Help finding a motherboard for new build

[Etorix]

Is there any way to test ECC functionality properly?

Only if you have means to flip bits in RAM, so you can trace how they are handled…

ECC is an act of faith: You trust the high engineers priests and pray.
If you want guarantees, go for validated Intel plateforms or EPYC.
On Ryzen, pray harder that it does actually something of the ECC part.

 

[phaelax]

By confirm I meant that people actually had the setup and ran memtest86 on it to verify ECC was doing its job. I get what you're saying and I don't disagree, but I spent hours the other night going through forums all over the internet looking for folks who had this working and could confirm it. I will admit that I don't have a lot of experience using memtest myself and I don't know what it does to verify the functionality of ECC or if simply just looks at the bios to see if its enabled. Because as you said, it could "work" but perhaps not with any of the actual functionality.

only AMD platforms that support ECC are Epyc and Threadripper. Ryzen CPUs are out.

The link you posted states that Ryzen is supported. The way it reads to me is, when APU is present then it must be PRO. But a chip without an APU should be fine.

I reached out to Asus for clarification and after they put me on hold for awhile to look into it they said they didn't have that information available and to contact AMD. Reaching out to AMD has been a struggle.

I just keep adding to my reply and never posting it...

When to microcenter today, they price matched harddrives with newegg (which were on sale :p ) and the ryzen was only $150. The ram I had to order and should be in monday/tuesday. I'm going to be the guinea pig here gamble ECC on a ryzen. For the boot drive, I had a 250gb 960 evo laying around and I'll cannibalize a seasonic 750 modular psu from an old computer. (i have a 430 seasonic but not modular)
Until I figure out what I want to do about a GPU (for transcoding), I have several options on-hand to get me by for now: Quadro NVS290, NVS440, geforce 7300GT, 8600GTS, PC5900, 660gtx.

Once I get the ram, if I'm having any issues I do have 15 days to return the cpu/motherboard. In theory, it should all work. Emphasis on theory!

 

[Davvo]

The link you posted states that Ryzen is supported. The way it reads to me is, when APU is present then it must be PRO. But a chip without an APU should be fine.

I reached out to Asus for clarification and after they put me on hold for awhile to look into it they said they didn't have that information available and to contact AMD. Reaching out to AMD has been a struggle.

I just keep adding to my reply and never posting it...

Nope, Ryzen do not officially support ECC. I believe to have explained clearly in that post, but will clearify more: unofficial support is not support. Will it work? Maybe.

That link is a declaration from that mobo company, up to you to trust them, but you read it correctly.

@Etorix explaination is spot on.

Anyway, glad you are getting to assemble it.
I wish you a smooth-sailing experience.
Also, I am so envious of you mericans having microcenter.

 

[phaelax]

@Etorix explaination is spot on.

So basically, the only true way to know if ECC is indeed functional is if errors do occur. While I play with the new build, I'll still have all my data duped on a qnap, I haven't run out of space quite yet. If it turns out to work, then great and we'll have a solid answer. If not, then we'll still have a solid answer to tell future folks considering this route and I'll be out $300. It's a gamble I'm willing to take for the sake of research that may hopefully benefit others.

Also, I am so envious of you mericans having microcenter.

I used to live about 10min from one, then I moved to another city. Now it's almost 45min drive. I don't know how they do it, but microcenter always seems to have the best prices on processors. I ended up ordering my ram from amazon because I'll get it monday, from newegg it was going to take 10+ days and I only have 15 days to return the motherboard.

 

[DigitalMinimalist]

So basically, the only true way to know if ECC is indeed functional is if errors do occur.

Question: is there any easy way to force errors? E.g. stressing ram with loads of I/O?

 

[Davvo]

Question: is there any easy way to force errors? E.g. stressing ram with loads of I/O?

Not really.
You can (and should) do a long stress test on RAM with memtest when you burn in your system.

 

[Etorix]

Question: is there any easy way to force errors? E.g. stressing ram with loads of I/O?

Operating a strong radioactive source close to RAM modules should do it… You didn't ask for a safe way

ECC RAM really is something you have to blindly trust the manufacturer over.

 

[Redcoat]

Question: is there any easy way to force errors? E.g. stressing ram with loads of I/O?

5 years or so ago I purchased the Pro version of memtest in order to get the error injection function. I engaged the tech folks at Passmark when enabling that function appeared to do nothing on my FreeNAS Mini's C2750 motherboard.

They reviewed a debug log:

"Got the log. Your hardware supports ECC injection. So no problem there.​

​

But the DRAM Control Operation (DCO) register is showing that the ECC injection has been disabled in your BIOS firmware. You may want to check your BIOS setup to see if there is an option to enable ECC injection. Otherwise, you would need to flash a custom BIOS to prevent the ECC injection feature from being disabled.​

​

In the next release of MemTest86 we'll decode the bits in the DCO registers to provide a clearer indication in the log that the injection feature is disabled in BIOS.​

At the moment this string appearing in the log shows the feature was disabled. "DCO=C0101201"​

​

The warning message in the next release will be,​

​

**Warning** DRPLOCK is set to 1. DRPLOCK must be cleared by the BIOS to enable error injection"​

​

There are later forum posts that describe that error message and being able to change that setting in BIOS - I could not on my motherboard.

There's a long post round here somwhere detailing some very resourceful efforts on fault injection: https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/the-usefulness-of-ecc-if-we-cant-assess-its-working.83580/ - it's a good read.

 

[DigitalMinimalist]

If I remember correctly, there is such a BIOS option for my X470D4U.

If I get hold of Memtest Pro (44$), I should be able to inject errors and test if ECC works?
That would be awesome !

 

[Etorix]

If I remember correctly, there is such a BIOS option for my X470D4U.

If I get hold of Memtest Pro (44$), I should be able to inject errors and test if ECC works?
That would be awesome !

Indeed, but there may be an extra hoop with the CPU:

MemTest86 - Compare Editions

6. ECC error injection is a feature that simulates ECC errors in order to test the system's error handling mechanism. The following chipsets may support this feature but may be disabled (depending on your BIOS configurations):
…
AMD Ryzen (17h-19h) [Note: Injection is disabled in most AMD retail CPUs. To enable, please consult the Processor Programming Reference document]

Maybe that's why the hard-to-get Ryzen PRO are recommended for ECC support?

(Note that 1st/2nd generation Xeon Scalable are conspicuously absent from the list of supported platforms for ECC error injection, so if Memtest Pro would fail to actually test ECC on your Ryzen platform you'd be in good company…)

 

[Davvo]

Maybe that's why the hard-to-get Ryzen PRO are recommended for ECC support?

The PRO series officially have ECC support.

 

[phaelax]

Got my ram yesterday, it's 2x16Gb Nemix ddr4-3200. Booted up no problem and ran memtest which took almost 5 hours. I don't have the pro version but may consider buying it after what I've read here. As far as I can tell it says ECC is enabled. The motherboard BIOS is not impressive on my asus TUF B550, and despite it trying to look fancy it seems to offer very little control. I didn't see any options about enabling/disabling anything ECC related. I don't have the raid drives attached yet, my dumb self forgot to order sata cables and I'm not spending $7 a piece at the store for them. Not when I can buy 6 for the price of one online. (monoprice, bought from them for years without problems)

I've decided to with Scale over Core. My primary reason may seem silly to some, but I want to run jellyfin (i hate plex). On Core it looks like I'd have to spin up a linux vm and run it from there. Scale has a jellyfin package or jail or whatever you wanna call it.