ASRock quietly rolls out new firmware after disastrous previous update killed Radeon RX 7900-series GPUs

ASRock has rolled out a new firmware update for its Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards. The latest VBIOS version 1.0.6 appears to be a follow-up to the previous 1.0.5 release. According to community reports, that older version was bricking some of the company's Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX graphics cards. The new update has now quietly made its way to the ASRock official website, although the company has not published a changelog or provided any details on what the new update addresses.

Last month, AMD released a VBIOS patch for Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards to address potential security vulnerabilities. While the company did not disclose any technical details about the vulnerabilities, it assured gamers that there had been no reports of them being exploited. According to a statement shared with ComputerBase, the company provided the following rationale for the update:

"AMD is releasing a firmware update as part of our usual approach to address potential security vulnerabilities. These corrections are already made available before the public announcement to give customers time to update their firmware. As a best practice, we recommend that users update the firmware of their graphics cards as soon as they are provided by the respective GPU manufacturer. There are no reports of exploiting these security vulnerabilities in practice."

ASRock subsequently listed the 1.0.5 VBIOS update for 10 graphics card models, spanning its Radeon RX 7600 XT, RX 7700 XT, RX 7800 XT, RX 7900 XT, and RX 7900 XTX families. However, several Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX owners reported that their systems failed to boot after installing the firmware. Some lucky users were able to use external EEPROM programmers to recover their cards. Although ASRock has since removed the 1.0.5 update from its website, it has yet to provide clarity on what caused the failures or confirm whether the newly released VBIOS addresses the issue.

There are also unanswered questions around how ASRock plans to help customers who have already been affected. According to reports shared with VideoCardz, a user in Japan received a confirmation from ASRock that the failed update would be covered under warranty. However, another owner in Europe was reportedly directed to seek warranty service despite having an out-of-warranty graphics card. This essentially leaves affected owners uncertain of whether they will receive free repairs or replacements.

Additionally, the lack of a changelog or an official statement, along with the new firmware version, makes it difficult for users to determine whether installing the replacement firmware is safe. We can only hope that ASRock provides some clarity around what version 1.06

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