reveal the cause
With both the Ryzen 7000X3D and the standard model, the Ryzen 7000 chip’s self-destruct story has been validated and AMD has responded. The good news is that anyone who encounters this has been officially urged to contact AMD Support. This suggests that replacements are available if the chip dies from overvoltage. If the chip is deformed enough to damage the pins in his ZIF socket, you may still need to contact your motherboard vendor, but they might be supported as well.
The exact cause, as originally theorized, appears to be that excessive SoC voltages cause electrical and thermal damage to the chips, releasing a magical smoke that turns them back into sand. There are various ways to do this, not all of which involve manual overclocking. In some cases, it’s the automatic overclocking applied by AMD’s EXPO that can deliver unsafe voltages, so AMD is quick to try and get things right.
There is a new BIOS update available from motherboard vendors that will prevent this from happening. Also, AMD says that if anyone is running a Ryzen 7000 system, he should disable EXPO and any overclocks he has applied and monitor his SoC voltages via software or his BIOS. Expect a fix from AMD to make the voltage limit unavoidable, but be aware that this means you may not get the same level of overclocking as you do now if you install the fix. please.
The 3D gurus posted an official statement from AMD here.
