I wouldn't RMA, I broke it. Or at the very least I would say how it broke and pay if I have to.

[Taf the Ghost]

Been a lot of chatter about this, early consensus is either PowerGPU is doing something wrong, stupid or there's a problem with the local distributor packaging improperly. r/AMD has a good collection of Amazon shipments without an extra box, something you really shouldn't do with a CPU. It's very possible somewhere in the supply chain, the shipping requirements have gotten messed up.

[leadeater]

30 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Theory = more parts, more problems.

 

I'd say out of 50 processors, at least a few the reseat did the trick.

Also, too tight of a mount PGA will no post just the same as LGA.

 

In my small career benching maybe 125 processors in total, I would put a reseat on the rare side of things be it L or P GA. 

Well I can do one better, Slot 1. Now that would almost never have a mount failure 

 

But yea, been building computers since the dark ages i.e. Pentium/ Pentium Pro. Other than the above Pentium II all PGA all the way up to I think the largest pre-LGA being AMD 939/940, I don't remember any bad mounts on those. I've had a suspected bad mount on my LGA-2011 4930k but it's under a full cover mono block with hardline tubing and I can get it to boot with all 4 memory channels so I ain't gonna remount it, wayyyy too much effort lol.

 

My last DIY bulk building was LGA775, don't remember exactly what they were but it was around 2009, everything past that has been OEM HP/Dell/Acer and then the things I've personally built are just my gaming systems, family computers and server builds for my lab so easily below 20 in recent history.

 

With how PGA works though it should be very hard to get a bad mount, you'd have to be using a cooler with a rather bad mount design that allows significant overtightening to warp the board which would affect LGA just the same as well. Maybe modern coolers are more to blame than the sockets?

[porina]

52 minutes ago, seee the state im in nooow said:

in the case of the thread: who is powerGPU, where are they located, and why are their defect rates higher than the 2% most other retailers are seeing?

They're a system builder based in the US, website claims they've been building PCs for 20 years, although the website is rather rubbish. Still, if they're buying 500 320 Ryzens, suffice to say they're not small fish.

 

Possible reasons why they're seeing elevated DoA rates have been discussed in this thread, but we may never know. Also note again, they find the CPUs dead when they get them, not after they go out to customers and come back. It could be implied they're buying OEM CPUs, and that may be a difference from retail box CPUs.

 

38 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Been a lot of chatter about this, early consensus is either PowerGPU is doing something wrong, stupid or there's a problem with the local distributor packaging improperly. r/AMD has a good collection of Amazon shipments without an extra box, something you really shouldn't do with a CPU. It's very possible somewhere in the supply chain, the shipping requirements have gotten messed up.

Don't know them at all, but I'd give PowerGPU the benefit of the doubt in their competency. Did they have the same problems with Zen 2 or Intel? Sounds like this is a Zen 3 specific problem.

 

As above I'd guess they'll be buying OEM CPUs. As a consumer, I don't know what the ordering process for those are. Do they buy direct from AMD or is there a distribution layer? Even then, chances are distributors wont be new to doing this. Can't rule out shipping problems, but I do feel that is unlikely. Also it would be more widespread if it was bad shipping. What could you do to a CPU to kill it in shipping that doesn't leave an obvious trail of physical damage? You're not going to experience extreme heat sufficient to damage a CPU. Extreme cold is also unlikely. Shock/vibration? Maybe it could case some non-visible damage but this is a stretch. On balance of probability I'd guess the most likely reason is a bad batch from AMD making it past whatever checks should be in place.

 

We might never find out why this happened. From AMD's perspective, they'll just deal with this under the warranty system is in place. If there are abnormal failure rates, they'll do checking to determine the cause and correct it as necessary. They wont gain anything by acknowledging this so don't expect any official comment unless it really blows up.

Edited February 15, 2021 by porina
correct number

[Taf the Ghost]

@porinawe've got enough secondary data that it's clearly something with PowerGPU's entire supply chain to the point of sale. The high DOA on motherboards points to the possibility they might have a serious workflow issue in general, but the shipping angle makes a lot more sense logically. If there's issues with overly violent location shipping in their supply chain, you have a very good double explanation. 

 

It also could simply be small sample size.

[WereCat]

But what do they classify as DOA?
PC not booting up at all? Booting up and then BSOD? I mean, there may be scenarios where it may seem as CPU fault but it is not related to the CPU itself if you get BSOD.

[TVwazhere]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

I don't think I've ever had a bad CPU mount on PGA, not on LGA either for that matter 

I have

 

RGB Build 2019 initially didn't POST because the CPU wasn't fully socketed. The retention lever was not pulled all the way back when the CPU was being inserted, meaning the CPU pins were partially exposed upon very close inspection under the heatsink (this was a system I had verified previously posted on my own)

[Doobeedoo]

So OG tweet about this got deleted? Interesting...

 

[porina]

7 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

@porinawe've got enough secondary data that it's clearly something with PowerGPU's entire supply chain to the point of sale. The high DOA on motherboards points to the possibility they might have a serious workflow issue in general, but the shipping angle makes a lot more sense logically. If there's issues with overly violent location shipping in their supply chain, you have a very good double explanation. 

 

It also could simply be small sample size.

They only mention AMD mobos being affected, implied worse than with Intel boards. If they came from the same source it would affect both. Maybe they have different suppliers for each, we're just guessing on that.

 

Sample size is what it is. 320 units of Zen 3 is not tiny but obviously wont represent the whole market. We can assume a similar number of mobos bought to go with them, excluding any that may be paired with Zen 2.