AMD APU ECC Support

It seems ASRock and Asus has ECC support for AMD Ryzen CPUs on their motherboards.

However, for APUs, only the PRO version APU enables ECC support. I’d buy a PRO series APU but you cannot find them anywhere! I called all the distributors on AMD’s site and even AMD sales and no one can seem to get them.

I’ve read that that early beta BIOS for Raven Ridge APU enabled ECC regardless of PRO version or regular. I’d like to try to mod the latest BIOS to enable ECC on regular APUs.

@Lost_N_BIOS any ideas on how to do this?

Do you already have a board and CPU? You don’t say. If you’re still in the market to buy (and have no objections to second hand) you can get the some PRO models on eBay, eg: Ryzen Pro 2200GE

Not interested in throwing money at the problem :wink:

This is a BIOS modding forum and I’m here to tinker and learn!

If you buy from somewhere with good buyer protection (e.g. eBay), it’s very hard to get screwed over.

A quick Taobao search found this: https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a23…ucket=10#detail

This is only anecdotal evidence, but most of my PC parts come from eBay/Taobao/Yahoo Auctions these days, and I haven’t had a dud part yet.



Nice find! If all else fails I’ll get that and a thin ITX AM4 board.
@_haru : how did you find that on taobao? when I search for "2200GE PRO" I get no results.


Found info on other threads. Plan of attack:

1) Verify ECC traces between CPU and RAM => OK
2) Differential diagnosis with ECC working BIOS and CPU

It looks like the BIOS sets MSR bits to initialize the features. Not sure if PRO and regular are both CPU’s in the same microcode cpu00810F10

@e97

Make sure you’re in Mainland China mode - click on the button in the top left corner to open a drop-down menu, then select the second option.

@e97 - If early beta BIOS allow it, then it’s possible some other non-beta BIOS may be modified to allow it too, if it’s just a setting that needs enabled or revealed. Does this mean early, as in before now, or did you mean recent beta?
I need to look at a specific BIOS to comment any more than that.

@Lost_N_BIOS

I only read this on the internet… so take it for what its worth but it seems to be in line with mfg BIOS page (works on PRO versions)


Screen Shot 2019-08-08 at 1.15.10 AM.png



https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/amd…3#post-39418197

Screen Shot 2019-08-08 at 1.15.41 AM.png



https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/8h…ge_ecc/dymy33e/

From more research, after reading through the edac and coreboot source code, on AMD 17h family CPUs on Promontory chipset, it looks like the BIOS → AGESA/PSP initializes the features.

I’m picking up an AM4 motherboard with ECC support and a Summit Ridge CPU (known working ECC), Raven Ridge APU, and hopefully a PRO Raven Ridge APU if I can find one… Then run it and see what happens when its active and when it isnt. The easiest hack if possible would be to initialize the regular as a PRO… no idea if it will work because the PRO has a bunch of other security and management features for enterprise use.

Looks like it’s coming from someone that knows what they are talking about, that’s an actual AMD rep correct?

If it’s some setting given at some time, then hidden, or never revealed and always in the BIOS but hidden, then I can make visible for you usually. If it’s in the BIOS, I doubt upon “removal” they’d take the time to remove support, rather than just hide the setting from user.
Like I mentioned, if you link me to a BIOS from some board you are considering then I can check and let you know if I can see the setting in there or not.

Oh I believe the AMD rep, but the anecdotal evidence of ECC support being enable on regular APUs is suspect as I haven’t seen anyone else mention it.

That would be super convenient if it was only hidden :slight_smile:

I’m looking at the Asrock B450 Pro4, heres the latest recommended BIOS for pre-Matisse CPUs: http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/BIOS…o4(3.50)ROM.zip

~

Also found this article: https://www.eteknix.com/amd-agesa-1-0-0-…-ridge-support/




Maybe while Raven Ridge support was in beta with AGESA 1.0.0.7 (renamed to 0.0.7.0), they enabled all features on all APUs to make it easier to test.


http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/BIOS…o4(3.10)ROM.zip - AGESA 0.0.7.2 (Raven Ridge support)

Got the B450 Pro and heard back from AMD sales so ended up getting a 2200GE PRO with a full warranty : )

Working nicely with Samsung 16GB DDR4 2666 ECC UDIMM.

@e97 - sorry I missed your reply earlier, I checked that 3.50 BIOS and it does not have any visible or hidden ECC options in it, so I can’t tell for sure if it can run ECC or not.

@Lost_N_BIOS no worries - the board came with 3.10 and ECC is enabled and working according to BIOS, dmesg and edac-util. I’ll stick with 3.10 since everything seems to be working.

OK, good to hear it! 3.50 probably works just as good then, it’s just there is no BIOS options for this visible (or hidden from user that could be revealed) is all I meant