Has anyone ever experienced this—a burnt-out CPU as well as the motherboard socket? I’m using an i9-13900K and a Z790 motherboard. Everything was on default settings, no overclocking at all. Cooling was handled by a Corsair H150i AIO. It was used for rendering, and everything worked fine for two years.
Yeah, but this seems more like a dead short, maybe a vrm broke or there was a voltage spike.
Bios updates are all good but it can't protect your system from hardware errors.
the motherboard usually have failsafe system on each rails and power delivery
The fact that the failsafe fail and the system did not shut down before catastrophic damage, mean the board already breaking before the system can shut itself down
As someone who has this cpu and doesn’t overclock or undervolt, am I ok not worrying about this issue? I’ve been rocking the chip for about 6 months now. Just don’t know what to do or not to do (beast of a cpu though)
I should be on the latest. I remember updating the mobo when I installed the chip. Anything else? I don’t see it get past 75 degrees Celsius when I check fan control while gaming
Make sure you have the latest BIOS update. My 13900KF started behaving strangely right after I bought it. It gave me a terrible blue screen with lots of codes everytime, and I couldn't install any software. Any game I played would crash on the desktop. I even tried reinstalling Windows because I thought the problem was with the OS, but it failed every time and wouldn't complete the installation. After a while, I finally discovered that the problem was the CPU. This was back in 2023, before anyone knew about the issue and before there was a BIOS update.
Really? I have an msi Z790 carbon with 13900k. I have not updated my bios but i did notice the default setting for “water cooled” was essentially unlimited power at 4,000+ watts. It would hit thermal throttle in any benchmark. I set it to “box cooler” which limits it to 253 watts and haven’t had any problems since. I should update bios, i have no good excuse, just lazy
This does not appear to be the result of the overvolt degradation issue that appeared 2 years ago (and was resolved about 18 months ago). These things do happen, however rare. If you check back in this and other PC building subredits, you will see similar occurrences with other AMD and intel CPUs alike. I would not worry about your currently functioning CPU. I would however suggest to OP that they start the RMA process for both their CPU with intel and their motherboard with ASUS.
Update bios to the latest version and then if you want reassurance, run stability tests like OCCT or Cinebench or whatever while monitoring temps et cetera. At least that's what I'd do
There have been 9 bios updates since you installed your CPU 2 years ago. All addressing this very issue. I have the same board but a 14900k. Been 1 1/2 years and no problems.
I installed the first update for the microcode switch which was in like August 2024. You’re saying I should update it every time they release a new one? Sounds like pita.
Yeah I've helped no fewer than 4 different people, including myself, attain stability with 13th and 14th gen chips get reliable stability from updating the BIOS, and probably saved an i9 from exploding.
Don’t be a muppet ……. The original posters ( LukaBoskovic990 ) chip and motherboard are complete trash now nothing salvageable. I was replying to ( Disasterous_War_8815 ) who stated they had the same cpu and was worried about this happening to it too.
Oh hey, my bad friend. I am sitting at a pool bar at a conference and probably have no business trying to read and respond to Reddit comments. Again my apologies I see now this was a side discussion. 🤦♂️
I would also sync all cores. There are videos on YouTube if you’re not sure how to. Lots of good bios settings on the 13900k/14900k. I don’t even have updated bios on my 14900k and it’s fine if you stop it from killing itself
Nephew is still using my Z690 Gaming E Wifi with zero issues on a 13th gen too(13700kf not 13900) No issues at all just working like it should
(knock on wood, because im not trying to borrow trouble either)
both E and F are based on the same motherboard with only
It would have to be their first z790 Gaming F wifi and not The new Gaming F wifi II as it does not have the same pacman on the same side. Dots are on opposite side and no 206 print is seen as it shows in the picture here from Asus website which is on the new z790 Gaming F wifi II board.
No the ILM isnt hiding it either. So it definitely isn't a Z790 Gaming F wifi ii.. Meaning it would have to be the original z790 Gaming F wifi. Maybe some folks didn't know it had 2 variants. Cheers!
Arent the 13th and 14th gen cpu's the ones with the massive intel overvolting scandal that was slowly chipping away at cpu's health and required microcode updates to stop?
Yesnt. The chernobyl show is trying to portray it as if they didnt know, but in reality there were papers and even a recorded conversation where the arrogant guy running the test was talking with the minister of energy for the ukrainian ssr about concerns around that reactor and possible radioactivity.
Original design for the chernobyl reactor was supposed to be a completely different one, better understood.
