Face palm: If you own an Asrock Radeon 7000 series graphics card, here’s some good news: the company is rolling out a replacement firmware update after the previous version reportedly stalled some RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX GPUs. The less pleasant news is that the company hasn’t said what it plans to do for users whose cards were stolen.
As VideoCardz reports, the new RX 7900 XTX download carries the ASRVBFlash 1.0.6 label and a date of November 6th. It replaces version 1.0.5, but there is no changelog explaining what’s new or confirming that the problems with the previous version have been fixed. That’s not exactly reassuring for someone thinking about attempting another update.
The original downloads arrived on October 29th and covered ten Asrock models, from the RX 7600 XT to the RX 7900 XTX. They followed similar security-related firmware releases from Sapphire and Gigabyte, although Asrock’s descriptions contained little beyond the Flash utility version number.
Some owners soon reported that running the updater caused their systems to become unbootable. Windows restarted during the process, after which POST failed with graphics card installed. Removing the GPU allowed affected systems to reboot.
A moderator in the Asrock forum wrote that the failed flashes were due to the graphics drivers not being completely removed beforehand. However, one owner responded that he used the uninstaller provided in the instructions and still received a non-working card.
Some users have restored their GPUs using external EEPROM programmers. While this is encouraging for those affected, purchasing specialized equipment to rescue a graphics card after installing the manufacturer’s update is hardly something Asrock can brag about.
A Japanese customer also reportedly received assurances from Asrock that the failed update would be covered under the company’s warranty. However, things don’t look so positive for a European owner. You were referred to warranty service even though your card was no longer under warranty. It remains unclear what support other affected cardholders will receive.
Asrock is no stranger to controversy over its firmware. In April 2025, AMD and Asrock highlighted memory compatibility amid multiple reports of Ryzen 9000 failures. The following month, an Asrock executive admitted that BIOS settings were to blame, as the current limits for early CPU samples were set too high.
