MSI Mortar Arctic, ~10 months, fried VRM.

[Arcygenical]

Well this is disconcerting.

I'm changing cases (Finally doing a Powermac G5 mod...), and I noticed a bit of discolouration on the rear side of my MSI Arctic Mortar mATX board...

Removing the VRM heatsink, I'm greeted with, well, this:

Now, I've already RMA'd this board for bad VRM's. I've only had this board in my possession for the better part of a year since the last RMA. I actually had the memory VRM set on fire before :/.


Keep in mind, this board has posted, and worked fine this entire time... In a case with very good airflow (rear fan pointed directly at the VRM area, triple radiator exhaust directly above VRM area).

Usual workloads are keeping my Ryzen near stock, boosting perhaps 200mhz over the default 1700x clock range, without changing voltages. The system mainly sits silent these days, gaming sessions are <2hrs, Single monitor, streams 2k kbps video from a door camera once or twice a day over the internet, music, media streaming, Oh, and a 3d print station... Which I use about once a day.

Now, the damn thing was posting and still rock solid, but after seeing that, I wonder if yet another RMA is in order. BS MSI... And an aftermarket VRM heatsink FFS.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Unless you want to try replacing the VRMs yourself, probably best to RMA it.

There could be a few reasons why the VRMs got that hot, with the first being improper heatsinking. Since there's no thermal paste residue, I'm guessing that the heatsink for them uses thermal pads which aren't the best for heat transfer.

Another could be faulty capacitors causing heavy loading of the VRMs

But what I think most likely is the cause is the VRMs aren't biased properly. This results in an uneven voltage output between VRMs and the highest one ends up sinking the most current while the others provide far less current to the load.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

do you live in an area that has high humidity by chance? only reason i'm asking is because i can see other areas that have some discoloration like rust up near the mounting hole at the top left.

 

[Arcygenical]

do you live in an area that has high humidity by chance? only reason i'm asking is because i can see other areas that have some discoloration like rust up near the mounting hole at the top left.

In Toronto we get anywhere between 25% and 90% RH for weeks at a time. Indoors it's a fairly constant 75% RH in the summer and 45% in the winter.

Good idea, though.

I opened a ticket with MSI and asked if this was normal, lol.

 

[hititnquitit]

Its time to demand a refund or a completely different board. 1st one caught on fire. 2nd one didnt but would have(and may have taken the house with it) had you not changed cases! Thats either fucked up baaaad luck or really really good luck... :/