ASRock Ships New Radeon RX 7900 Firmware After Bricked-GPU Uproar

ASRock has released VBIOS version 1.0.6 for its Radeon RX 7000-series graphics cards, a follow-up to the 1.0.5 update that community reports say killed some RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX boards. The new firmware is now live on ASRock's official website. The company has published no changelog and no explanation of what the update fixes.

The earlier release is gone from the site. ASRock pulled 1.0.5 after owners of the two flagship Radeon boards reported their systems failed to boot following installation. Some users recovered their cards with external EEPROM programmers. Most had no such option. ASRock has not said what caused the failures, and it has not confirmed whether 1.0.6 addresses the fault.

Why did AMD issue the update in the first place?

The trouble began with security, not performance. Last month AMD released a VBIOS patch for Radeon RX 7000-series cards to close potential security vulnerabilities. The company did not disclose technical details of the flaws. It said there were no reports of exploitation in the wild.

AMD shared a statement with ComputerBase that read: "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 then listed the 1.0.5 VBIOS update for 10 graphics card models across five product families:

• Radeon RX 7600 XT
• Radeon RX 7700 XT
• Radeon RX 7800 XT
• Radeon RX 7900 XT
• Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Only the two RX 7900 models drew brick reports, according to community accounts. The scope of the damage remains unquantified.

What happens to owners of dead cards?

Warranty treatment is inconsistent, and that is the sharpest commercial question in this story. A user in Japan received confirmation from ASRock that the failed update would be covered under warranty, according to reports shared with VideoCardz. A second owner in Europe, with an out-of-warranty card, was directed to seek warranty service anyway.

The two cases point in opposite directions. Affected owners cannot tell in advance whether they will receive free repairs or replacements. ASRock has issued no policy statement on the matter.

Is the new firmware safe to install?

Nobody outside ASRock can say. The absence of a changelog means users cannot verify that 1.0.6 fixes the 1.0.5 fault rather than merely continuing AMD's security patching. The version numbering suggests a sequential fix, but ASRock has not confirmed this. Users with working RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX cards now face a choice between an unpatched security posture and an unverified firmware flash.

The episode also illustrates a structural gap in the add-in-board supply chain: AMD supplies the security patch, partners such as ASRock adapt it per model, and no party owns the failure mode when an adaptation bricks hardware. AMD's advice to update promptly assumed partner firmware would work. For some RX 7900 owners, it did not.

ASRock has so far responded only with quiet action: pulling the bad update, shipping a new one, and saying nothing. Until the company publishes a changelog, confirms the fix, and states a clear warranty position, buyers of its Radeon flagships must weigh every flash against the risk that the board does not come back.