Gigabyte Z690I AORUS Ultra RECALL

This was raised a few months ago with quite a few complaints on reddit, followed by GB trying to fix with a couple of BIOS releases, to no avail.

For anyone who has a Gigabyte Z690I Aorus Ultra, recall is official:
https://www.gigabyte.com/Press/News/1991

Get your free upgrade

 

Good to know, do the local stores have the upgrade models available? There isnt much options for ddr4 itx z690 mobo around.

I always knew that pcie gen4 is flaky and always set it to gen3 to avoid issues.

 

Gigabyte's reddit account asking users to go direct to Gigabyte for the recall + free upgrade to Aorus Ultra Plus.

Tbh- bit of a shame by Gigabyte given how they handled initially (not too mention yet another product on their catalogue that had serious manufacturing issues). But the free upgrade to Aorus Ultra is a nice touch.

 

Wouldnt call it a nice touch. Its the same board that they should have made to begin with and have pcie to the correct gen4/5 spec.

Also they arnt exactly fixing the issue. They are going to resell the same recalled mobo with a sticker on the model and call it the "lite" edition with pcie gen3 support only.

I would love to see GN tear them a new one and make a video on this board.

 

Indeed same board, ultra plus has wiFi 6e being only difference so it’s something for nothing. As to whether that’s worth the inconvenience for many obv not.

Didn’t know about the Ultra Lite but looking at specs it does indeed say PCIe gen3. That is proper sneaky if there’s no comms as don’t think I’ve seen any AIB selling a z690 with PCIe gen3..

 

been waiting for this one..
don't own one, work in an RMA dept have not seen many with this issue come through but imagine thats about to change. i figured a lot of owners are either putting up with it, unaware of it happening or have been OK on the pcie3.0 workaround.

guess i'm about to find out though haha

edit: oh wow, was wondering what go was with the the plus ultra/lite versions, now i know.
thats one way of dealing with all the returns i guess resell them as a factory gimped edition and no one can complain

https://www.gigabyte.com/au/Motherboard/Z690I-AORUS-ULTRA-LITE-rev-10#kf
“Expansion Slots: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (The PCI Express x16 slot conforms to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)”

 

One thing they haven't clearify is what speed the m.2 will run at.

I assume this is a pcb layer issue not conforming to pcie gen4/5 spec, the m.2 should also be crippled.

 

The last few years haven’t been kind to Gigabyte. Power Supplies, RGB shite, all kinds of software issues, questionable GPU temps on some cards, some blunders with Monitors and now this.

Shame really, I’ve used many of their products over their years with no issues until recently. Almost feels like they’ve stretched themselves thinner by increasing their product offerings. Another example of shithouse QA/QC like we’re seeing in many industries.

 

sites all say pcie4.0 for the m.2 - though there was an asterisk on the lite models spec though..
i do believe the issue was just the PCIE slot side of things however.

agreed rg144 , they've become a brand to avoid in a lot of cases.

 

I also had an Aorus B550i which had crap as BIOS issues, but the Gaming OC 6700XT I had was decent as.

I haven't lost faith at all, but I still prefer Asus. Have since X58 days. They just...break less? Anyway sorry for TC, I don't have a Z690i, i'm leaving, hahaha

 

i vowed never to touch gigashite mobos ever again had a horrible time on every platform from x58 to zen never

Also reading this you only have til 20th of november if i was you id get a full retund and get asus

GIGABYTE Announcement Regarding Z690I AORUS ULTRA Motherboard Issue



2022/05/10
May 10th, 2022 GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, is committed to producing premium quality hardware.

While investigating reports of customers experiencing issues with their Z690I AORUS ULTRA, we discovered that there are certain cases of system instability and WHEA PCIe errors when paired with some PCIe Gen4 graphics cards. Setting the PCIe speed to Gen3 through the BIOS will eliminate these symptoms.

To address Z690I AORUS ULTRA owners who are currently experiencing instability issues as detailed above, GIGABYTE is offering a special program to upgrade users to the Z690I AORUS ULTRA PLUS motherboard or equivalent models, or users will also be eligible to apply for a refund. https://www.gigabyte.com/Press/News/1990

The special program will be applicable for all customers who have purchased the “Z690I AORUS ULTRA DDR4” or “Z690I AORUS ULTRA DDR5” motherboard from non-third-party retailers. Users who have just started or already completed their RMA process will also qualify. Please note program details may differ according to region.

From May 10, 2022 through November 30, 2022, GIGABYTE customers will be able to register for the program by submitting a claim on the website link below. Users will need to provide their general information, the motherboard’s serial number, and proof of purchase.

Program Website: https://member.aorus.com/z690i-aorus-ultra-exchange-refund

For more information and news, please visit the GIGABYTE AORUS website: https://aorus.com/

For more information and news on GIGABYTE products, please visit the official GIGABYTE website: http://www.gigabyte.com/

 

Whilst I agree their customer service & reputation has taken a hit in recent years; I wouldn't go as far as completely boycotting the brand when it comes to motherboards and GPU's. Still plenty of happy people with their AORUS line of products, and they're decently priced relative to competitors.

