Has the RAM Sticker Ruined Your AM5 ASRock Motherboard? Here’s How to Return It

Like all motherboard manufacturers, ASRock has released new AM5 motherboards for AMD’s latest chipset. New motherboards always come with instructions and covers that need to be removed before being assembled with the rest of your PC for the first time, but it looks like ASRock just took it too far. A sticker covering the RAM slots seems to mess up people’s new AM5 ASRock motherboards, leaving them with no choice but to claim under warranty and get a replacement.

But what exactly happens? And if you are affected, how can you get a refund?

What’s wrong with ASRock’s AM5 motherboards?

New ASRock X670E AM5 motherboards had a first boot behavior that might turn off potential users. After full setup with a Ryzen 7000 CPU, new generation graphics card and DDR5 RAM, attempting to boot resulted in a very long initial POST. Depending on how many RAM sticks you have installed and their capacity, the first boot can take 100 seconds if you have 32GB RAM (16GB x 2) and a whopping 400 seconds if you have 128GB RAM (32GB x 4) have.

To make users aware that this is by design behavior and not a sign that their motherboard has been damaged and to show users where to place RAM sticks to accommodate dual channel memory To take full advantage of this, ASRock put a sticker over the RAM slots in the motherboard. It should be an easy-to-remove sticker that users can easily remove without too much trouble – or at least that was ASRock’s goal.

The problem was that in practice this sticker was not easy to remove for many people. The sticker is quite poor quality and it ripped when attempting to remove it improperly. This resulted in bits of paper sticking to the RAM slots, essentially rendering them and the entire motherboard unusable. Some users managed to get their motherboard working after spending some time removing the sticky remnants of the sticker, but for others it essentially meant their motherboard was as good as dead.

The long boot time issue was addressed with a subsequent BIOS update now shipping with newer batches of the motherboard. And frankly, there are better ways to educate people about which RAM slots to use than putting a giant sticker covering all the RAM slots. For this reason, newer batches of X670E ASRock motherboards come without this sticker.

But what if you already have one and the sticker caused damage?

You can return your damaged AM5 ASRock motherboard

Luckily, ASRock is aware of the issue and recommends that users get a replacement under warranty if the sticker didn’t peel off properly during the initial setup. However, ASRock itself does not sell motherboards, so you cannot have this replacement processed directly through the company.

Instead, you must contact your dealer.

Of course, the process varies depending on the retailer. If you bought it from a store, simply bring the motherboard back to that store to have it replaced. And if you bought it through an online retailer like Newegg, log into your account and either try to process the replacement the regular way, or contact support if that’s not possible. If you encounter any problem while trying to get the replacement, you can visit ASRock’s notice on this issue.

RAM sticker, not even

Putting an inferior sticker over the RAM slots called for trouble. Fortunately, ASRock is willing to offer users a solution. New ASRock X670E motherboards purchased from the time of release should not have this problem. If you are concerned with the ASRock RAM sticker issue, have yours replaced as soon as possible.