Can you use ECC ram on a non-ECC cpu/motherboard combo

[21rkosta]

I have 12gb of ddr3 ECC ram and i was wondering if i could use it in a z87 mobo and just not use the ECC feature?

[0ld_Chicken]

-moved to CPUs, Motherboards, and Memory-

[HelplmChoking]

3 minutes ago, 21rkosta said:

I have 12gb of ddr3 ECC ram and i was wondering if i could use it in a z87 mobo and just not use the ECC feature?

 

It could . It's very rare for it to work, but back in the p4 days you could do it on high end boards. If you're getting the board anyway, you may as well try. Worst case is it just won't boot. Actually, worst case would be having buffered DIMMs which are keyed differently and won't even fit.

[Lord Nicoll]

6 minutes ago, 21rkosta said:

I have 12gb of ddr3 ECC ram and i was wondering if i could use it in a z87 mobo and just not use the ECC feature?

I've had systems refuse to post with ECC memory, while some work fine but with the ECC off. If the RAM is buffered/registered then it almost definitely won't work. 

[SammYw0w]

Most likley will not work, but it could work, allthough it's very rare. 

[ARikozuM]

ECC will work in any motherboard as long as you're using unbuffered memory in an unbuffered slot or registered in a registered/buffered slot. If the chipset doesn't support ECC functions, the ECC chip will simply not be used and the sticks will work as non-ECC memory.