Exploit targeting kernel power issues on all ASUS AMD Ryzen boards
Exploit targeting kernel power issues on all ASUS AMD Ryzen boards
So, this is a rant. One year ago, I purchased an ASUS Prime x470-PRO motherboard as part of my new Ryzen build. Shortly after, I noticed I was getting frequent kernel power failures where the screen cut to black and the board would reset. Well, it turns out I wasn't the only one. It turns out that Cura, a 3D printing slicer, was somehow causing a kernel power failure in Windows - an issue that's now the most discussed problem on its GitHub repo (https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura/issues/5265). The problem affects a wide range of hardware configurations, but with one common similarity: the motherboard manufacturer. It appears the issue affects all AMD Ryzen ASUS motherboards across all chipsets. At this point, I started making support tickets with ASUS. After months of trying, they kept refusing there was a problem and told me it wasn't reproducible - even after I showed them the GitHub issue. The problem is, Cura needs to be running in the background for a while for the power failure to happen - which I'm guessing no support team would give time for. It got escalated to their engineers even, and still no dice. Finally, half a year later, support offered me a replacement... an Intel motherboard. I had long replaced the board already with an MSI x570 board that doesn't have the problem, and it's not like I'm going to suddenly switch to Intel, but I accepted it as some financial return. Well, they sent me back my own motherboard saying the issue wasn't reproducible again. So warning for all AMD Ryzen ASUS motherboard owners - I'm pretty confident that this kernel power failure problem can be weaponized. And if you ever want to get into 3D printing... then maybe don't go with an ASUS AMD Ryzen motherboard. Cheers and good-bye ASUS.
Ah, don't do anything you're not comfortable with. Don't worry about it. But yes, it's solved by just not opening Cura. And you can remove it quite easily. Edit: It's a bit of a weird issue to reproduce. Sometimes it happened right away within minutes, and sometimes I could leave it running for up to 20 minutes without a problem. All I'd do is load in a file from Thingiverse and leave it open or minimized for a few minutes.
You're correct, aside from sleep interruptions and Bluetooth issues, there were few other problems. It seems the issue stems from Cura itself, but what it does from an application standpoint is causing a kernel power failure. This only happens with ASUS motherboards, and changing to an MSI board without altering other parts resolved it.
It seems Cura might not be compatible with certain Asus boards despite the motherboard running basic software. I'm unsure why since the OS appears straightforward. Could you confirm if you used the most recent official BIOS version? Also, just to clarify, when you mention a kernel power failure, are you referring to entries in the Windows event log?
I installed the newest BIOS update. Windows Event Viewer confirmed it. What I actually felt was a black screen followed by the system restarting. I disabled all performance options on the board too—no overclocked CPU, no precision boost, no overclocked memory. I also used the default BIOS settings.
It seems the system experienced a memory issue after restarting. Unusual that an app triggered this. Kernel power failure refers to an unexpected shutdown.