(UPDATE 1) Claims or Rumor, Z690 motherboards might be catching fire?!

[Quackers101]

Summary (see end of post for update)

Certain motherboards like the Asus Maximus Z690 Hero, seem to catch fire in the right top corner under the debugging lights.

It's not fully certain what is the issue and if it also can be connected with DDR5 and the layout of the motherboard? Would need some testing to know how serious of an issue is here, and what can be done to prevent the reported fires. While some of the reports seem to be very close together and be taken as a rumor or claims made but a very serious reports of such an incident.

 

Where one can get an orange light of death that might be memory related, then it can start getting a fire or melted around the debugging lights area.

 

Quotes

Quote

TheMaxXHD on reddit said on his issues;

As the title states, it appears like there may potentially be an issue with the Z690 Hero motherboard. I built myself a brand new computer using the new Hero board. Bought directly from newegg via a combo that included ddr5 due to the scarcity of ddr5 at this moment. Got all the components and built the system. Powers on, I install windows, all is good. About five hours in all of a sudden, only just browsing the internet, it hard shuts off, like the power went out. I try turning it back on but nothing. I smell burning coming from the motherboard.

...

 

Then late at night I am merely surfing the web and all of a sudden it hard shuts off again, and this time when I look over there I see a component on the motherboard literally on fire. I quickly switch the psu off and unplug it from the wall (the mobo also tried to restart during this endeavor before I turned the psu off and yanked the cord from the psu socket to ensure I wasn't going to burn my house down.

 

At this point I am suspicious. One bad lemon, fine. Two, with the exact same failure potentially, that's no coincidence. I felt like it could be the motherboards are bad, or the ram is bad (which I doubt, ram should not cause this type of failure, but its new ram, and I am not an expert when it comes computer and electrical engineering), or my power supply is bad (either the unit or one of the cables)

 

My thoughts

a bit like early adopter, need to know more about the issues and if one should stay away until further notice?

Also if this is more related to certain motherboards, PSU or other? Not sure if it can also be a longer issue with ASUS debugging lights, as various reports on other boards that are NOT fire related.

 

Sources

 

 

 

UPDATE 1 (found issue, could be the a part of the cause for fires)

Buildzoid pointing out a capacitor that is put the wrong way which can lead to high drop between components? and a lot of heat which can cause fires.

 

Might have been caused by a bug or failure in manufacture and quality control which can happen, but shouldn't.

 

WHAT TO DO?

Check your motherboard black capacitor with a stripe on it, to see if it's the direction of the debugging lights which is correct? ( --| )

 

If it's away from the debugging lights and to the end of RAM slots, please turn it back and get it either replaced or fixed. ( |-- )

 

Spoiler

On 12/28/2021 at 2:11 PM, BabaGanuche said:

Buildzoid just did a video and he thinks it is a backwards cap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VkO4wiEAY4

 

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by Quackers101
removed useless link and polish, added update 1

[IkeaGnome]

8 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

Where one can get an orange light of death that might be memory related

I've only seen the Jayz2C video on it so far. Reddit and all that is blocked on my work computer. To me it sounded like it's getting hot enough pre fire that the red LEDs in the Debug screen can look orange. 

SUPPOSEDLY, that part of the board isn't related to DDR5 power delivery. But it also looks like it might be, and could be down to bad XMP profiles. 

https://wccftech.com/asus-rog-maximus-z690-hero-motherboards-might-have-a-serious-defect-several-reports-of-boards-burning-up/

Quote

Some users report that these two ICs '4C10B MOSFET' don't have anything to do with the DDR5 DIMM slots while others on Overclock.net have reported that some DDR5 manufacturers are flashing bad SPD information in XMP profiles for specific kits so unwantedly high voltages could be causing this damage, leading to the main ICs responsible for handling DDR5 DIMMs burning up and showing the 53 QCODE on the board.

 

[Lurick]

17 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Replace this for an NZXT H510 and you got it

And we got a monitor now too!

 

 

[Quackers101]

2 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

I've only seen the Jayz2C video on it so far. Reddit and all that is blocked on my work computer. To me it sounded like it's getting hot enough pre fire that the red LEDs in the Debug screen can look orange. 

