Gigabyte 990FX-UD3 and ECC Works fine!

T

tangoseal

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Dec 18, 2010
Messages
9,741
If anyone out there gives a hoot I wanted to share this anyways.

If you are in the market to use AMD stuff because they support ECC well you are also in luck with Gigabytes 990FX UD3-5-and7 boards. I am running a UD3 in a build I am about to do for a home server with a 6 core FX chip and ECC totally works and has all the fine tuning options in BIOS. Asus was one of the only other I knew of that would support ECC and I have manually and physically verified that although GB doesnt advertise it they in fact DO support ECC.

I had a bunch of older store credits for Microcenter in GA and went ahead and bought this killer deal. I got a FX-6100 and a Gigabyte 990FX board for $230 after taxes. I really wanted to have the FX board so I have room to upgrade to better AMD stuff down the road because I love the fact their sockets hardly change between 2-3 generations of processors.

Okay back to doing other stuff. Hope this helps anyone that was concerned.
 
tangoseal said:
If anyone out there gives a hoot I wanted to share this anyways.

If you are in the market to use AMD stuff because they support ECC well you are also in luck with Gigabytes 990FX UD3-5-and7 boards. I am running a UD3 in a build I am about to do for a home server with a 6 core FX chip and ECC totally works and has all the fine tuning options in BIOS. Asus was one of the only other I knew of that would support ECC and I have manually and physically verified that although GB doesnt advertise it they in fact DO support ECC.

I had a bunch of older store credits for Microcenter in GA and went ahead and bought this killer deal. I got a FX-6100 and a Gigabyte 990FX board for $230 after taxes. I really wanted to have the FX board so I have room to upgrade to better AMD stuff down the road because I love the fact their sockets hardly change between 2-3 generations of processors.

Okay back to doing other stuff. Hope this helps anyone that was concerned.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this!

I was actually googling and trying to find any spec whatsoever that would confirm or deny whether this motherboard would support ECC or not, and the result brought me right back here to the [H] :p

My next home server will be on Microcenter's FX-8120 and GA-990FXA-UD3 combo deal for $240. Can't beat that.

Did you use any particular type of ECC ram?
 
Can you verify with memtest or Aida? I wonder if it SAYS its on, but not really fuctioning.
 
I am wondering if it is actually functioning as well. tangoseal, would you test to see if ECC is truelly working? Do you also have options is the BIOS for ECC? I have been thinking about building a new server and have been using AMD for all personel builds since Athlon. This is the first time I have been considering using Intel. I want a board that can utilize ECC RAM and I would perfer Gigabyte over ASUS, so if this is true I'm going to pickup a 990FX UD3.
 
"Can you verify with memtest or Aida? I wonder if it SAYS its on, but not really fuctioning."

I would like to know this as well :)
 
How is this board heat wise? I am upgrading and want this one because of the reviews I have read and because it is gigabyte. But I also read that it gets hot.
 
Jorona said:
Can you verify with memtest or Aida? I wonder if it SAYS its on, but not really fuctioning.
Click to expand...
Floppy disk access no longer works? I had a socket 7 motherboard with that problem when ECC memory was installed and ECC was turned on in the BIOS. :D

At least for some mobos, MemTest86 will indicate if ECC is working, and it tests the ECC separately.
 
Did we ever figure out if Memtest86 showed real ECC support?
 
It would be nice to think so. But unlike what the original poster claimed, however, all the info from Gigabyte on the web does not show ECC support for this board (its UD3, UD5 & UD7 variants). Start here: GA-990FXA-UD3 (the proper name has an "A" in it).

The (English) PDF user manual from the Gigabyte site above dated as of the board release (one version for all three variants) makes no mention of ECC. The screenshots of the BIOS in the manual also shows no areas for ECC. No BIOS updates for any of the three board variants makes mention of ECC.

And finally, the "Memory Support List" button on the web pages for each board directs to a PDF download for QVL (qualified vendors list, dated 2012/06/01 as of now). No memory from any vendor in that file is of the ECC type. Also curiously, despite the fact these boards officially support 32GB of memory, only a single (!) stick on the QVL list is larger than 4GB. Its a Samsung branded one of the slow 1333 speed. Meaning if you want to stay with the QVL, 16GB is the maximum you will get unless you use that particular stick.

Gigabyte apparently "officially" supports ECC in their server boards only (for AMD, they only offer socket F & socket C32, both for Opteron CPUs) as seen on the spec sheets & manuals. Double-checking their most recent socket FM2 non-server AMD boards, no indication of ECC on any of them either, unlike Asus (sobs).

