ROG Strix E Gaming shows incorrect CPU, Asus says wrong chip but..

[Ictinike]

Greets,

So been an ASUS guy for a very, very long time. This is the first problem I've ever had and I'm stumped as well a bit frustrated.

8 Year old Rampage IV Black Edition with i7 4930K gave up the ghost so I went and spec'ed a new build as I've not been without a computer for work and gaming going on 25 years now. Barring the boring search details but I end up with an ASUS Strix E Gaming board, 32gb of RAM, and the i9 9900k that I was shooting for.

Parts come in and the build goes well. Fire up the first time and ROG logo shows so things are good, enter the BIOS and it's rev 1005 which I know is an older revision so I find the latest, 1302, and proceed to download. Then I'm struck as to what I see.

The BIOS reports this 9900k as a Core i5 9600.. Ehh? Wait, likely a BIOS update will help which of course it didn't. Still showing this 9900K incorrectly. Also, the new 2TB Samsung Evo M.2 is not showing or detecting. Odd.. Again, it's very odd.

I jump on with ASUS support (chat) to proceeds to have me remove the cooler and get the writing on the CPU itself. I explain I'm IT and I checked prior to installing and it's indeed a 9900K. I have the packaging and had to cut into the factory seals to open it. Alas, they tell me the board is not wrong or bad but it's not a 9900K cpu. I disagree and proceed to remove cooler and TIM only to see, what I had already known, it's showing i9 9900K. They don't believe me and the only thing they could tell me is 'The board will detect the chip properly, you don't have a 9900k' so I'm floored. I explain I have the packaging and had to cut the seals; again I get the same response. Now I'm upset.

Does this happen? Could this have been the wrong die on the wrong format with the incorrect model on the IHS? I've been doing this since the x286 and never have I had a chip that was wrong or counterfeit. I contact Amazon and going to have a call with Intel and Asus to discuss this I guess but felt I could come here and ask. Does this happen? Am I wrong in any way? How to proceed?

Some images:
CPU: https://i.imgur.com/7YHX2fX.jpg
Packaging: https://i.imgur.com/hWyvLlc.jpg
Barcodes: https://i.imgur.com/aYQQl6u.jpg
BIOS: https://i.imgur.com/mIaHOx1.jpg

So, again, I'm at a loss and now must go through the process of figuring what/who is wrong here and then deal with Amazon support to get whatever replaced after already going 2 weeks without a system. Sure, I get it, I'm being a grumpy curmudgeon on this but man I've never had issues like this before. What gets me is the M.2 is not detecting either which first led me to something with the board. Well, you know the response I got.

Thanks for any info, help, gripes, or laughs my way.

~Ictinike

[cniedzi]

Greets,

So been an ASUS guy for a very, very long time. This is the first problem I've ever had and I'm stumped as well a bit frustrated.

8 Year old Rampage IV Black Edition with i7 4930K gave up the ghost so I went and spec'ed a new build as I've not been without a computer for work and gaming going on 25 years now. Barring the boring search details but I end up with an ASUS Strix E Gaming board, 32gb of RAM, and the i9 9900k that I was shooting for.

Parts come in and the build goes well. Fire up the first time and ROG logo shows so things are good, enter the BIOS and it's rev 1005 which I know is an older revision so I find the latest, 1302, and proceed to download. Then I'm struck as to what I see.

The BIOS reports this 9900k as a Core i5 9600.. Ehh? Wait, likely a BIOS update will help which of course it didn't. Still showing this 9900K incorrectly. Also, the new 2TB Samsung Evo M.2 is not showing or detecting. Odd.. Again, it's very odd.

I jump on with ASUS support (chat) to proceeds to have me remove the cooler and get the writing on the CPU itself. I explain I'm IT and I checked prior to installing and it's indeed a 9900K. I have the packaging and had to cut into the factory seals to open it. Alas, they tell me the board is not wrong or bad but it's not a 9900K cpu. I disagree and proceed to remove cooler and TIM only to see, what I had already known, it's showing i9 9900K. They don't believe me and the only thing they could tell me is 'The board will detect the chip properly, you don't have a 9900k' so I'm floored. I explain I have the packaging and had to cut the seals; again I get the same response. Now I'm upset.

