A rather silly oversight from ASUS could be causing peoples" $599.99 ROG Maximus Z690 Hero DDR5 motherboards to burn up according to an analysis by Buildzoid, who runs the YouTube channel "Actually Hardcore Overclocking".
For about a week or so now, there have been reports online (via Wccftech) about the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero catching fire or burning up, and the root cause of the issue seems to stem from an incorrectly installed motherboard capacitor on ASUS" part.
Buildzoid spotted that the burnt-up metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) in the faulty boards all exhibited one thing in common. The capacitor was inverted which was likely causing polarity reversal and capacitor failure as a result of malfunctioning.
The boards with the blown-up capacitor seem to have the capacitor placed in reverse as can be seen in the image below:
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Meanwhile, a correctly oriented capacitor should look like this instead:
If you are one of the luckier ones whose faulty motherboard didn"t catch a tiny fire or something, then you could also be facing another problem. The DDR5 DRAM you installed could fail to be detected on such a board, giving off the error QCODE 53, which is a memory detection failure error.
This is likely happening because the burnt MOSFETs are cutting off the 5V supply that goes to the memory"s voltage regulator module (VRM), causing it to shut down.
Hence, if you are a ROG Maximus Z690 Hero owner, you should probably check the capacitor to see if it"s seated the right way and if not, contact ASUS support for guidance on the matter.
Source: Actually Hardcore Overclocking (YouTube)