RMA CPU AMD 3700x after 16 months of use.
symptoms:
- daily BSOD (blue screen of death), frequency of crashes increased in the last months
- crashes during gaming and heavy loads
- spontaneous reboots
- CPU temps were normal under 100% load from stress benchmark cpu-z (60C) and 29C at idle.
- NO WHEA errors.
Diagnostics:
- Clean install of windows10
- Part swapping: you need to remove the things that are NOT the problem:
- changed the memory to QVL approved for the mainboard
- disabled/enabled XMP profile
- removed the 5700XT, swapped with RX580 and 6900XT
- changed the PSU from 750W to spare 850W
- downgraded the mainboard BIOS to the version when I bought it.
- swapped the 3700X with a 3600: problem gone....
- swapped the 3700X with a 5800x: problem gone... (the 5800x is really hot and I returned it)
- moved the 3700X to my other PC and the problem moved with it!
- installed OCCT v8 beta
- the memory test indicated no problems even after 24 hours
- used their CPU test with heavy load on the cpu cache and it flagged 2 cores as bad after 5 min.
- select CPU test, Small data set, mode extreme, load type variable, auto on the rest
- after a few hours the pc would BSOD or reboot during the stress test due to many errors.
workarounds:
- fixing cpu multiplier (36x) at normal speed in the BIOS or in Ryzen Master : super stable
- fixing cpu multiplier (39x) in the BIOS or in Ryzen Master : super stable
- fixing cpu multiplier (40x) in the BIOS or in Ryzen Master : errors after a few hours
- XMP on/off made no difference
Solution:
- RMA the CPU at AMD: https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/warranty-information/rma-form
Kudos to AMD for a very fast RMA process!
- Mailed for a RMA on Thursday and mentioned all the diagnostics that I already did.
- received a prepaid DHL return label on Friday
- sent CPU back also on Friday by DHL Pickup service.
- CPU received on Monday at noon in the AMD RMA center in the Netherlands, Europe
- Confirmation Wednesday noon that the CPU passed inspection and RMA accepted
- Email on Wednesday 5pm that replacement CPU was shipped to me!
- Friday morning: brand new CPU 3700X
