X79 Motherboard ECC Support

mrluckypants96

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 6, 2015
Messages
431
Alright, I'm in need of a bit of tech support. So for my gaming system I've got a Xeon E5-2680 v1 installed in an MSI X79 OEM board used for the Alienware Aurora R4. Now, I want to use some spare DDR3 ECC memory I had lying around to replace the non-ECC stuff I had previously (for reliability reasons. Also I just want all my systems to have the same RAM, because I'm OCD like that). However, the board won't POST if ECC RAM is installed.

It's not a CPU issue, as my server is using the same RAM with a pair of 2670 v1's. This leaves the motherboard as the only possible incompatibility. But don't the Xeon's have IMC's with ECC support? How does the motherboard stop POSTing with memory that the processor supports?

I don't even get a POST beep code. The fans spin, and that's it. No beeps, no lights on the GPU, nothing.

Any clues as to how to fix this?
 
Sounds like the board doesn't support it. For socket 2011 v1 there is mixed compatibility with ECC DDR3 ram, i have used some sticks with success and some without its really a crapshoot since most conumer boards don't officially support ECC at all. It is possible that the particular ECC ram kit you got isn't supported on the 2011 platform, but unlikely.

Why you would need ECC ram for reliability in a gaming system?
 
I have an ASUS P9x79 WS and it accepts ECC but only unbuffered memory. Are your ECC RAM buffered (registered) or unbuffered? That makes a difference.
 
Sounds like the board doesn't support it. For socket 2011 v1 there is mixed compatibility with ECC DDR3 ram, i have used some sticks with success and some without its really a crapshoot since most conumer boards don't officially support ECC at all. It is possible that the particular ECC ram kit you got isn't supported on the 2011 platform, but unlikely.

Why you would need ECC ram for reliability in a gaming system?

Really it's more for aesthetics than anything else, but I do tend to leave my system running things for long periods of time, so I figure every little bit helps.

I have an ASUS P9x79 WS and it accepts ECC but only unbuffered memory. Are your ECC RAM buffered (registered) or unbuffered? That makes a difference.

It's registered memory. Odd that the C602 chipset supports registered ECC, but the C602-based X79 doesn't.
 
Yeah I don't think ECC registered memory is supported on x79. Too bad as registered memory is very cheap on eBay.
 
Yeah I don't think ECC registered memory is supported on x79. Too bad as registered memory is very cheap on eBay.

It isn't supported, but I have gotten sticks to work with different boards. As I said earlier compatibility is rather limited.
 
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