Without going too far off topic- personally wouldn't be interested in a Gigabyte PSU when the likes of a Corsair has proven a track record of quality, reliability & great service for many years. Time will tell how GB will fare with other components i.e monitors, memory/nvme's and of course PSU's.

For me its always more important how they react, engage and respond to customers following complaints or a recall; rather than the recall itself. Years ago EVGA had recurring issues with GPU's and were very honest, and resolved issues promptly. Asus recently too with the Crosshair recall. Apple has a "gate" drama every 2nd year. All manufactures make mistakes, but a big part of that reputation also comes from how you're treated. For which the likes of Asus, EVGA and Apple do that fairly, honestly and [usually] quickly.

In fairiess to Gigashyte- at least they're owning up to these faults.
Their inability to fix the problem is not ideal, so offering an upgrade/solution is the minimum, albeit that comes at the inconvenience of users.

As for the whole rebranding of previously specc'd PCIe x4 boards as now being PCIe x3 and reselling- that's a bit sketchy. If I was management, that practice needs looking into, out of order imho.

 

Why is it sketchy? Can the board do pcie3 properly? If so... It's accurate marketing and reusing products otherwise going to landfill.

For me it's about getting what you paid for. If you paid for a pcie3 board and got one, who cares if it could once nearly do pcie4, it becomes irrelevant

 

Sketchy because the Z690 chipset is officially/specifically PCIe gen 4EDIT: gen 5, and that's why they marketed the AORUS Ultra originally. But given the problems with gen 4 and 5, they're now marketing this AORUS Ultra board as the "AORUS Ultra Lite" with gen 3. I actually wasn't aware of this so thanks to akromatic for raising this earlier above.

In essence they're saying- "we stuffed up the product, and disguising it as a new 'binned' product"..

I'm all for binning when it comes to silicon lottery & yields, not when there's an architectural problem.

Could be looking at this incorrectly/happy to hear another perspective, but it has a bit of a stink to me, especially when no other AIB is offering Z690 in PCIe gen 3 only, and all offering gen 5..?

 

I get what you're saying and I agree if it's not obvious that it's not the same as a regular Z690. In other words, if it's "disguised" as you say, then that's sketchy, if it's quite obviously only Pcie3 then... Up to the buyer to do their research on why the Lite Z690 is so much cheaper than other Z690s.

 

What stinks is:
a) Gigabyte changed the specs on the website for this model from Gen 5 --> Gen 3 and
b) no communication on this

Whilst I agree its up to the buyer to do their research, I'm sure there's still some retailers (for better or worse, no vendor verdicts obviously) that still advertising PCIe Gen 5..

Comparison here between the Z690 Aorus ULTRA LITE and Z690I Aorus ULTRA PLUS: https://www.gigabyte.com/Comparison/Consumer/Result/2?pids=8405,8397
- Only differences I saw were Gen 3 vs Gen 5, and WiFi 6E.
- Strangely, the Ultra Lite still says support for PCIe 4.0 under "Storage", but this is precisely what users have been reporting (Gen 4 nVME errors as well as GPU's)..

 

This is why you don't early adopt I remember zen was a cluster fuck and I see this is no better gi

 

Sounds like even they fucked up their own specs. The perils of shiftyish rebranding models hey

 

I wonder if this will magically go away when pcie gen 6 rolls around in a couple of years time. Mostly it's just gigashite being scummy much like msi

 

Agreed, although I can't imagine why they need like 76 different S1700 motherboards and if you line them up there's probably not that much difference from one to the next.

Strange, both my sole X58A UD7 and a couple GA-X79S-UP5-WIFI boards are rock solid and the latter work excellently as NAS's with E5-2670 CPU's and the onboard SAS running used HGST server drives bought cheaply on Ebay. Admittedly I did wonder WTF was happening with the X99 series with the burning mosfet issues and so stayed away from those altogether.

Well as far as motherboards go I upgraded from my I7-4930K to a 10700KF running on a more expensive Z590 VISION D and have been quite happy with it but as far as video cards go then with that RTX3080 MLCC/POSCAP issue Nvidia apparently mandated that 3080's were to have one block of MLCC and 3090's were to have two blocks of them regardless of manufacturer despite Gigabyte insisting that none were required. Since ASUS had all six with MLCC's and Gigabyte had zero they had problems whereas at the same time ASUS didn't have any issues therefore I just exclusively buy ASUS video cards but have done so anyway since the GTX670's.

Agreed, they are pretty much the only game in town if you're running your stuff with expensive video cards. In the past I've been lucky enough to get Delta Electronics power supplies in the high end Antec range but they are pretty much unavailable now as well as the rest of Antec power supplies and Seasonic would be the only other manufacturer I'd consider only if Corsair were unavailable.