Some Core I7 5960X + X99 Motherboards Mysteriously Burning Up

An anonymous reader writes "Intel's Haswell-E Eight-Core CPU and X99 motherboards just debuted but it looks like there may be some early adoption troubles leading to the new, ultra-expensive X99 motherboards and processors burning up. Phoronix first ran a story about their X99 motherboard having a small flame and smoke when powering up for the first time and then Legit Reviews also ran an article about their motherboard going up in smoke for reasons unknown. The RAM, X99 motherboards, and power supplies were different in these two cases. Manufacturers are now investigating and in at least the case of LR their Core i7-5960X also fried in the process."

Comments

HCF

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously don't execute the halt and catch fire instruction.

Re:HCF

[infolation]

As the late Murray Walker said...

"...there's nothing wrong with the motherboard, except that it's on fire"

Re: HCF

[Selivanow]

Maybe they need to include NOSMOKE.SYS in their CONFIG.SYS file.

Re:HCF

[FatdogHaiku]

Seriously don't execute the halt and catch fire instruction.

I think it can be simply counteracted with a quick Ctrl+Alt+ohfuck...
But it does make one long for the days of the three fingered salute.

Re:HCF

[gweihir]

Is that another of the NSA instructions added with RDRAND? Seriously, would not really surprise me, the NSA is after sabotaging anything these days.

I gather however that this is plain incompetence (Dunning-Kruger-Type) with regards to the voltage regulators. Switching voltage regulation is really hard to do right unless you over-engineer seriously. You can get all sorts of bizarre effects, including a puff of smoke.

Re:HCF

[CaptQuark]

I gather however that this is plain incompetence (Dunning-Kruger-Type) with regards to the voltage regulators. Switching voltage regulation is really hard to do right unless you over-engineer seriously. You can get all sorts of bizarre effects, including a puff of smoke.

I appreciate the irony of you mentioning the Dunning-Kruger syndrome with your statement. Switching voltage regulation has been around for over 30 years and isn't much of a mystery. Since the early motherboards started reducing voltages from 5v down to 3.3v (and below), every motherboard has had on-board voltage regulation. It's hard to believe that something as fundamental as a switching regulator would suddenly exceed the engineering skill of the motherboard designers.

~~

Same thing happened to me with AM2

[oic0]

I bought one of the first AM boards and they said it was rated for high watts. I made the power regulator shoot flames 10 minutes after I had it together. They lowered the rated power handling and refunded me but lame Newegg made me pay return shipping...

Looks like...

[Kyrubas]

...a failure to contain the magic smoke.

Easy to repair

[ArcadeMan]

All you need is this little kit.

Re: Early adopters

[DigiShaman]

It's called water cooling. Just loosen this clamp over here and...

NSA

[qrwe]

The remotely destructible chip is finally here. I feel sorry for the guinea pigs, though...

Not just one mobo

[gman003]

Since nobody reads TFA, Phoronix killed an MSI X99S, and LR lost an Asus X99 Deluxe. It was also different RAM (Corsair vs G.Skill). However, both reported the burn was near the VRMs (Phoronix also reported a second event near the northbridge). The two mobos might be using identical parts for that, but I was unable to find out for sure.

Re:Not just one mobo

[Forever Wondering]

Does Intel have a reference design board for this? Also, how close are the VRMs to the chips they're regulating?

I once worked at a company that had a reference board with 3 FPGAs with 3 VRMs near the FPGAs. When designing their own board, the company reduced this to one VRM for all 3 FPGAs and put the VRM on the opposite side of the board. It took nine months to realize that this caused the FPGAs to reset during heavy logic switching because the single VRM + the greater length of the traces meant that the VRM couldn't keep up with the demand.

Re:Not just one mobo

[Charliemopps]

Since nobody reads TFA, Phoronix killed an MSI X99S, and LR lost an Asus X99 Deluxe. It was also different RAM (Corsair vs G.Skill).

However, both reported the burn was near the VRMs (Phoronix also reported a second event near the northbridge). The two mobos might be using identical parts for that, but I was unable to find out for sure.

I've had 7 Asus motherboards burn up in the past 4yrs. 2 actually caught fire. So that's no suprise to me, Asus is on my banned list.

MSI, however, has been nothing but good to me. They don't generally have the fastest or most feature rich boards available, but reliabilities been their strong suit over the years.

Re:Not just one mobo

[ShanghaiBill]

It took nine months to realize that this caused the FPGAs to reset during heavy logic switching because the single VRM + the greater length of the traces meant that the VRM couldn't keep up with the demand.

FPGAs use synchronous logic, so they pull power in spikes as the logic switches. If it took 9 months to realize there was a problem, you can probably make some small modifications to get it working reliably. Make sure the leads from the VRM are as fat as possible, preferably have it feed into full ground and power layers, and make sure no other traces are splitting those planes. Clock all three FPGAs from the same xtal, and use a delay gate or tune the length of the traces so the signal is skewed enough that the power spikes from each FPGA are not hitting simultaneously. Add plenty of decoupling caps on every power and ground pin. Make sure the caps have leads that are fat and short. It is better to have a physically small cap (0201 or 01005) in close than a bigger one further out. Good luck.

Re:Not just one mobo

[Charliemopps]

I kind of do my own non-profit buisness of building computers for everyone I know or am related to. So I've got a small business account with newegg and do about $25k in computers a year. Asus was my board of choice for years, but about 3yrs ago they just went to shit. I've no idea why but suddenly I had massive failures, massive compatibility issues, etc... When a computer I build actually catches fire, that worries me. Asus was decent about the RMAs... which actually worried me more. A MB manufacturer will rarely take a return with scorch marks on it unless they know there's an issue. When the RMA boards I got back from them started blowing caps as well, I knew something was terribly wrong.

