My Asus zenith ii extreme had thermal pads so badly aligned under the VRM heatsink that it was only touching half the VRMs. Thankfully I was removing it to put a waterblock on, and even if I had left it the power delivery componentry is so excessive that it probably wouldn't have died. Still not nice to see.
I think they are very lucky they have good board designers and good UEFI designers (shamino) otherwise they wouldn't have a very compelling offering to justify their price-point.

God the amount of people that are "SHAME ON YOU ASUS" and "bye asus!" You guys are idiots. Every manufacturer of everything has a hiccup in production. It's inevitable. Like, shit happens. It's the way of life. Now what you should be judging on is how they respond to it and what they do to fix it going forward. Asus has publically acknowledged this issue and I am sure will work with effected parties. But to shame someone for a fuck up? Or completely write off the company because of a fuck up? What if someone were to write you off like that when you screwed up?

Think people. Apply common sense.

TiggerAbout 8 boards out of however many thousands they made yeah shame on them

Well yeah, it may be a small number, but this is like a car maker wiring a car backwards. Sure it may be rare, but something like that, plain and simple, should be happening now. I mean, when is the last time you heard of ANY board maker putting caps on backwards? I've never even heard of this happening, perhaps on no name chinese brands that make those bizzaro leftover part boards.

An ASUS product, especially a board of this price, should not have such a simple mistake occur. Do they not test anything coming out of their own factories?

CrAsHnBuRnXpGod the amount of people that are "SHAME ON YOU ASUS" and "bye asus!" You guys are idiots. Every manufacturer of everything has a hiccup in production. It's inevitable. Like, shit happens. It's the way of life. Now what you should be judging on is how they respond to it and what they do to fix it going forward. Asus has publically acknowledged this issue and I am sure will work with effected parties. But to shame someone for a fuck up? Or completely write off the company because of a fuck up? What if someone were to write you off like that when you screwed up?

Think people. Apply common sense.

Think crashnburn, when is the last time you heard of a motherboard maker wiring capacitors backwards? Especially on something this expensive.

TheinsanegamerNWell yeah, it may be a small number, but this is like a car maker wiring a car backwards. Sure it may be rare, but something like that, plain and simple, should be happening now. I mean, when is the last time you heard of ANY board maker putting caps on backwards? I've never even heard of this happening, perhaps on no name chinese brands that make those bizzaro leftover part boards.

An ASUS product, especially a board of this price, should not have such a simple mistake occur. Do they not test anything coming out of their own factories?


Think crashnburn, when is the last time you heard of a motherboard maker wiring capacitors backwards? Especially on something this expensive.

Don't buy Asus stuff again. It's not a car though is it, so it's not a very good comparison. How many times have other PC component manufacturers had problems? better comparison, and they probably all have, but people still buy their stuff, well some don't........................

I almost pulled the trigger on this board early on. What saved me from this was lack of availability of the CPU's. This made me look for memory and that totally put it on the shelf when I realized that was such a huge problem.

TiggerMe too, never had a single fault, so will keep buying them. I'm not gonna condemn them for one mistake.

ASUS ROG boards are my favorite and were present on almost all of my builds. That said, I think the real issue lately is SKU bloat. Back then you had a Gene (which was a high-end micro ATX version), a Formula (which was the high-end model) and a Extreme (the all-in model with all extreme overclocking and quality of life features), now we have

ROG Strix-F (low end board with ROG branding borrowing platform from the -E but with several quality of life features removed)
ROG Strix-E (intermediate board)
ROG Strix-XE (intermediate board with a slightly stronger VRM)
ROG Strix-I (intermediate mini-ITX)
ROG Hero (standard fare high end board)
ROG Hero Wi-Fi (standard fare high end board with a bundled module)
ROG Formula (watercooled high end board)
ROG Impact (mini ITX high end board)
ROG Extreme (all-in board)
ROG Apex (1DPC XOC board)
ROG Extreme Encore (because why not re-release things that sell not-so-well for an even higher price?)
ROG Extreme Glacial (all-in watercooled board with a white theme because that can $ell for more ca$h)

It's just so many models so many variants so many things to keep track that QA and maintenance will falter, it was always a matter of when and not if. What ASUS needs to do is stop this nonsense and refocus their lineup - the Strix-E, Formula, Impact, Extreme and Apex tiers should be able to cover literally every use case for power users. Relegate what became of the Strix-F to their Prime line, and bring back the military-grade TUF hardware (a-la Sabertooth Z87). Fewer SKUs, better quality products, better QA, better BIOS. That is the winning formula.

