ASRock Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX owners are reporting a rather alarming problem after installing an official VBIOS update released by the company. What was supposed to be a routine security-related firmware update has reportedly left several graphics cards completely unusable, with some owners having to resort to external programming equipment to bring their GPUs back to life.
The affected firmware was part of a wider rollout announced on October 29, covering ten Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards from ASRock. However, reports from affected users suggest that something went seriously wrong during the installation process.
According to a VideoCardz reader who owns a Radeon RX 7900 XTX Phantom Gaming, the issue occurred after following ASRock’s official instructions and running its ASRVBFlash 1.0.5 utility. The software initially began checking the graphics card’s compatibility before automatically restarting Windows.
Unfortunately, the system refused to POST after restarting with the graphics card installed. Removing the GPU allowed the PC to boot normally again, suggesting that the firmware update had rendered the graphics card unusable.
The problem also doesn’t appear to be isolated to a single model. Other owners have reported similar failures involving the RX 7900 XT Phantom Gaming, RX 7900 XTX Phantom Gaming and RX 7900 XTX Taichi, including its White edition. Reports have also come from systems using different ASRock and MSI motherboards, suggesting that the issue isn’t necessarily tied to a particular motherboard configuration.
Interestingly, some affected owners have managed to recover their graphics cards, although the process isn’t exactly something most users can do at home. At least two Reddit users reportedly restored their RX 7900 XTX Phantom Gaming cards using external EEPROM programmers. One used a T48 USB programmer alongside a test clip to rewrite the VBIOS, while another confirmed that an EEPROM programmer successfully brought their graphics card back to working condition.
There are also indications that ASRock has started pulling the problematic firmware downloads. Although the October 29 releases remain listed in the company’s BIOS update index, several users have encountered HTTP 404 errors when attempting to download the files. Some FTP download links reportedly remain accessible, however.
As for ASRock’s response, the affected VideoCardz reader says the issue was escalated to ASRock Europe and the company’s headquarters on November 5. Meanwhile, a Reddit user in Japan reportedly received confirmation from ASRock support that the failure would be covered under warranty.
However, ASRock has yet to issue a public statement explaining what caused the failed firmware installations or provide an official recovery procedure. This also leaves some uncertainty for owners whose graphics cards are no longer covered by warranty.
For now, Radeon RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX owners using affected ASRock models should avoid installing the October 29 VBIOS update until the company provides further clarification and a corrected firmware release.