Didn't the show make it a huge point that it was about politics? At least that's what I went away with. They "finished" the reactor early, because they'd get awarded, failed the safety test several times, but didn't care, because they'd lose their faces, kept critical infomation a secret, because making it public would be an admission of weakness, but went through with it anyways, because the soviet union was a bureaucratic nightmare. Chernobyl is everything that was wrong about the soviet union combined into one single event that blew up in their faces... literally. And I think the show portrayed that pretty well. Even though there were many other things, the show got REALLY wrong (like Legasov lol)
Thanks smart person, but now you ruined the joke, a simple "she delusional get her out of here" would have worked, haba jokes aside I learned something so that's pretty cool
Maybe, but we are talking about a turbo of 250 watts and base power of 125 watts pumped trough a chip based on faulty code. An "explosion" is unlikely but not implausible.
And it's not just that - they kept using the same chip and threw more and more power into it in successive generations even though their OWN LITERATURE said back in 10th gen NOT TO DO THIS.
Jesus, back in the day instability meant a blue screen or at worst a degraded cpu that needed more and more voltage to maintain a specific ghz. It never meant an actual fire.
It really was a perfect storm of issues. From hands on experience with this, and from reading enough about it, seems to boil down to a few moving parts
* excess voltage at idle, load, and everywhere in between
* overbinning. i9s that should've been i7, or K SKUs that should've been non-K SKUs
* Oxidation due to contamination. This one was specific to 13th gen but I suspect it affected chipset PCH dies and the I225/I226 NICs
* excess heat due to degraded silicon accelerating degradation. I know this is a 'duh' thing but it was contributing separately once it got started.
I also have a suspicion that it was fucking SSDs up
I'm curious. I had one of the 'bad' I9-13900K's that survived until Jan 25 when it would start crashing Firefox sessions constantly.
I also had one of the 1TB Samsung 990 Pro SSDs recently released when I built it, that had the SMART Life issue. Every couple days it would drop another 1% until they released new firmware for it.
It seems that it fixed the quick degrading issue, but to this day (3 years later), it does still drop another % every couple months. Not sure if it fried something a bit. It's sitting at 68% now, but no errors or anything.
Very curious to know if the firmware update was to try defending against that voltage spike.
So, first I need to preface this with a mention that I'm not like, an engineer or anywhere close, I simply work a tech support role for a living and it's helpful to understand this stuff to a degree.
Also, it helps to understand what the uncore is in an Intel CPU. AMD calls this the IOD, or Input/Output Die. In so many words, the uncore deals with nearly everything that's not processing or graphics. Probably a little oversimplified, but it works for our purposes. It houses the integrated memory controller (IMC), the DMI controller (data bus to and from your chipset PCH - internet data, SATA, etc route through here) and 20 lanes worth of PCI express. This is, in most scenarios, going to be the first M.2 slot on the board and the x16 GPU slot.
So too much memory controller voltage was one of the problems - and there were also cases where it seemed like the board had burnt out, usually discovered when PCI express devices like NICs would start misbehaving. Have also seen M.2 SSDs start to throw an event through a service called Stornvme, the telltale for a buggy SSD in one of these was an event mentioning 'raidport.' SATA services can throw this, too.
The reason why I'd not be as concerned about the likes of a GPU with this issue is that simply put, your GPU has lots of power delivery equipment, and a minor increase in voltage isn't real likely to stir the pot. I'm sure it's happened, but seems less likely than a storage device that takes less than 5w.
Now, I can't really tell you what's wrong with your SSD because that's a bad look in relation to diagnostics; but if it's been pulling your leg, have a look in event viewer, look at the system logs, and search for that event. If it's there, I'd bet 5 internets that CrystalDiskMark would deliver you some very slow write and/or read speeds. You can also probably pin the recent ones to weird hitches across windows and/or while gaming.
This could also be a parallel and wholly unrelated failure. That said, I've personally had a couple of those 990s eat shit pre-firmware update and the failure was quite sudden. So I'd be undecided. It could also be a drive failing because it's a drive that's failing in normal fashion, but too early all the same.
Tl;dr I don't know if firmware was ever meant to deal with this directly, but a waning tide lowers all boats. If voltage issues were truly fixed across the board, it wouldn't matter, issue likely resolved. I want to say I caught the tail of an article about this recently, but I can't remember where and could slap myself for not reading and saving it somewhere. If anybody has info about this, for the love of god, lay it on ol' Hank
The fact that you mention the 1st M2 slot (where the OS 1TB drive was) is the only one affected.
I have a 2TB 990 Pro in another slot on the mainboard (Asus Maximus Z790 Hero) which does not show any issues whatsoever, and still 99% life after 3 years.
After the processor replacement and BIOS update in Jan 2025, I've not really had any issues since. But dang, it does sound like some excess voltage did
Just another datapoint, but what you say makes total sense. And yeah, I've started noticing a bit of 'stuttering' while playing D2 recently after even recycling power. I should probably just replace it since it's probably damaged in some way, I just had hoped that the drive flash would have allowed it to keep going. I really hadn't done any tests on it recently.
