Asus Reverses Course, Says Warranty Will Cover AM5 EXPO Settings, Beta BIOS Usage
Credit: Asus
Asus has been spending some time in the woodshed lately, thanks to the recent spate of melted CPUs and the company’s unforgiving warranty policies related to the issue. In just the past week, popular YouTube channels, including Gamers Nexus, Jayztwocents, and Linus Tech Tips, have all piled on the company for its recent antics relating to melting AM5 CPUs. Jayztwocents went as far as to commit to never taking money from Asus ever again due to its behavior.
In response to the wave of bad PR, the company has capitulated: It will cover any memory overclocking on its motherboards and the usage of Beta BIOSes it offered to customers.
It all started several weeks ago when a Redditor posted photos of a fried Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU and a burned Asus CPU socket, the apparent result of the person simply enabling AMD EXPO memory overclocking. At the time, Asus said overclocking voids the warranty, even though it’s a feature offered by its motherboards. AMD responded by issuing new guidelines to motherboard manufacturers that would allow them to make a new BIOS that limited SoC voltage. Since then, the entire Internet began to pile on as Asus “fixed” the issue by offering its customers a beta BIOS to limit CPU voltage. However, Gamers Nexus declared that at least one would void a user’s warranty. This did not sit well with anyone for obvious reasons.
In response to the melting CPU debacle, the company released several Beta BIOS versions, which added fuel to the fire.
Credit: Asus
Now the company has pulled its collective head out of its you-know-what and said it will cover memory overclocking and beta BIOS usage. It issued a statement to the media, including Tom’s Hardware, and posted it on its support site. It reads as follows:
We want to address the concerns that have been raised by our users about whether recent BIOS updates will impact the warranty of ASUS AM5 motherboards. We would like to reassure our customers that both beta and fully validated BIOS updates for ASUS AM5 motherboards are covered by the original manufacturer’s warranty. We would also like to confirm the following points:
The ASUS AM5 motherboard warranty also covers all AMD EXPO, Intel XMP, and DOCP memory configurations.
All recent BIOS updates follow the latest AMD voltage guidelines for AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors.
The company’s statement concludes by reiterating its “commitment to supporting the AMD AM5 platform and our customers,” and by listing phone numbers you can call if you have an issue.
Asus’s updated policy is essentially a reaction to a devastating video by Gamers Nexus titled “Scumbag Asus: Overvolting CPUs & Screwing the Customer.” The host accused the company of publishing buggy, unsafe Beta BIOSes that would still be dangerous to customer CPUs while voiding the warranty and also removing older BIOSes from its support site without informing customers. Jayztwocents uploaded his video saying that in light of this incident and past transgressions, he would not accept any sponsorship deals with Asus in the future.
Regardless, this is all good news for gamers, and we’re happy to see Asus do the right thing. Speaking as someone who once did PR for Asus, I can tell you firsthand the company has many layers of bureaucracy that go all the way up to Taipei management. It can be a maddening experience trying to get the right decision to filter down through the chain to the end-users, if it even happens at all, which is not guaranteed, based on my experience. This time, it looks like someone in the chain of command broke the gridlock and did what’s right.
