Cannot boot with ECC UDIMM?

[joyoftech]

Hi all,

New here, config' is there but also below:
- ASrock B550M-ITX
- AMD 3700X
- Corsair H60 AIO
- PNY CS3030 512GB NVME (for jails)
- 128GB San Disk USB (boot) - I planned to mirror it with another USB key (Kingston Data Traveler) but when I attached it to the boot pool, it said it was faulty
- 3*5TB WD RED
- 1*8TB WD White Air (shucked)
- The 4 disks make 1 raidz pool
- 156W AC/DC power brick
- 250W DC/DC PSU
- UDIMM ECC RAM: KSM32ES8/16ME (16GB)

With my an old(er) non-ECC HyperX Fury 2133 or 2400 MHz 8GB stick, the system boots without any issue (I've lived with it for approx. 2 weeks while I waited for the Kingston server RAM to show up), but with the Kingston ECC RAM, it simply won't boot (I have no graphics card, so I cannot know if anything shows up while booting).

The B550M-ITX with the AMD 3700X should "support DDR4 4600+(OC) / 4533(OC) / 4466(OC) / 4400(OC) / 4333(OC) / 4333(OC) / 4266(OC) / 4200(OC) / 4133(OC) / 4000(OC) / 3866(OC) / 3800(OC) / 3733(OC) / 3600(OC) / 3466(OC) / 3200 / 2933 / 2667 / 2400 / 2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory". So I went with the fastest I found, the 3200 MHz KSM32ES8/16ME...

Now I see in the "Support" section of the page of the motherboard that it only lists KSM26ED8/16ME (the 2666 MHz one). However, there is no way this list is exhaustive (for example, my old HyperX isn't listed).

How can I know what's going wrong and if the module is faulty?

 

[JohnDigital]

Kingston is to be avoided (or it used to be). Not sure about Asrock but SM boards are picky about Kingston. Crucial/Micron/Samsung/Hynix have always been great, but I avoid Kingston.

 

[Apollo]

I am using ECC kingston on my AMD threadripper's, namely 1900X for my FreeNAS/TrueNAs server and 2950X for my main PC. Both running on AsRock X399 Taichi.

You can't rely on the CPU or motherboard manufacturer to tell you anything about RAM compatibility unless they are backing their claim.
They will test a handful of RAM's but won't go much further (They usually do it for big names, MICRON, SAMSUNG, are the big names) ( Potential liability issues, as well as lack of willingness, interest or founding to do so).

If CPU and Motherboard manufacturer were designed based on JEDEC specs and memory manufacturer would also meet the same specs, then there would be no compatibility issues and everything meeting the same JEDEC standard would work.

There is a lot of miss-information and companies and people murking the place.

 

[joyoftech]

OK thanks for the detailed answer. What would be my course of action? Contacting ASrock? Contacting Kingston? Claiming to my vendor that the RAM stick is DOA and ask for replacement/return? Or am I just out of my luck and can throw this in the bin / try to resell at half price?

 

[jgreco]

You can't rely on the CPU or motherboard manufacturer to tell you anything about RAM compatibility unless they are backing their claim.
They will test a handful of RAM's but won't go much further (They usually do it for big names, MICRON, SAMSUNG, are the big names) ( Potential liability issues, as well as lack of willingness, interest or founding to do so).

If CPU and Motherboard manufacturer were designed based on JEDEC specs and memory manufacturer would also meet the same specs, then there would be no compatibility issues and everything meeting the same JEDEC standard would work.

There is a lot of miss-information and companies and people murking the place.

That's a factually misleading response at best, although I'm sure it represents your experience on the matter. But you're just "murking the place" too.

There are a crapton of memory modules out there that would need to be tested to do "exhaustive" testing, and modules come and go as semiconductor supplies come and go too, which means that producing an exhaustive list would need to be an ongoing process for every board model for years after introduction of a board model. Manufacturers don't do this.

Supermicro tests a small set of memory modules with their boards because they actually sell memory rebranded as Supermicro, and if you buy a Supermicro branded set of memory that's listed as working with a board, they "guarantee" it to work. In practice, I don't think companies buy their Supermicro-branded memory because it is somewhat more expensive, but Supermicro also has the decency to post the underlying manufacturer and model numbers on their web site, and many of us in the business will strongly prefer to buy the OEM parts listed as compatible when they are available, because, well, we have better things to do with our days than wrestle with possible incompatibilities.

However, in many cases, as time goes on, the parts available on the market are newer versions or slightly different variants of the Supermicro-tested parts. These generally have a very good history of working as well.

In most cases, manufacturers of generic memory modules actually do very well at creating highly compatible memory modules. This has gotten better over the years as memory controllers have been integrated into the CPU and the involvement of board manufacturers has basically been reduced to running traces between the CPU socket and memory sockets in a well-defined way.