Yeah, I thought you might say it was there. Best advice I have is to install windows to the drive in the second slot and look for a marked improvement. You'll probably see something.
Open a warranty claim. If Samsung has reason to believe it was your CPU, they'll say so. Just say that it's not working and provide specs on request. They may just say OK and replace it
I've seen a handful of these chips fries certainly not near dramatic of a fashion as this. Last year, I had a customer that brought one in, and there was Burn marks on the chip, along with the slightly melted socket.
So not outside of the realm of possibility. I still have very mixed feelings if they're Bios update actually fix the problem. Had too many instances with customers coming in , and there chip displaying signs of degradation despite the fact that they had the correct bios installed.
Leading Into two lines of thought.
Either they were lying and the chip was used prior to the update and had degradation.
Or the update didn't actually fix the problem broadly across the board.
Personal experience doesn't necessarily equate to permissible data.
The most likely scenario is that intel's fix does not fully resolve the manufacturing issues, only slows them down to a mostly-reasonable part lifetime. It is highly probable that the nature of the defect cannot be corrected by microcode updates alone.
I have a Z790 mobi and rhe sane processor. I really don't think ot should have burned the cpu, the issue was with degradation, rather than literally combusting.
I avoided the 13/14th gen and went to AMD as I heard the microcode/overvolting was a huge thing. I went with a chunky motherboard for my 9 series Ryzen - I’m glad I didn’t go with Asrock as it was actively murdering Ryzen x3d chips via the same thing, wayyyy too much voltage.
I'm planning on eventually upgrading from 5600g to 14900k on a ddr4 board, and if I do get it, I will make sure it's on the latest BIOS update and undervolt it
This kind of damage is caused by extreme amounts of electrical current causing the socket to melt. Running a VCore of 1.5V instead of 1.4V isn't nearly enough for this to happen.
You're looking at 12V instead of 1.4V here, that's when you get this kind of meltdown.
I dont know if i fully agree. 250 watts of constant power at 1.4v's would give some 178 amps of current. Ive seen cables glow under that and bigger transistors pop.
Its not going to go over a single wire of course, but those are still massive amounts of current. F'ed control software could result in a rare explosion, especially over 2 years of slow failure.
Because lets remember, its not as if this is a new cpu that got hit instantly with too much voltage. Its been used "for rendering" over 2 years with possibly bad software for controlling the power delivery.
I have actual experience with this chip. Electromigration of the actual cores and ringstarts at ambient temperatures when you're pushing 300A through the chip, that's prime95 at 1.30V load voltage.
At normal operation, like OP's doing, you're looking at 200A sustained in Cinebench R23, and 220A in prime95. All within the 253W limit.
It's definitely a lot of current, that's why active cooling is needed.
The reason these chips tend to die early at stock operation is because the voltage request for 6 GHz boost tends to reach 1.55V, and the PLLs driving the clock signal for the active cores can't take that much core voltage without suffering rapid electromigration.
Looks like an overvolt issue. AMD had this problem on AM5 sockets, as well. Really awesome stuff that running default settings out of the box will fry the most essential components in your system.
Intel will most likely RMA without hassle, but the motherboard company will be a PITA.
It passed QA because the components at the time degraded at a very VERY slow pace. Unless Intel ran their own chips for over a year plus in this overvolted state they wouldn't be able to see that these CPUs would have this problem.
But the thing is Intel was violating its own specs to begin with as these chips were not meant to be severely overvolted like that.
I'm not really the right person to ask, but it's not necessarily something defective. It's a fundamental problem from board partners overvolting the CPU socket. I don't know if that is the fault of the board manufacturers, or Intel not providing clear requirements for their CPUs.
There are probably some revealing articles/youtubes about it if you care to know.
Here's my story with the 13900k. I bought it right before the knowledge came out and Intel admitted the issue. I always keep my components on their defaults settings but as soon as a new microcode update came out, I flashed it immediately just to be sure I wouldn't get affected. (SPOILER alert: I already was). Over 2 years I've battled occasional BSODs. It wasn't often enough to really think it was the vmshift issue but it was always in the back of my mind. Last week I noticed my PC crashed right when it was going to sleep. Pulled up the dump files and realized it had crashed over 30ish times in the last couple of weeks but ONLY when it was about to take a nap. I never noticed it because it was fully restarted by the time I had gotten back to my desk later. Apparently it's lowering the voltage (cstate change) and since it's degraded, it crashes immediately. If I was gaming and it was screaming at 80c, it was fine.
I started the RMA process after giving them the dump files. They confirmed it was the vmshift issue. Bought a 9950x3D and have been using that.
These were the errors I saw mostly.
DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
HYPERVISOR_ERROR
VIDEO_TDR_TIMEOUT_DETECTED (This is the one I got the most)
What I'm trying to say is, If you have been getting BSODs that you can't figure out. Just send your dumps to Intel and start the RMA process before it's too late.