Another favorite motherboard vendor here--Supermicro--offers AMD boards & ECC support for Opterons only, as you might expect for them (but with a larger, more modern selection than Gigabyte has).

So it would be nice to think that the 990FXA-UD3/UD5/UD7 supported ECC. But the pre-buy official info out there says otherwise. Would sure be cool to have alternatives to Asus (who officially support ECC in most of their AMD boards; info in manuals, etc.) and a couple others. But before spending money, I prefer making sure the vendor can confirm ECC support.

Seeing as that pretty much all modern AMD memory controllers offer ECC support (unlike Intel), leaving it out of the BIOS or lacking motherboard support on non-server boards is unfortunate. Probably saves a few cents for the manufacturer. Oh well. If the original poster or otherwise can provide (non-Photoshopped) screenshots of Memtest86 tests on this board (that also confirm this is actually the board being tested), it might remove some of the doubt.

P.S. Note that just because ECC memory "works" on a board does _not_ mean the board supports ECC functionality. Ever since parity memory was released years ago, such memory has always been backwards compatible with most boards that don't support error checking and/or correction. You can usually use such memory in regular boards, but you won't get ECC functionality. With registered/buffered memory vs non-registered, though, you normally can't use one type in a board that supports the other.
 
Last edited:
Ok, i just bought a Gigabyte 990fxa-ud5 and 16GB unbuffered ECC memory from Kingston.

Testing the board with ordinary non-ecc memory shows hides all options in BIOS for ECC memory.
As soon as i switched to the new unbuffered ECC memory, i got the option to enable ECC in BIOS.

Memtest86+ reports no ECC, but AIDA64 reports that ECC is enabled and working!

It apears that memtest86+ v. 4.20 does not report the correct ECC status.

Does any of you have specific tests to confirm whether or not ECC is working?
 
Interesting. It brings up the question even more of why the &*^% Gigabyte makes no mention of ECC support or options in any manuals for any of its AMD consumer boards, but interesting.

Memtest86+ I know has had steadily increasing ECC status/polling support for years. But perhaps not for Bulldozer/Piledriver CPUs yet. CPU-Z, for example, only tells you that your installed memory is ECC, not whether the BIOS enables/supports it properly. AIDA64 may or may not be similar.

Experience here says that if you do in fact see ECC options in the BIOS, its likely going to work properly. Current AMD CPUs (of all varieties) have integrated memory controllers that support ECC. Unlike Intel that shuts it off for everything except Xeons (& Itaniums) in the name of market segmentation (grrr..). But yah, without confirmation in some way from the board manufacturer, it doesn't raise 100% confidence. Nice to hear, though. Might you share some screenshots of the BIOS showing ECC settings? :)
 
I used to own one of these motherboards. While I never tested the ECC functionality, I can confirm that it was a mostly solid board while I owned it. There were some issues with random items, such as not supporting booting from USB devices, but it ran my 1090T stable at 4GHz/1.45V for a 48-hour Prime95 test. The heatsinks on the board were small, but that did not seem to make it run hot in my experience. I never saw temperatures above the mid-30s C in HWMonitor for any of the motherboard sensors. The CPU did get up to the low 60s during the stress test.

It was buried in my old build:

AMD_Rig.jpg
 
The Gigabyte memory support list is poorly maintained. It has not been updated in a long time.
 
Fritingo said:
Interesting. It brings up the question even more of why the &*^% Gigabyte makes no mention of ECC support or options in any manuals for any of its AMD consumer boards, but interesting.

Memtest86+ I know has had steadily increasing ECC status/polling support for years. But perhaps not for Bulldozer/Piledriver CPUs yet. CPU-Z, for example, only tells you that your installed memory is ECC, not whether the BIOS enables/supports it properly. AIDA64 may or may not be similar.

Experience here says that if you do in fact see ECC options in the BIOS, its likely going to work properly. Current AMD CPUs (of all varieties) have integrated memory controllers that support ECC. Unlike Intel that shuts it off for everything except Xeons (& Itaniums) in the name of market segmentation (grrr..). But yah, without confirmation in some way from the board manufacturer, it doesn't raise 100% confidence. Nice to hear, though. Might you share some screenshots of the BIOS showing ECC settings? :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, it is strange that they dont mention ECC support anywhere on their website. With a little googling i found this on amdzone.
Which further indicates ECC support on the 990-fxa motherboard line.

