X399 Taichi short circuit

Hello
In the last days I built a new system based on the ASRock X399 Taichi board.
Everything was wired fine and power on tests (without monitor) were successfully. (Dr. Debug codes only showed on the starting phase)
I then connected a monitor and mouse/keyboard and browsed about 15 minutes through the EFI BIOS settings. (But I didn't change anything. Just disabled WiFi. No OC settings.)

Later on I tried to install Windows 10 from a USB-stick. But in the early beginning (after you choose your language settings), the computer just powered of! I couldn't power on with the case power button (only the LAN LED on the back was still active).
I power cycled the PSU switch and then the blue Motherboard LED was active and I could power on the computer with the case power button.

Just a moment later I heard a loud noise from the motherboard and I could see a small flame coming from an electronic module. It smelled very strong. I immediately plugged off the power cable and was very frustrated about this situation. (its a very expensive system for me)

Today I removed the board from the case and tried to locate the short circuit. (I found it only by my nose )

I attached two pictures. I'm not skilled for electronic modules, but maybe somebody can help me to identify the reason for this short circuit. I don't think I've done something wrong, and the computer was running fine at least during the 15 min. in the EFI BIOS.

Hopefully it's not my fault.

Thanks for any hints... (do you know, how ASrock handles such issues? Warranty or just bad luck?)

btw, on the motherboard backside of this position, everything seems ok.

they say with electronics they either go pop in first few hours or last for years....................

MisterJ, yes it's in the VMR area. Could such an issue also damage my (expensive) Threadripper processor? I really hope not...

Call Asrock, get RMA. Thats all you can do. Don't try to fix it yourself, your warranty will be ruined then. After RMA, if it still doesn't work, maybe CPU shot, RMA that too.

parcec, thanks for your explanations.
The CPU heat sink has no contact to the VRM heat sink.


Even the pipes has no contact to the VRM heat sink (it's difficult to see it in the following picture):


And here's a picture of the underside (seems fine for me):



I just opened the CPU socket. And this looks good too for me:




So, hopefully the CPU is not damaged. I will see it later, when I got a replacement board.

I hope my retailer will handle this as fast as possible as I really looked forward to this system and now I think I have to wait several weeks to continue. But yes...sh*t happens...sometimes



Edited by Deckard17 - 17 Dec 2017 at 9:44pm