SUPPOSEDLY, that part of the board isn't related to DDR5 power delivery. But it also looks like it might be, and could be down to bad XMP profiles.

yeah, kinda sounds a bit... SUS.

hopefully someone are able to verify and know a bit more on what might be going on.

[IkeaGnome]

Just now, Quackers101 said:

yeah, kinda sounds a bit... SUS.

hopefully someone are able to verify and know a bit more on what might be going on.

Give it until tomorrow and Tech Jesus will have the problem dissected, solved, 3 PR notices from Asus and their engineers as well as a video about it. 

I was waiting for their video, but as @Lurickpointed out in the thread I reported to have merged with this one(I didn't want the responsibility of making an actual tech news thread), they put a video out about a monitor catching fire today.

[IkeaGnome]

5 minutes ago, Lurick said:

And we got a monitor now too!

 

 

Hear me out on this. We've been talking about using computers as space heaters. I'm starting to think manufacturers were actually listening all along. 

[Quackers101]

1 hour ago, IkeaGnome said:

Give it until tomorrow and Tech Jesus will have the problem dissected, solved, 3 PR notices from Asus and their engineers as well as a video about it. 

I was waiting for their video, but as @Lurickpointed out in the thread I reported to have merged with this one(I didn't want the responsibility of making an actual tech news thread), they put a video out about a monitor catching fire today.

seems like... he is busy with another thing and just posted

oof (thread was merged and just minutes apart, so some posts will not make much sense)

Spoiler

Acer Monitor Fires Investigated: Blown Capacitors on Acer XV340CK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rMy8GcFwcs

Edited December 28, 2021 by Quackers101

[CT854]

22 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

seems like... he is busy with another thing and just posted

oof

  Reveal hidden contents

Acer Monitor Fires Investigated: Blown Capacitors on Acer XV340CK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rMy8GcFwcs

So we've got combustible cases, riser cables, power supplies... now monitors.

 

Give it a few more weeks and some brand's DDR5 kit is going to be found to spontaneously combust.

[Hexxagone]

I wonder if this has to do with the Asus Enhanced Memory Profile which is their alternative to XMP on PMIC-restricted memory modules that wasnt supposed to overclock but they force it to through their bios setting. Perhaps these people are using AEMP and ram that didn't like what the bios was doing and sent to much power

 

From the Asus Hero product page:

 

• A dedicated circuit on the motherboard safely circumvents DDR5 memory PMIC restrictions, allowing you to step past the default 1.1-volt limit and push frequency and timings to the max.
• Ordinarily, a restricted PMIC that has been unlocked requires the system to be fully power-cycled each time memory voltage is adjusted. ROG motherboards leverage onboard hardware and firmware to cleverly work around this irksome limitation, enabling voltage adjustments to be applied through the same soft system-reset process employed for previous generations of DDR memory.

[WolframaticAlpha]

5 hours ago, Lurick said:

And we got a monitor now too!

 

 

Catch fire pc build when??

[Fasterthannothing]

5 hours ago, IkeaGnome said:

Hear me out on this. We've been talking about using computers as space heaters. I'm starting to think manufacturers were actually listening all along. 

Maybe Linus can build a combustible PC build for when you spent too much money on your PC and need to heat your house.

[Fasterthannothing]

1 hour ago, Hexxagone said:

I wonder if this has to do with the Asus Enhanced Memory Profile which is their alternative to XMP on PMIC-restricted memory modules that wasnt supposed to overclock but they force it to through their bios setting. Perhaps these people are using AEMP and ram that didn't like what the bios was doing and sent to much power

 

From the Asus Hero product page:

 

• A dedicated circuit on the motherboard safely circumvents DDR5 memory PMIC restrictions, allowing you to step past the default 1.1-volt limit and push frequency and timings to the max.
• Ordinarily, a restricted PMIC that has been unlocked requires the system to be fully power-cycled each time memory voltage is adjusted. ROG motherboards leverage onboard hardware and firmware to cleverly work around this irksome limitation, enabling voltage adjustments to be applied through the same soft system-reset process employed for previous generations of DDR memory.

Now that's just straight up stupid and dangerous engineering. Yes let's just mess with voltage protection nothing could possibly go wrong.