And a picture of the ECC settings on the Gigabyte 990fxa-ud5 WITH unbuffered ECC memory installed:
Link.
 
Nelius said:
Yeah, it is strange that they dont mention ECC support anywhere on their website. With a little googling i found this on amdzone.
Which further indicates ECC support on the 990-fxa motherboard line.

And a picture of the ECC settings on the Gigabyte 990fxa-ud5 WITH unbuffered ECC memory installed:
Link.
Click to expand...

Sorry, lost track of this thread over the holidays.

That's a nice looking BIOS (wink wink) :D.

Good to see it supporting ECC, despite the company saying nothing about it. It would for sure be a bit strange to have Asus properly handling ECC memory on AM3/+ boards, but not Gigabyte.
 
I thought I'd attempt to keep this thread alive with an update:

I recently purchased a GA-990FXA-UD7, FX-8350, and 32GB of unbuffered ECC to replace my failing Tyan S2915E. My UD7 board is a rev. 3 with an FC BIOS. Apparently this is the Hybrid Bios that supports both legacy and EFI compatible devices. Very clever. But nowhere could I find ECC support. I promptly fired off an email to Gigabyte Tech Support to find out if maybe it was a BIOS version issue and the reply I got amounted to a resounding NO. No support for ECC features on this board. I also asked if they would kindly list the AMD FX compatible boards that did support ECC. I'm awaiting their response.

My guess is that if you were lucky enough to have purchased a product before the 'upgrade' to the GUI based Hybrid BIOS, then you may indeed have proper ECC support. Well, the Gigabyte has some great features, but I may have see to if I can RMA it for an ASUS Sabertooth.

It's my understanding that EFI is very extensible. I wonder if we'll see community UEFI mods . . .
 
OK. Below is the transcript from Gigabyte Tech Support:



Answer - 1397321
Answer : Dear customer,

Basically work station designed model board has no ECC support feature. ECC support feature only available on Server boards.

Best regards,

Gigabyte technical support team.

Question - 1397321
From :
Sent : 9/4/2013 08:48
Question : Can you please identify which Gigabyte AMD boards support ECC?
Answer - 1397281
Answer : Dear customer,

Unfortunately ECC memory will work but ECC feature on memory is not supported on 990FXA-UD7 board.
Refer to website below under memory section will see memory support info :

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4658#sp

Best regards,

Gigabyte technical support team.
Question - 1397281
From :
Sent : 9/4/2013 06:01
Question : It's my understanding that the FX series processors and the 990FX chipset are capable of supporting unbuffered ECC ram. I am using Kingston DDR3 1600Mhz PC3 12800 ECC CL11 DIMMS (KVR16E11K4/32). My system recognizes the memory and seems to read the SPD information, but there does not appear to be any way to configure ECC features in the BIOS. The ram seems to be stable and performs comparably to memory with similar timings. Is there a different bios that enables ECC support?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model Name : GA-990FXA-UD7(rev. 3.0)
--------------------------
M/B Rev : 3.0
BIOS Ver : FC
Serial No. : SN132700025007
Purchase Dealer : Amazon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VGA Brand : XFX Model : FX-795A-TD
CPU Brand : AMD Model : FX-8350 Speed : 4.0GHZ
Operation System : Win 7 64-bit SP : 1
Memory Brand : Kingston Type : DDR3 ECC
Memory Size : 4 x 8GB Speed : 1600
Power Supply : 900 W


Areca 1224-8I Raid Controller
 
Well, I'll give my two cents here...

My system runs a Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 with 8Gb (2x4Gb) Crucial (CT2KIT51272BD1339) *unbuffered* ECC RAM DIMM's.

I contacted Gigabyte before purchasing the motherboard to confirm ECC would work, as I'd heard mixed reports around the web. They were unable to confirm support, so as other posters are saying ECC is definitely not *officially* supported by these boards. For that reason, no ECC RAM appears in the mobo's QVL list - however, I can confirm that Crucial's CT2KIT51272BD1339 2x4Gb ECC RAM kit works without issue - that said, there is no option in the BIOS to enable or disable ECC, as there has been in every single other ECC_enabled motherboard's BIOS that I've ever worked with. So, unless someone has a way for me to check, I cannot confirm that my RAM is actually working in ECC mode - but, as I said, the system boots and runs without any issues.