Dr. DroASUS ROG boards are my favorite and were present on almost all of my builds. That said, I think the real issue lately is SKU bloat. Back then you had a Gene (which was a high-end micro ATX version), a Formula (which was the high-end model) and a Extreme (the all-in model with all extreme overclocking and quality of life features), now we have

ROG Strix-F (low end board with ROG branding borrowing platform from the -E but with several quality of life features removed)
ROG Strix-E (intermediate board)
ROG Strix-XE (intermediate board with a slightly stronger VRM)
ROG Strix-I (intermediate mini-ITX)
ROG Hero (standard fare high end board)
ROG Hero Wi-Fi (standard fare high end board with a bundled module)
ROG Formula (watercooled high end board)
ROG Impact (mini ITX high end board)
ROG Extreme (all-in board)
ROG Apex (1DPC XOC board)
ROG Extreme Encore (because why not re-release things that sell not-so-well for an even higher price?)
ROG Extreme Glacial (all-in watercooled board with a white theme because that can $ell for more ca$h)

It's just so many models so many variants so many things to keep track that QA and maintenance will falter, it was always a matter of when and not if. What ASUS needs to do is stop this nonsense and refocus their lineup - the Strix-E, Formula, Impact, Extreme and Apex tiers should be able to cover literally every use case for power users. Relegate what became of the Strix-F to their Prime line, and bring back the military-grade TUF hardware (a-la Sabertooth Z87). Fewer SKUs, better quality products, better QA, better BIOS. That is the winning formula.

Is the Strix-A new?

TheinsanegamerNWell yeah, it may be a small number, but this is like a car maker wiring a car backwards. Sure it may be rare, but something like that, plain and simple, should be happening now. I mean, when is the last time you heard of ANY board maker putting caps on backwards? I've never even heard of this happening, perhaps on no name chinese brands that make those bizzaro leftover part boards.

An ASUS product, especially a board of this price, should not have such a simple mistake occur. Do they not test anything coming out of their own factories?


Think crashnburn, when is the last time you heard of a motherboard maker wiring capacitors backwards? Especially on something this expensive.

Dude. It legit doesnt matter. People mess up. It happens. No one is infallable. Including big companies like Asus. Get over it.

This issue will not stop me from buying ASUS motherboard or their products. Every manufacturer at one point or another has their issues. Some are more widely know about or blown out of proportion due to the popularity of whatever manufacturer it is. At least ASUS is taking steps and making it known to the public that there is an issue. I have been using ROG products for close to 20+ years, mainly using their motherboards. Pentium 4 Socket 478 days.. good times! First ROG board was the first Crosshair AM2 nForce 590.. had the old EVGA 7950 GX2 with it.

Anywho, I guess I've always had very good luck with ASUS boards. Never once did I have to RMA any of my boards... (/knockonwood) The Z690 Maximus Hero is one of the boards I am thinking of buying for my Z690 build. Waiting for the EVGA Z690 boards and reviews to pop. Hopefully ASUS will get this sorted out in a somewhat timely manner for everyone who is effected by the Z690 Maximus Hero issue going here. And good luck to those effected!

To my understanding and observation, the reversed memory capacitor issue is present only on a batch of boards manufactured in Vietnam. In the part number 90MB18E0-MVAAY0, the V stands for Vietnam. The Vietnam plant seems to be a new one for ASUS and I believe this issue has got something to do with that.
With that noted, I have had great experience on every ASUS board so far. And they took care of this issue as quickly as possible and in a better way than any other company did in 2021 (GIGABYTE failed to acknowledge exploding PSUs until Gamers Nexus pushed them, same goes with NZXT with that PCIe riser catching fire and they only acknowledged it after repeated pushes from Gamers Nexus). I will keep on buying ASUS boards. The way they handled this issue further proves that they are confident in what they are doing and would like to keep their position in the market.

TiggerIs the Strix-A new?

So many I can't keep track anymore :kookoo:

I miss when ROG meant balls to the wall high end no expense spared, but I guess they figured they could earn a pretty penny from the brand :rolleyes:

as someone who uses ASUS stuff for a decade, I never have any faults with their mobos as they're still in working condition. This small issue has blown way out of proportions just because of an automation error during manufacturing. If you spot the capacitor is soldered upside down, don't power test it. Take a picture and send it for RMA/replacement. Don't panic or lash out at a brand over a minor mistake where no one is to be blamed. Also, at least ASUS found the problem and put out a PSA rather than keeping quiet and gets flooded with CS tickets.