Also on my banned list:
Gigabyte - I had several Gigabyte MB and Gigabyte Video cards. They would not work with each other and Gigabyte claimed it was a capability issue and not their problem, despite having put their names on both the card and the board! This was purely a customer service issue, they should have shipped me a different card to make things right.

Zotac - For 2yrs I shipped the same video card back to them over and over again. They just kept replacing it with defective cards. Some came to me dirty, or with blown components. You can't just dig around in the RMA'd parts bin and ship some other broken piece of crap back to me. I'm currently awaiting about the 4th RMA on that card and my warranty will run out. At least they're paying for the shipping.

Anyways, I'm done building computers for people. Components are just too unreliable now. I don't need to be spending half my life in the UPS shipping office.

Re:Not just one mobo

[PopeRatzo]

"FPGAs use synchronous logic, so they pull power in spikes as the logic switches. If it took 9 months to realize there was a problem, you can probably make some small modifications to get it working reliably. Make sure the leads from the VRM are as fat as possible, preferably have it feed into full ground and power layers, and make sure no other traces are splitting those planes. Clock all three FPGAs from the same xtal, and use a delay gate or tune the length of the traces so the signal is skewed enough that the power spikes from each FPGA are not hitting simultaneously. Add plenty of decoupling caps on every power and ground pin. Make sure the caps have leads that are fat and short. It is better to have a physically small cap (0201 or 01005) in close than a bigger one further out. Good luck."

It's like Penthouse Forum for nerds.

Re:Not just one mobo

[Man On Pink Corner]

The real problem would have been inadequate bypassing at the FPGA. From the point of view of high-speed logic, power comes from capacitors, not voltage regulators.

Re:Not just one mobo

[PopeRatzo]

Also on my banned list:

OK, no Asus or Gigabyte. I'm gonna build a new game rig. Which companies should I use? I've had good luck with Asus motherboards, but I only make a new computer every 3-4 years or so.

Personally, I'm surprised every system I assemble doesn't burst into flames, but that's only because I'm not really expert at these things. I hold my breath whenever I have to plug a CPU into a motherboard or slop that silver goop on top of one when I'm attaching a cooler. Once many years ago, I attached a motherboard without putting in those little round standoffs onto the case and it just sort of went "zzzt!" and then smelled like a vacuum cleaner when the belt burns. I took it back to MicroCenter and wept and moaned and they actually gave me a new one. Since then, I make sure to keep a fire extinguisher and a pint of vodka on hand when I build a system. The vodka is to keep my hands from shaking.

I know I should just go with one of the outfits on the internet that assembles gaming PCs, but I'll probably end up doing the next one myself.

Re: Not just one mobo

[DigiShaman]

Never -ever- cheap out on the PSU. You'll have to read the reviews, but make damn sure you get one with quality Japanese components.

If motherboards are using shit components these days, at least rely on clean and stable power to it.

Re:Not just one mobo

[fizzer06]

You can't just dig around in the RMA'd parts bin and ship some other broken piece of crap back to me.

Well, they obviously can so. Companies like that need to go bankrupt.

Re:Not just one mobo

[the_skywise]

It's like Penthouse Forum for nerds.

Not quite - It didn't start with "I never believed that this would happen to me..."

Re:Not just one mobo

[Larry_Dillon]

> They just kept replacing it with defective cards.
I've seen a few companies do this over the years. They just keep sending defective parts until you give up in frustration or they go out of business.

Re:

[kurkosdr]

Just a failure of the magic smoke sealant.

Houston ...

[Forever Wondering]

... We've had a main B bus undervolt

Re:Houston ...

[distilate]

It looks like we are venting somthing

Re:Houston ...

[Ed_1024]

I was interested by the actions of the user of the motherboard on one of the linked articles. Initially this happened:

"The system came up, hung for a very short time and then powered off with a audible click of the Corsair AX860i power supply. If you have ever heard the loud click of the Over Current Protection (OCP) shutting down the PSU you know exactly what click I heard. Now when I press power button on the motherboard the system clicks after being on for a split second. I unplugged all the cables on the power supply and did the built-in self-check and it passed with flying colors. I still swapped out the PSU with a backup Corsair AX860i and the same click was to be heard. and it is doing the same thing (Corsair AX860i). After clearing the CMOS, removing the memory, SSD and video card the system still would not post. At that point in time I switched to a non-digital power supply (Corsair AX1200) and it did the same thing although this time the OCP took a little longer to kick in. There was some audible crackling noises, followed by some smoke near the CPU VRM heatsink. So, the heart shattering smell of burnt electronics filled the room..."

10/10 for investigative journalism but putting more and more juice into something that is continually tripping out the power supply is not going to have a happy ending. Maybe some of the $1,400-worth of motherboard and processor may have been salvageable if he had stopped at the first warning?

If the circuit breaker pops twice on a ring main at home, do you a) replace the circuit breaker with a bigger one, b) hold it in until smoke appears from behind the wall or c) do some serious investigation and/or call an electrician before putting the power back on?

Voltage regulator?

[dbc]

From the photos and the write-ups, it looks like a voltage regulator is failing. So, maybe a spec in the data sheet is wrong (for reasons from typo to ooops, we didn't compute that rating correctly...) or maybe a parts vendor for that regulator had a bad-batch day. It happens. Years ago I was involved in one of the latter... "Which date codes do you want us to pull from the parts crib again? I think we have about $2 million of the bad ones...." -- at least that time I was on the customer side, which has much less impact on your sleep schedule.

Perhaps

[Lussarn]

It was a bad motivator?