X99 ECC support

@Lost_N_Bios ah 7zip, yea no problem, all the same to the extractor tool : )

flashrom -w reads, erases, writes, verifies. forgot to mention the erase part.

While talking to their engineers, I ended up loading windows. Luckily I had an old ssd with it and it started up fine. It looks like theres some configuration issues with the RAM and the ECC lines may be connected after all as it shows a 72-bit total data width. The two imc (integrated memory controllers) look to be running in dual channel with 2 DIMMs each when they should be running quad channel with 2 DIMMs each as I have 8 DIMMs populated. I sent them a bunch of debug info and a way to verify ECC ( AIDA64 and https://forums.servethehome.com/index.ph…e-windows.4087/ ). They said they’d will get back to me in two days with a new BIOS… hopefully this time it will work!

@raun0 I think coreboot has some support for X58 chipsets already…

Great, great, and great!

Hopefully they sort this out for you! So, in windows, you could better tell, it was almost working?

Win has a lot of nice GUI system info tools: CPUz, AIDA64, etc…

linux has similar info in text form: dmidecode, lspci, lsusb, etc…

I had a feeling it was an incorrect initialization issue and it was confirmed by similar info being strange in two difference OSes. The vendor is familiar with Windows as are most motherboard mfgs – nearly all the tools are written for Win… it was easier to find the issue with win tools so they could verify and also have something to test against.

Last time they tested it, I think they checked the RAM SPD info. which shows ECC and mistook that for having it enabled and working. I sent them memtest86 which was helpful in confirming the same issue and not dependent on an OS. Once we got Win debug info and tools it made much more sense and I think they have a good plan to get it working since now they can easily see if ECC is being utilized by the CPU and mainboard.

A good way to verify ECC is working properly is to use memtest86 pro and the ECC injection features of the platform to inject errors and check if they are caught and corrected. The best way is an out of band hardware ECC verification tool, basically a DIMM module hooked up to a controller where you can tweak various parameters like voltages and speeds and introduce all kinds of timing issues and errors… but thats ridiculously expensive and complicated.

That makes sense, I think a lot of detailed stuff is easier to find and or check in windows too, but this is probably mainly due to tools available and or knowing where/how to check better due to daily use vs some other OS

Ha, yes, ram SPD info isn’t something to look at here, unless you need to check if the ram is actual ECC enabled maybe.
Being a board manufacturer, you’d think they’d have some of these memory specific testing tools,but maybe not since they don’t sell mainly servers where ECC is used most of the time.

Yea, I think they are a newer company, that would explain the evaluation version of the AMI BIOS and all the debug options. The board also has a debug header!

It seems many companies are taking advantage of the cheap Xeons (v1, v2 and now v3 and v4) have hit End-of-Life cycle that are being retired from the enterprise market. They are being recycled into the used market and available for a fraction of their retail cost. That explains the many X79 and and now X99 boards from the Chinese motherboard makers.

I think all BIOS are like that, but most hide tons of stuff from everyone for various reasons.

Same thing happened with X58 Xeons as well, and those boards still have high resale value after all this time too

@Lost_N_BIOS here’s the BIOS with ECC working

[ removed at factory request ]

@e97 - nothing attached? Thanks, for sharing once you do post, I will keep copy handy in case someone else needs it later (I would edit in their info, in case yours is there ie dumped BIOS etc)
So, what did they have to do eventually, did they explain?

Would you mind doing me a favor? Reupload this package of ME FW if you would (not to Mega and not firefox upload thing either), thanks
https://mega.nz/#!qBVGGahQ!Ymy_xNU6lBzZZ…ReE2lRsI1Awn-dQ

Added another link. I’m not sure, havent diffed the BIOS’es yet but looks like they changed the platform to C612 vs X99, maybe that init’d the ECC code.

Thanks! Hmm, so it was maybe a ME FW issue? I didn’t look in there, maybe ECC control is there too

Please see my edit above, thanks

here ya go https://ufile.io/einwj2rc

You rock!

Hi,

I am facing the same problem with this motherboard. Could you please pm me the new bios @e97 ?

Moreover, did you check if vt-x and vt-d is working?

Thanks.

@e97 Could you also provide me the latest BIOS for the Jingsha/Kllisre X99 DDR3 board? Next to the ECC issue, while running it under Linux I have also encountered a X99 platform bug which is exposed when using an Intel i350 LAN card (workaround is to use “pci=nommconf” as a boot parameter) - see: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions…ror-aer-bad-tlp [the LAN card works without issues on Windows though]

Further reading suggests that there is a BIOS fix needed from Intel.

Another unrelated issue is that Secureboot complains that the factory default signatures are invalid.

By the way, I can run the BIOS from the Huananzhi X99-TF (the latest from August 2020 doesn’t bring the memory timing settings menu, but it boots noticebly faster than older Huananzhi BIOS revisions) on that board, but there are other ACPI errors popping up there which I don’t get with the stock bios.

Dear e97, please, e-mail me the BIOS with proper REG ECC support under Linux.
My mail is tetracen-at-abv-dot-bg

Hi,

I’ve been reading this thread with great interest.
I have a MSI X99A Godlike Gaming CARBON motherboard paired with a E5-2697v3 CPU. I can’t get this motherboard to post with registered ECC RAM. I would really like to use registered ECC RAM with this motherboard and I’m thinking if this can be a hidden option in BIOS as X99A Workstation motherboard have officially support for registered ECC RAM.

Unfortunately I can’t post links yet as I’m a new member.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hello, could you resend the Bios with ECC working please. Can’t find it anywhere


Turn off the PPR injection test, lower the memory frequency. eg . The actual RAM was 2400 MHz, but switching to 1600 MHz has only 0.5% reduce in bench mark but gainning stable performance.

hello ymmtech, by any chance do u have the Bios that enables ECC functionality? and if so can u send me ?

If anyone got the final settings that needed changed in order to get ECC to work, would love to know as i have the same issue for a different board.