what happens when you put ECC ram into a pc ram slot

[AkaTheUnknown]

im just wondering what would happen, because i found ecc ram for fairly cheap 

[igormp]

There are two types of ECC sticks, UDIMMs (same as your regular non-ECC sticks that you use regularly), and RDIMMs (server stuff).

 

For DDR5, those are physically incompatible. If you're on a consumer platform, RDIMM won't even fit.

For DDR4 they are physically compatible, but actual support depends on your platform. Again, consumer systems won't work with RDIMMs.

 

Now for UDIMMs, ECC-UDIMMs should work with most platforms, if your platform is capable of taking advantage of that is another thing.

 

Please do list which hardware you have, and the specs of the ecc ram you found.

[RONOTHAN##]

Depends on the exact RAM and motherboard. 

 

There's multiple types of ECC memory, mainly buffered and unbuffered ECC. Unbuffered ECC is basically just normal RAM with an extra chip for parity reasons. Buffered ECC also adds a buffer chip that allows for significantly more memory capacity per DIMM. If you're just looking for RAM on eBay, you're more likely to find buffered ECC, but that buffer chip also means motherboard compatibility is much lower (only server boards and server CPUs will boot with buffered ECC memory). 

 

As for motherboard, there are consumer boards that work with ECC memory (about half of AM4 boards have ECC support with Ryzen), though these only support unbuffered ECC. If you're using one of the baords that doesn't have ECC support with unbuffered ECC, it will boot and everything, but the ECC won't do anything. If you use buffered ECC, the system just won't boot. 

[AkaTheUnknown]

2 minutes ago, igormp said:

There are two types of ECC sticks, UDIMMs (same as your regular non-ECC sticks that you use regularly), and RDIMMs (server stuff).

 

For DDR5, those are physically incompatible. If you're on a consumer platform, RDIMM won't even fit.

For DDR4 they are physically compatible, but actual support depends on your platform. Again, consumer systems won't work with RDIMMs.

 

Now for UDIMMs, ECC-UDIMMs should work with most platforms, if your platform is capable of taking advantage of that is another thing.

 

Please do list which hardware you have, and the specs of the ecc ram you found.

https://www.bobshop.co.za/samsung-16gb-2rx4-pc3-14900r-ddr3-server-ram/p/625103302

the pc i plan on using it on, is ddr3

 

[jaslion]

4 minutes ago, AkaTheUnknown said:

https://www.bobshop.co.za/samsung-16gb-2rx4-pc3-14900r-ddr3-server-ram/p/625103302

the pc i plan on using it on, is ddr3

 

What specs is the pc? Board, cpu,...

 

This ram is 99% a HARD no but since we dont know what you have we cant say for sure.

[AkaTheUnknown]

Just now, jaslion said:

What specs is the pc? Board, cpu,...

 

This ram is 99% a HARD no but since we dont know what you have we cant say for sure.

3770k and msi z77ma-g45

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, AkaTheUnknown said:

3770k and msi z77ma-g45

Hard no its an rdimm your cpu wont do any kind of ecc either. Also 16gb dimms arent normally supported either.

 

 

[AkaTheUnknown]

Just now, jaslion said:

Hard no its an rdimm your cpu wont do any kind of ecc either. Also 16gb dimms arent normally supported either.

 

 

aah ok thx