Kingston is to be avoided (or it used to be). Not sure about Asrock but SM boards are picky about Kingston.

Kingston doesn't really make their own stuff. There was a problem back during the Ivy Bridge days where certain Kingston UDIMM modules would not work if you populated a board with four of them, and then Kingston wouldn't consider the modules as RMA-able for the issue, which earned them a bad reputation on the forums here. Other than that, I haven't noticed Supermicro boards as being "picky" about them unless you are talking about Kingston modules that were meant for specific vendor systems.

OK thanks for the detailed answer. What would be my course of action? Contacting ASrock? Contacting Kingston? Claiming to my vendor that the RAM stick is DOA and ask for replacement/return? Or am I just out of my luck and can throw this in the bin / try to resell at half price?

I would try option 3 first (just ask for return), then option 4.

 

[Arwen]

Uh, return it is the only option. It's REGISTERED memory which no Ryzen processor supports;

Kingston 16GB DDR4 3200MHz 288pin DIMM ECC Reg Memory Module KSM32ES8/16ME

Kingston 16GB ECC Unbuffered DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Server Memory Model KSM32ES8/16ME - Newegg.com

Buy Kingston 16GB ECC Unbuffered DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Server Memory Model KSM32ES8/16ME with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

 

[joyoftech]

Uh, return it is the only option. It's REGISTERED memory which no Ryzen processor supports;

Kingston 16GB DDR4 3200MHz 288pin DIMM ECC Reg Memory Module KSM32ES8/16ME

Kingston 16GB ECC Unbuffered DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Server Memory Model KSM32ES8/16ME - Newegg.com

Buy Kingston 16GB ECC Unbuffered DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Server Memory Model KSM32ES8/16ME with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

It's unregistered / unbuffered, see Here
I also have the UDIMM printed on the little box office the stick, so there's no doubt about that.

 

[ThreeDee]

Newegg has same model stuff and list it as Registered
Avadirect.com lists it as Registered
...
Kingston site says Unbuffered

KSM32ES8/16ME Kingston Parts Search - Kingston Technology

Kingston Part Search Results for KSM32ES8/16ME

www.kingston.com

 

[Apollo]

Newegg has same model stuff and list it as Registered
Avadirect.com lists it as Registered
...
Kingston site says Unbuffered

KSM32ES8/16ME Kingston Parts Search - Kingston Technology

Kingston Part Search Results for KSM32ES8/16ME

www.kingston.com

The title on the RAM says Reg, it doesn't necessarily means it is Registered. It could be Regular, but the chances are slim.

I would try to remove the sticks and put them back in, just to make sure they are properly seated.
I would check all the cables and possibly reset the BIOS.

 

[ThreeDee]

I would try to remove the sticks and put them back in, just to make sure they are properly seated.
I would check all the cables and possibly reset the BIOS.

Interestingly enough .. I just bought 2 matching 16GB Nexim branded DDR4 ECC UDIMM's to run on my X470D4U w/3700x .. Both sticks installed, no boot .. no post codes .. nothing.

I took one stick out and it booted fine in both slots A1 and B1 (per the manual ..even though I'm used to the usual A2/B2) .. took other stick and system wouldn't post no matter what slot it was installed in .. put the "good" stick back in and updated the BIOS to newest and the BMC firmware ... installed TrueNAS and Plex and Unifi controller ..

... then .. on whim .. I installed the "bad" stick back onto the board and it all of a sudden works without issue. I had already setup an RMA and posted a scathing review (memory was packaged very poorly) .. I've since deleted the review and canceled the RMA.

I don't know how many times I reseated this RAM .. and then reseated again ..even uncomfortably applying extra pressure to make sure that sucker was all the way in .. this was all with the motherboard laying on a wood table to test components before I install in a case ..


so yeah .. try one stick .. try the other stick .. then try them again

 

[joyoftech]

... I feel so dumb.
I tried with another (identical) non-ECC 8GB stick to see if both are detected and shown in the UI as 16GB.
This second stick was way harder to put in place than its sibling... Either the first one is on the lower end of the width tolerance, or it has adjusted since it's in another motherboard for 5+ years. So I tried my luck again with the Kingston 16GB ECC stick and applied an INSANE amount of force to put it in place and TADAM... i's working! TrueNAS shows:

15.9GiB
total available (ECC)

Thank you all for your answers and for making me doubt of myself...

 

[Arwen]

It's unregistered / unbuffered, see Here
I also have the UDIMM printed on the little box office the stick, so there's no doubt about that.

Weird. I believe you, just my first search found that NewEgg link...

Read your last post, looks like you are good to go.