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Can ECC RDIMM support be enabled by firmware?

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hinofi:
This question may seems stupid, because myself also believed that while some CPU/chipset can use ECC RAM by some software modding, RDIMM will need specific circuit to support.
However I randomly saw a comment under this video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=dLkWB-Iw3-s (The video itself is not related to my topic, I put it here just for reference) which says: "......it's meant for budget PC with a i3 8100, g4560, G5400 with ECC REG DDR3 (yes, your board dose support) since they are as cheap as rubbish in China......And BTW, almost every DDR3 MB can do ECC REG support too, also a little mod of the BIOS will do......"
I knew there might be some weird things going on in China, but this one is hard to believe. Is that true, or he is just another bull-shitter?

wraper:

--- Quote from: hinofi on April 18, 2020, 01:17:07 pm --- i3 8100, g4560, G5400 with ECC REG DDR3

--- End quote ---
None of them support registered RAM.

senso:
All those CPU's supports ECC, check on Intel Ark..

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/126688/intel-core-i3-8100-processor-6m-cache-3-60-ghz.html

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/97143/intel-pentium-processor-g4560-3m-cache-3-50-ghz.html

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/129951/intel-pentium-gold-g5400-processor-4m-cache-3-70-ghz.html

And they all can run DDR3L, but the IMC won't live long due to the overvolt at 1.5v for DDR3L it will degrade overtime, with 1.8v for regular DDR3 dont expect it to last all that long.

The mobos need to have extra traces between the CPU and the RAM slots, because they use a couple more data bits, as is expected.

wraper:

--- Quote from: senso on April 18, 2020, 01:46:34 pm ---All those CPU's supports ECC, check on Intel Ark..

--- End quote ---
ECC and registered are two completely different things.

magic:
"Registered" means a buffer on the data bus which delays all transfers by one cycle. This has to be accounted for by the memory controller in the CPU for the whole scheme to work.

If the CPU doesn't support it then it doesn't.

There are instances of CPU features being enabled/disabled by poking undocumented registers, but unlocking RDIMM support is not something I have heard about yet.

OTOH, unregistered ECC RAM is known to work on some motherboards which don't advertise such support. Apparently the designers simply monkeyed the reference design, including all the additional wiring required for ECC. Software-wise, they all use init code provided by the CPU vendor so no problem here.

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