Some flagship Asus devices with the Snapdragon 888 chip like Zenfone 8, ZenFone 8 Flip, and ROG Phone 5 are getting bricked due to a mysterious ‘ramdump’ error. And the only definitive fix at the moment seems to be getting a motherboard replacement.

There has been a slew of complaints from device owners on the official Asus forums saying that their phone’s screen went black on its own and booted into a screen with a “Waiting for flashing full ramdump…” message. This occurred with various use cases such as the phone being left on charge overnight, being left idle, or even during regular usage.

Unfortunately, after the issue strikes, there is seemingly no way to get out of it. Holding down on the power and volume up buttons to enter recovery mode only leads back to the ‘ramdump’ screen. The only option thus left for users is taking their phone to the service center, which is fruitless as they suggest an entire motherboard replacement. And motherboard replacements do not come cheap – sometimes costing nearly as much as the device itself.

Back in August, an Asus community moderator did report that they were investigating the issue and searching for its root cause. But over two months later, new complaints have continued to pile up, and Asus still seems to be stuck on recommending motherboard replacements.

Some users found that holding all three buttons down together (power + volume up + volume down) did get them out of the ‘ramdump’ screen and into the bootloader mode. The technique for this is keeping the three buttons pressed until the fastboot mode pops up for a split second. When that happens, do not lift your fingers and continue holding down on the keys until the phone actually stays put on the fastboot screen. Then, let go of the power button followed by the volume buttons.

This has only worked for a few users though and isn’t guaranteed to work for you. No harm in trying though.

Still no luck? Then your best bet would be waiting for Asus to roll out a fix. In the meantime, you can always tweet about the Asus Zenfone 8 and ROG Phone 5 ‘ramdump’ bricking error to pull the company’s attention to it.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

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