WTF?! It began with a Reddit publish, as these items typically do. Redditors shared some gory pictures of an Asrock X670E Metal Legend with bits of a sticker caught to the insides of the reminiscence slots, and commenters rapidly got here to the horrifying realization that Asrock was adorning their motherboards with a sticker that cripples them.
The sticker (pictured under) is a warning beneath the guise of an set up information. It has some tables saying the place to put in the reminiscence, a observe warning that the primary boot after a CMOS reset may take some time, and one other desk with the boot occasions related to totally different reminiscence capacities — as much as 400 seconds or six and a half minutes for 4 32 GB sticks.
In a thread concerning the subject, a eager Redditor advised that the sticker was there to cease customers from taking the motherboard again to the shop for a alternative, considering it was defective due to the lengthy boot occasions. As an alternative, customers are changing the board as a result of they can not peel the sticker off with out it leaving residue within the DIMM slots.
Final week, the primary pictures of the sticker disintegrating into the boards (masthead) drew outrage on r/AMD and different {hardware} subreddits, because the sticker adheres instantly onto the DIMM slots. If it tears, it will probably go away a residue that partially blocks the interface between the reminiscence sticks and the motherboard. It additionally seems atrocious.
The excellent news is that the issue is small in scope. Asrock introduced final month that it had solved the lengthy boot time downside with the assistance of AMD and was deploying an up to date BIOS to the meeting line. Boards with the up to date BIOS do not want the warning and do not have the sticker, so it is simply these first few that shipped out that do.
In case you do have the sticker and do not need to or cannot ship your board in for alternative, there are methods to take away the sticker residue your self. If the sticker remains to be on the board, warmth it with a hair dryer first, then attempt to peel it with one thing plastic, like an previous present card. If the sticker has disintegrated, the hair dryer and a few endurance are most likely nonetheless your greatest wager. You might additionally attempt cotton suggestions dabbed into non-conductive cleansing brokers at your peril.
Nonetheless, provided that Asrock is ok with changing the motherboard for you, you would possibly as nicely take them up on the supply. You may return the board to the place you introduced it and say there’s an issue with the reminiscence slots.
