[REQ] ECC in ASUS P6T Deluxe & P6T Deluxe V2

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

Hello!

I currently own two ASUS P6T Deluxe and one P6T Deluxe V2 mainboards, which are Socket 1366 boards based on the X58 chipset. Both boards lack ECC support for the DDR3 memory in BIOS. The processor in use is a Xeon X5690, which has an ECC-capable IMC with a 40-bit address bus.

To verify that the hardware isn't the culprit, I read the following data sheets:

• [i7 900 and LGA1366 specifications]
  
• [Xeon 5600 specification datasheet vol. 1]
  
• [Buffalo DDR-III UDIMM specifications]
  
• [Tyco Electronics DDR3 DIMM socket specifications]
  

Based on those, I determined the according ECC pins that should be connecting the CPUs IMC and the DIMMs:

ECC lands in the S1366 (click to enlarge)

ECC pins on the DIMM sockets (click to enlarge)

The presence of the ECC traces can be partially confirmed visually on the rear of the mainboard, but to make sure I soldered a probing cable to one of the pins and checked it with a multimeter. The ECC pins and lands are connected, so if we assume that ASUS followed JEDEC specs on how to properly route ECC traces on that board, the limiting factor should be the BIOS.

Missing ECC has been confirmed using an older version of Memtest86. There is no switch for it in the BIOS and it doesn't switch it on automatically when unbuffered ECC DIMMs are in use. Other, newer X58 boards can use ECC just fine, which is another indicator for the BIOS being the issue.

And this is what leads me here: I would like to request a ModBIOS with ECC enabled or optimally with a manual switch that lets you turn the feature on and off. I tried my luck with AmiBCP, comparing ECC capable AMI BIOSes with my own, but I couldn't find any way of changing the ECC configuration. The latest original BIOS images can be found on the ASUS website:

• [ASUS P6T Deluxe Downloads]
  
• [ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 Downloads]
  

If you need a X58 Ami BIOS that does support ECC as a sample, you could use the latest BIOS of the P6T WS:

• [ASUS P6T WS Professional Downloads]
  

I could try and disassemble the BIOSes using Ida, but modification of the assembly (and most of all: Proper reassembly) are far beyond my capabilities. I don't have the tools or the knowledge for this.

So if anyone can help with switching ECC on, it would be much appreciated!

PS.: I do understand that this is risky and putting trust in ECC when it's not officially supported on my hardware sounds stupid. But I would like to take that risk. For verification purposes, the IMCs ECC error injection capability will be used from within Memtest86.

Thank you very much!

[adm32]

Dear GrandAdmiralThrawn,

I would like to tell you that I also have ASUS P6T-Deluxe V2 and I have installed Xeon X5670 CPU in it.
I've tried to install 1GB ECC RAM modules with this CPU and it seems works without problems.
After this I've tried to install 8GB ECC modules and got an issue.
So I suppose that this MB does not support double sided ECC RAM modules.
Hardware or software issue here I don't know.

Just in addition I would like to mention the problematic RAM.
It is: Hynix HMT31GR7BFR4C H9 D2 AE

I hope that somebody will find a solution.

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

Dear GrandAdmiralThrawn,

I would like to tell you that I also have ASUS P6T-Deluxe V2 and I have installed Xeon X5670 CPU in it.
I've tried to install 1GB ECC RAM modules with this CPU and it seems works without problems.
After this I've tried to install 8GB ECC modules and got an issue.
So I suppose that this MB does not support double sided ECC RAM modules.
Hardware or software issue here I don't know.

Just in addition I would like to mention the problematic RAM.
It is: Hynix HMT31GR7BFR4C H9 D2 AE

I hope that somebody will find a solution.

Hi adm23,

Unbuffered ECC RAM does work indeed, but the BIOS will just ignore the ECC, so it stays switched off. You can verify this using Memtest86. So without proper BIOS support, it'll work like regular unbuffered non-ECC memory.

[adm32]

Hi GrandAdmiralThrawn,

In my case it was working normally (AIDA64 showed that ECC was enabled).
And it was registered memory.

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

That doesn't necessarily mean it's working, all AIDA64 does there is to read the DRAMs SPD EEPROM. As far as I know the only surefire way to check whether ECC is really active and working properly is to use a Xeon IMCs' capability of error injection. Memtest86 v7 can do that, but only in the Pro versions.

Not sure if there are any other tools for this.

Relying on what's in the SPD EEPROM is insufficient. It would show ECC even if your processor can't use it...

Also: I've run into severe stability issues when using known good registered modules on X58 on a multitude of mainboards. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it would just blackscreen the machine at POST time etc.. So I'd be going for unbuffered ECC.

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

I know this is pretty old by now, but opening a new thread doesn't seem to make much sense...

I am still looking for somebody who can do this BIOS Mod!

Thanks a lot!

[GrandAdmiralThrawn]

Hello again,

My apologies for digging this back up, but I am still looking for it now, 4 years later.

Thank you!