ECC Memory not Enabling Under Ryzen on the B450 Pro4

Hardware Motherboards
1

So, though it is not tested by AMD, ECC is usable and does work under Ryzen. There is on caveat, the motherboard has to support it.

The B450 Pro4 does support it:

  • AMD Ryzen series CPUs (Summit Ridge) support DDR4 3200+(OC)/2933(OC)/2667/2400/2133 ECC & non-ECC, un-buffered memory*

So I grabbed the most available ECC in my area. I just got a single 4GB stick to check that it’s acutally working before I buy any more. Turns out this was a good idea.

So out of the box, the B450 Pro4 has ECC enabled on “auto”. I booted into memtest86+ which states that ECC is “off” and also says that ECC is “Disabled”. I set it to “Enabled” just to make sure, but memtest86+ still says it’s disabled

Weird? I’m on Ryzen 1600. The memory stick I used is the KVR24E17S8/4. It’s unbuffered so it should work. Is it because I’m running only one stick (i.e no dual channel). Is the memory module just not supported?

The BIOS settings are like a jungle on this board.

Any suggestions on getting this frankenstein monster working?

2

Memtest86 can’t reliably detect this on amd. Iirc you have to have Intel for that detection to work.

Boot a recent Linux live cd and check dmesg output for clues about the state of ecc.

3

Cheers Wendell, I never thought I’d see ECC running on consumer gear. Just wish the board had more SATA ports.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ dmesg | grep -i edac
[    0.119497] EDAC MC: Ver: 3.0.0
[   16.622202] EDAC amd64: Node 0: DRAM ECC enabled.
[   16.622204] EDAC amd64: F17h detected (node 0).
[   16.622246] EDAC MC: UMC0 chip selects:
[   16.622247] EDAC amd64: MC: 0:     0MB 1:     0MB
[   16.622247] EDAC amd64: MC: 2:     0MB 3:     0MB
[   16.622248] EDAC amd64: MC: 4:     0MB 5:     0MB
[   16.622248] EDAC amd64: MC: 6:     0MB 7:     0MB
[   16.622251] EDAC MC: UMC1 chip selects:
[   16.622251] EDAC amd64: MC: 0:  4096MB 1:     0MB
[   16.622252] EDAC amd64: MC: 2:     0MB 3:     0MB
[   16.622253] EDAC amd64: MC: 4:     0MB 5:     0MB
[   16.622253] EDAC amd64: MC: 6:     0MB 7:     0MB
[   16.622254] EDAC amd64: using x8 syndromes.
[   16.622254] EDAC amd64: MCT channel count: 1
[   16.622329] EDAC MC0: Giving out device to module amd64_edac controller F17h: DEV 0000:00:18.3 (INTERRUPT)
[   16.622340] EDAC PCI0: Giving out device to module amd64_edac controller EDAC PCI controller: DEV 0000:00:18.0 (POLLED)
[   16.622341] AMD64 EDAC driver v3.5.0