[SOLVED] How to avoid issues with new PC build that has Ryzen 7 7800X3D?

[Appletax]

Client brought me all the hardware to build a new gaming PC for him. He bought a new Ryzen 7 7800X3D for $200 from a friend.

Last night, I read on Reddit (link):

"I feel like neither Intel nor AMD are really in a good spot to talk about reliability right now. Intel has this debacle currently ongoing, and lest we forget last year's whole 7800X3D chips literally blowing up. Mix that with the ongoing support issues with nearly all the motherboard OEMs and it's just a massive mess in general right now."

"AMD CPUs were exploding because motherboard vendors decided to unlock voltage when EXPO was enabled causing the chips to fry. Asus, for example, was one of the main culprits of this, not AMD."

Do I need to do anything to avoid having his CPU fry? Do I need to change anything in the mobo?

Specs:

Windows 11 Pro

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

Used EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 Super 8GB

Kingston FURY Beast RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000MHz

MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi

2TB Samsung 990 Pro Solid State Drive [NVME]

Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 850 Watts [80 Plus Gold, Fully Modular]

AMD Wraith Prism RGB H8F 92mm Fan

 

[Appletax]

It looks like all I need to do is get the BIOS updated, which was released in June 2024.

A BIOS update released in April 2023 states:

"By following the mitigation from AMD, fix CPU SoC voltage upper limit for Ryzen 7000X3D and non-X3D series CPU,
which might affect the performance of certain EXPO memory modules."

 

[HCHTech]

Makes sense - also I'd imagine if you just stay away from overvolting the thing, you would probably be safe on the old BIOS.

 

[Blues]

Not familiar enough with the issue to know if users ultimately caused the error because their MB allowed them or if the MB issue resulted in overvolting w/o user changes besides enabling EXPO. I would say though at this point I expect MB manufacturers should have a BIOS update to correct the issue and you just need to ensure MB BIOS is up to date before enabling EXPO.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I'm not too sure about the specifics of this issue.

But I will remind everyone that firmware updates must happen quarterly, EFI enabled systems have an OS on the mainboard that is CPU independent! And yes, it too... needs patched.

It should be standard practice to update firmware every time you touch a system for maintenance.