Comment by kaelinl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kaelinl | Hacker News Reader

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My reading of the statement (and understanding of other reporting on this subject) is that EXPO alone can trigger this issue. Calling EXPO overclocking feels somewhat disingenuous to me.

EXPO is akin to Intel's XMP. The RAM stick reports timings and other settings that it can handle and then the motherboard/user selects one to use. The profiles are needed because the official JEDEC standard for DDR doesn't provide a mechanism for running up to the frequencies that modern RAM uses; e.g. if you buy a DDR5 6000MHz kit, it'll only run at 4800MHz or thereabouts until you enable EXPO/XMP. RAM is really never expected to be run at the base frequency (without EXPO/XMP). If you buy a prebuilt, it'll have EXPO/XMP enabled, and if you build yourself you always should be enabling it. If you have a RAM kit that's somewhat recent and don't have it enabled, you've likely wasted money on the RAM.

Intel has attempted to claim that XMP was overclocking and violated their warranty but my understanding is that they quickly backed off.

> My reading of the statement (and understanding of other reporting on this subject) is that EXPO alone can trigger this issue. Calling EXPO overclocking feels somewhat disingenuous to me.

Totally. With DDR5-6000, it's even nastier: AMD repeatedly said that DDR5-6000 was the "sweet spot". I never overclocked any computer of mine but I did buy DDR5-6000 for my 7700X because AMD said it was the sweet spot. And I turned EXPO on so that it'd run at 6000, not 4800.

And now, after saying 6000 was the "sweet spot", they try to word things as if EXPO was somehow overclocking!?

I'm in same boat. I payed a premium for DDR5-6000 64GB for my 7950X, because AMD said it's the sweet spot... I didn't ever consider this "overclocking", I haven't ever been interested on overclocking, I just want stable machine.

Now I'm considering disabling EXPO, but I don't think it would work as 6000 anymore after that. I have used this machine for 4 months now, so I'd say it's pretty safe, but who knows, I haven't taxed the CPU with gaming yet.

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/expo

Scroll down, open footnotes:

> Overclocking and/or undervolting AMD processors and memory, including without limitation, altering clock frequencies / multipliers or memory timing / voltage, to operate outside of AMD’s published specifications will void any applicable AMD product warranty, even when enabled via AMD hardware and/or software. This may also void warranties offered by the system manufacturer or retailer. Users assume all risks and liabilities that may arise out of overclocking and/or undervolting AMD processors, including, without limitation, failure of or damage to hardware, reduced system performance and/or data loss, corruption or vulnerability.

On their own page they consider it warranty-voiding feature that they ADVERTISE and PROMOTE

> Now I'm considering disabling EXPO, but I don't think it would work as 6000 anymore after that. I have used this machine for 4 months now, so I'd say it's pretty safe, but who knows, I haven't taxed the CPU with gaming yet.

I'd drop it, wait till it all blow over, upgrade the BIOS, and re-enable it. It does seem like just a firmware bug or maybe some OC profile on memory being overly optimistic with voltage.

This kind of corporate behavior is common. Subaru for a while offered free SCCA memberships with purchase of a WRX so you could autocross it, then you do an autocross and they try to get out of any warranty work because you autocrossed it.

Certainly tire/brake pad wear shouldn't be covered but they were more ridiculous about it than that.

Be sure you know what autocross is before you type up a big lecture about wear and tear from racing. Also I already know.

> Certainly tire/brake pad wear shouldn't be covered but they were more ridiculous about it than that.

That wouldn't be under normal warranty either, those are wear elements.

Toyota also had some recent shit like that with GR86

https://www.motor1.com/news/602041/toyota-allegedly-denies-g...

while giving free track day vouchers

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a36606788/gr-86-supra-trac...

My Chevy came with instructions on proper track prep and tracking it (if prepped as instructed) won't void the warranty. Didn't include free track days though.

Autocrossing is more my thing and I'm shocked any car manufacturer would try to weasel out of warranty for it. I've seen modified cars break and even catch on fire, and can understand racing tires could put undue stress on stock suspension, but a stock car that can't handle autocross? Should we expect parts to be falling off if you need to do an emergency brake or evasive maneuver on the road?

I dropped it.

That's not how it is presented in the BIOS. EXPO settings aren't under overclocking, to me they didn't appear scary overclocking thing.

In BIOS there is an separate section "Overclocking" and to get there you have to "Accept" or "Decline" some big text about warranty, I never went there to enable EXPO. So I never needed to press "Accept" to void my warranty to toggle on EXPO...

EXPO settings just to my eye looks like this:

EXPO II turned on, memory frequency 6000 MHz (what is says on the memory), and CPU frequence stays where it was (thus not overclocked).

> EXPO II turned on, memory frequency 6000 MHz (what is says on the memory), and CPU frequence stays where it was (thus not overclocked).

It's a technology to overclock memory controller on CPU, not CPU cores themselves. Increase of voltage of memory also needs to be applied to the controller, hence where the problem in article comes from.

But yeah, I can see someone arguing that in court and winning, with AMD only warning about warranty loss in footnotes and mobo vendors not presenting it as such either.

>Totally. With DDR5-6000, it's even nastier: AMD repeatedly said that DDR5-6000 was the "sweet spot".

And the specs on their own page say DDR5-5200 is the max memory speed, WTF

>if you build yourself you always should be enabling it.

Absolutely not. This is such a terrible advice I would think you were trolling if I didn't assume better of you.

An end-user should not engage in any overclocking, XMP/EXPO included, without thorough knowledge and understanding of what they're getting into. You are literally driving your hardware above and beyond official, published specifications.

And no, marketing is not "official, published specifications".

> You are literally driving your hardware above and beyond official, published specifications.

That is not the case if we talk RAM. It is sold as 6000MHz, it is tested as 6000MHz and it is validated to run at 6000MHz. And there is a standard each developed by both Intel and AMD to allow RAM to ran at it's rated speed. It isn't just marketing. The problem is, that this standard entails going out of spec on the CPU side, where it does mean going beyond validated limits. But the consumer shouldn't have to dig to understand, that these standard designed to make your RAM run at it's rated speed technically means pushing limits.

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