Does this happen? Could this have been the wrong die on the wrong format with the incorrect model on the IHS? I've been doing this since the x286 and never have I had a chip that was wrong or counterfeit. I contact Amazon and going to have a call with Intel and Asus to discuss this I guess but felt I could come here and ask. Does this happen? Am I wrong in any way? How to proceed?

Some images:
CPU: https://i.imgur.com/7YHX2fX.jpg
Packaging: https://i.imgur.com/hWyvLlc.jpg
Barcodes: https://i.imgur.com/aYQQl6u.jpg
BIOS: https://i.imgur.com/mIaHOx1.jpg

So, again, I'm at a loss and now must go through the process of figuring what/who is wrong here and then deal with Amazon support to get whatever replaced after already going 2 weeks without a system. Sure, I get it, I'm being a grumpy curmudgeon on this but man I've never had issues like this before. What gets me is the M.2 is not detecting either which first led me to something with the board. Well, you know the response I got.

Thanks for any info, help, gripes, or laughs my way.

~Ictinike

The only way to find out who's wrong is to put your CPU onto another motherboard, i think....

[Dan Hot]

Ur scammed
One guy has changed the heatspreader from 9600k to his 9900k and sell the 9600k as 9900k ez money.

[pndiode]

Yep! INTEL uses a black substance to attach the IHS to the PCB. And the gold contacts on lower right below IHS on PCB are worn off. And the IHS is off center.

[Ictinike]

Thanks. After posting and looking around the web I did read of this swap occurring.. I guess its more plausible someone swapped IHS then counterfeit so I'll go back to Amazon and get a return/refund and start looking for another. Ugh!

Thanks!

[Dan Hot]

9600k
3700MHz
6 Cores
6 Threats
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/de...-4-60-ghz.html

9900k
3600MHz
8 Cores
16 Threats
https://www.intel.de/content/www/de/.../i9-9900k.html

Here u can see that they have the same CPUID

Coffee Lake S (8+2)

Intel® Core™-Prozessorfamilie der 9. Generation

Intel® Core™-Prozessor i9-9900K, i9-9900KF

Intel® Core™-Prozessor i7-9700K, i7-9700KF

Intel® Core™-Prozessor i5-9600K, i5-9600KF, i5-9400, i5-9400F

906EC

22

0xAE

https://support.microsoft.com/de-de/...rocode-updates

[dingo99]

After posting and looking around the web I did read of this swap occurring.. I guess its more plausible someone swapped IHS then counterfeit so I'll go back to Amazon and get a return/refund and start looking for another. Ugh!

The most obvious sign of swapping/counterfeiting here is the serial number mismatch. Intel prints the last digits of the S/N on the PCB. From your photos, PCB says 01236 while the packaging says 04005. Given all the reports of counterfeits from Amazon, it amazes me that they still haven't trained their return personnel to check the serial number.

[Ictinike]

The most obvious sign of swapping/counterfeiting here is the serial number mismatch. Intel prints the last digits of the S/N on the PCB. From your photos, PCB says 01236 while the packaging says 04005. Given all the reports of counterfeits from Amazon, it amazes me that they still haven't trained their return personnel to check the serial number.

Ah! Great catch and thank you! I hadn't heard of other doing this with CPU's. Other products, such as RAM and disks most recently, but not a cpu. I'm a learner and haven't had any issue like this in the years I've been building systems so I am in thanks to all who replied.

Speaking with Amazon, I informed them but unsure if they fully understood but they were quick to issue a refund so I'll be shipping out both the cpu as well M.2 that didn't work either. They were quick to also ask me to withhold any review or what it on the site. Again, I get it and it's not like they did this on purpose but as it seems it's getting worse on a variety of tech products; one would think they should try to investigate each return or at least have a list of who had this cpu prior. They'll treat it as an loss end of year and well all pay for these bad actors. Sigh.

Thank you all again and new cpu incoming in hopes it's legit

Cheers,
~Ictinike