For reference, I'm using an FX-8350 CPU, and this is Revision 3 of the UD7 running BIOS version F10 (the latest stable release as of this posting)
 
What are the chances that the system works stable fine, the BIOS reports ECC memory etc, but the memory is not actually working as an ECC memory, but as a common one?
i.e. still having 1-2 bits flipped/day...?

Is there a way to test this?

I personally think that this cannot be done, but still how can you test it. Can you copy for example 20gb files, back and forth, and then do a validation or something?
 
Hi guys I have this motherboard and was wondering what 16gb modules have or will likely work on it. I would like to get 64gb ram on my motherboard for my ESX server. Thanks
 
I would expect REG ECC to not work on a desktop board and 16GB unbuffered ECC DDR3 to be very expensive (cheaper to replace the board with a server board and CPU that supports REG ECC).
 
deorum said:
What are the chances that the system works stable fine, the BIOS reports ECC memory etc, but the memory is not actually working as an ECC memory, but as a common one?
i.e. still having 1-2 bits flipped/day...?

Is there a way to test this?

I personally think that this cannot be done, but still how can you test it. Can you copy for example 20gb files, back and forth, and then do a validation or something?
Click to expand...

One of the real confirmations is to check for EDAC messages in syslog:

[ 4.867198] EDAC MC: Ver: 2.1.0
...
[ 4.874374] MCE: In-kernel MCE decoding enabled.
[ 4.875414] AMD64 EDAC driver v3.4.0
[ 4.875438] EDAC amd64: DRAM ECC enabled.
...
[ 4.875542] EDAC amd64: CS0: Unbuffered DDR3 RAM
[ 4.875545] EDAC amd64: CS1: Unbuffered DDR3 RAM
[ 4.875546] EDAC amd64: CS2: Unbuffered DDR3 RAM
[ 4.875548] EDAC amd64: CS3: Unbuffered DDR3 RAM

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/139319/how-to-tell-whether-ram-ecc-is-working

Memtest+ RAM type indicator isn't entirely reliable. ECC BIOS setting itself doesn't provide a guarantee since ECC RAM can function in non-ECC mode.
 
Last edited:
i.e. still having 1-2 bits flipped/day...?
Click to expand...

If this was the rate detecting that would be easy. I mean run memtest86+ for 2 to 4 days and see the reported differences. In practice the rate is no where near that high (for non defective dimms) making detection take a much longer time.
 
You can expect 1 bit flip per GB per week, on average.

Some references:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/solar-storms-fast-facts/
"Extensive background radiation studies by IBM in the 1990s suggest that computers typically experience about one cosmic-ray-induced error per 256 megabytes of RAM per month."

http://lambda-diode.com/opinion/ecc-memory
" So the probability of having at least one bit error in 4 gigabytes of memory at sea level on planet Earth in 72 hours is over 95% .

Note that you don't need 72 hours of continuous operation for that to happen. If you leave your computer on from 8 in the morning to midnight, that'll mean that you'll have a bit error in 4.5 days with probability exceeding 95% . Modern operating systems use all the available memory as a disk cache. Very easy to fill it up."

This study raises the probability even higher.
http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~bianca/papers/sigmetrics09.pdf

Based on my own operating experience, these probabilities are in the ball-park.
 
I have an old build I did years ago with a Sabertooth 990FX R2 mobo and had a problem develop under warranty. After much annoying discussion where I think they pretended not to understand what I was saying, I was finally able to RMA the board and they sent a replacement.

The replacement was defective immediately. I was very unhappy having to reassemble around their replacement only to find they had sent me a dud. I complained about this and they just ignored me. I put the build aside and figured that the price would come down and later I'd just buy another and rebuild that box.

Well the price never came down. They still cost $200. I am looking for a way to rebuild my box. Is there a newer cheap replacement that works well?
 
I used to worry about finding consumer hardware that would support more enterprise-like features like ECC and IOMMU/VT-d, but it was never satisfactory.

Features were often u documented, would function intermittently, or would be there in one revision and not in the next.

I have since shifted my methodology.

I shop for used Supermicro or Tyan server boards on eBay from reputable sellers, and use those instead. They may not be the latest and greatest, but you get a good reliable system surprisingly cheap, and features are guaranteed.

In the summer of 2014 I bought a dual socket Supermicro X8DTE motherboard and two Hexacore Xeon L5640's for a grand total of less than $300, and it has been a great server. Still chugging on in my basement today.

Ram and drives cost me a little bit more, but they would have with consumer hardware as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top