[Arika]

I've taken the liberty of updating Asus's Q-codes in their manual for the Maximus hero

 

 

[Zodiark1593]

You don’t sell the steak computer, folks, you sell the sizzle!

[LAwLz]

How many individual people have reported this issue? 

If it's just one then I'd take it with a massive shovel of salt. It could just be someone very unlucky that got two defective boards, it could be someone who fucked up when building their computer causing a short in a very unfortunate place, or it might be someone just making it up for Internet points.

Remember when someone put their Samsung phone in a microwave and then pretended like it had suddenly caught on fire while charging? Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

[divito]

15 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

How many individual people have reported this issue? 

If it's just one then I'd take it with a massive shovel of salt. It could just be someone very unlucky that got two defective boards, it could be someone who fucked up when building their computer causing a short in a very unfortunate place, or it might be someone just making it up for Internet points.

Remember when someone put their Samsung phone in a microwave and then pretended like it had suddenly caught on fire while charging? Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

From the articles and some reports, there appear to be at least four different people, but I know the one WCCF tech article only lists three. Either way, it's somewhat a cause for some type investigation at the very least. 

But like you say, we definitely need to take it with salt. There are so many variables that it's hard to simply attribute it to something specific or problematic at this point. It'll be interesting to see what else comes of this though.

[mr moose]

11 hours ago, LAwLz said:

How many individual people have reported this issue? 

If it's just one then I'd take it with a massive shovel of salt. It could just be someone very unlucky that got two defective boards, it could be someone who fucked up when building their computer causing a short in a very unfortunate place, or it might be someone just making it up for Internet points.

Remember when someone put their Samsung phone in a microwave and then pretended like it had suddenly caught on fire while charging? Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

Or if they got 2 from the same production run (went back and got another from the same shop/shipment) then it could simply be a defective component reel.

[BabaGanuche]

Buildzoid just did a video and he thinks it is a backwards cap.

 

[skullbringer]

37 minutes ago, BabaGanuche said:

Buildzoid just did a video and he thinks it is a backwards cap.

 

tl;dw if the white polarity stripe on the cap near the postcode is on the left, don't run the system or leave it running unattended! 

[Quackers101]

1 hour ago, BabaGanuche said:

Buildzoid just did a video and he thinks it is a backwards cap.

ty, added it to the post. seems like it can be a real issue with unknown numbers of consumers that are affected by this (currently).

Only good thing... its expensive and maybe not sold in big masses and might be easy to solve, if this is the only issue?

[n0stalghia]

Back to you, Steve. This year is on fire. That's what, the fourth product? Gigabyte PSU, NZXT PSU, Acer monitor, now ASUS motherboard.

[Shizzmoney]

4 hours ago, n0stalghia said:

Back to you, Steve. This year is on fire. That's what, the fourth product? Gigabyte PSU, NZXT PSU, Acer monitor, now ASUS motherboard.

And Fractal Torrent Case (bad fan hub pcb)

 

[mr moose]

6 hours ago, James Evens said:

 

Yes and no. Those machines are capable of checking the positing and orientation of a part on the nozzle. Even when your supplier screws up the reel orientation your pick and place machine can compensate for this (if you configure this check).

 

 

I didn't mean the reel itself or that component orientation was the problem, I meant it might simply be a single reel of dodgy resistors (or diodes or even capacitors), that would cause an undetectable problem in a small run of product.

 

EDIT: I also have trouble accepting it is a backwards capacitor,  a dodgy capacitor yes, but a backwards cap would surely be a lot more problematic than a few seemingly random burnout times.

[ialikw]

Ok this is scary. I have that exact motherboard. Guess I should be keeping an eye.

[Quackers101]

7 hours ago, ialikw said:

Ok this is scary. I have that exact motherboard. Guess I should be keeping an eye.

if you had no issues yet and is using it. you might be fine, as these issues happen maybe more commonly in early use like 5-20m or a gaming session, and only have to see on the cap that is talked about above, if in the right direction you should be fine. until more news is out, and I guess dont leave it on through the night might help some of your concerns currently. until we know the full picture and that there is nothing more wrong with the boards.