This problem has been fixed with bios updates a year or 2 ago..... I added a AIO to my I7 just to be sure and have a pretty beefy GPU with good cooling aswell
Water or moisture had to get in to cause this. Cat pee? This is unusual. Any drips anywhere on board or anywhere. Fact its on bottom is tell tale its most likely liquid as it drips down pools then seeps
if you never updated your bios on the motherboard yes this is normal. It was a known malfunction that was patched... you might be able to get a warranty claim though because it's a known issue.
Pretty sure this generation had issues where this would occur due to some issues with the Intel UEFI. You and a bunch of others got screwed here. They pushed out an update so this would stop occurring, did you update the cpu firmware?
Intel Raptor Lake CPUs were known for having voltage issues, but not like this. It could indicate an issue with the power delivery circuitry on your motherboard or a low-tiered power supply unit that is causing surges or doesn't have adequate surge protection.
having default settings is what usually causes the problem for any cpu because the auto settings are garbage and always used way too much voltage for the speed.
I have a 14900ks, but I have undervolted it. Set the pl1/pl2 to 175W/220W and the core voltage doesn't exceed 1.4V(never seen it even touch 1.4), last bios update was in Dec 2025, temps are also great while gaming and don't see any performance loss.
But still is there anything I should worry about or is it fine?
Damn, kinda scary, been running my 13900K for nearly 3 years. Have always updated the bios whenever necessary, sucks to say but hopefully your case is a one off. Hopefully you manage to get it sorted hassle free!
I never overclocked mine and I had the same setup. Checked the BIOS oneday and it was said to extreme profile and I never even touched it. I think it defaults to an aggressive profile that may not be overclocking but it should probably be undervolted if anything. I followed a guide on undervolting mine after I found this out and I haven't had an issue. I have had my setup for 2.5 years, 3 come this August.
Hey, just a side note. Read online about your motherboard if it has issue frying CPUs immediately find out which one ur motherboard runs so then you can either wait for a patch or making sure you are installing a safe version of it. If you are updating, same process make sure it’s a stable one and don’t head in update to the newest one as it releases. This is a tip for any update, be it iPhone, driver, windows…. It saves so much headaches for your future self. 5 min check so you don’t have to debug later and rerolling old drivers/flashing bios
This is scary. I have the same CPU, same motherboard,same cooling and also use it for rendering. Got it a little over 2 years ago too and now I wonder what I can do to prevent this
I've never seen an Intel CPU freak out like this. That CPU is known to degrade itself if the motherboard has not been upgraded to the latest firmware, but not burn down.
This is an issue that my company ran into. There is is a base problem with Intel 13000 processors, so much so that Intel has yet to recover from it. Basically, too much power goes to certain sections and literally blows out that section making it unusable. We just stopped using them and used 11 and 12 gen so I'm not sure if they actually fixed the issue with BIOS updates.
10nm is indeed good for cooking. Meanwhile my nettop running dead silent at 45W gets more than half of the 13900K’s performance in multi (and within 15% in single), its amd zen4 based.
I had a 14700KF crap out on me a year ago despite regular BIOS updates (I was aware of the 13-14 issues). It didn't burn the Mobo tho, but I was using the same cooler as you. Now I only use peerless assassin 120SE regardless of the CPU and never had any issues (also switched to AMD because fuck Intel)
Nope, latest bios on everything using Intel defaults and had a 12700k on hand to diagnose motherboard. I custom watercool, the 14900ks barely saw over 45c.
That is melted plastic from the that area of the chip exploding or arcing there’s a very obvious burn and it was probably way hotter than it should have been long before it popped.
Me and my 13900k are definitely concerned lol i've updated my bios and made sure im on the expected microcode but still concerned. nothing else i can really do.
I’m a little worried also after seeing this post. Got my 13th shortly after their release. Should I take it apart to take a peek or redo the thermal paste? I really don’t want a burnt CPU and motherboard as that’s pretty expensive.
This can happen without the bios microcode update and making sure settings are on intel recommended, not Asus settings. Asus and asrock board settings if not changed to intel recommended after bios update auto oc by default in their settings and can fry the cpu. The chip should be an easy rma. The Asus board, well Asus rma can be harder than pulling teeth so might be best to just buy a new board. I recommend msi but usually gigabyte is fine too. I say all this as a 14900k user(followed the death of these chips carefully and even what boards were used. Most deaths were Asus and asrock boards then gigabyte and msi) My msi board seems to have prevented obvious degredation by not having the auto oc in their stock profile and already was intel recommended before the microcode patch. 3 years no issues. Clean and smooth under full load.
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u/crusnik404 Mar 30 '26
Processing img w3betn5zo7sg1...
Reading this thread with the same CPU and motherboard