I have a Ryzen 9 3900X. Officially it doesn't support ECC memory. In practice unregistered ECC DIMMs work fine, and ECC functions properly (single-bit correction, dual-bit detection).
I assume the 3950X is the same way. The hardware is there, the official blessing is not.
AFAIK, Ryzen 9 3900X do support ECC memory, but it's up to motherboard whether to officially support it or not. There are X570 boards out there with official ECC support, e.g. ASUS Pro WS X570-ACE[1].
They seem to cast doubt on if the bios and software all work together and are really performing the ECC checks even in cases where support might be possible they say things can stop it from working and fixing memory bits. I've no reason to doubt them and this is probably the reason for the lack of official support. Anyone know of a way to validate if it's working correctly?
By opening the case and holding your smartphone near and nearer into it, while having it search for networks. Until it crashes, and then checking the logs, if any :)
edit: I mean near the DIMMs.
Don't try this if you are afraid, or need your hardware. This is a test i'm doing with every build, or any system i have to fix. And it crashes every system, though not at the same places and in the same ways. So far it didn't damage anything permanently, but no guaranties it won't.
Are you serious? How very interesting. Really would like to hear from someone with experience in inducing errors that can say what the risks for permanent damage would be, save for data loss in case of flushing corrupted data to disk for course.
I am. This worked for me since the GSM-era. Imagine slowly pointing it like a wand, sweeping up and down, left, right, going nearer...into, searching. Until it ZAPS. Doesn't need touching. Or less than an inch distance. About 3 to 2 inches it usually is, but i also had crashs/freezes at maybe 10 to 5 inches, just outside the case when it was open.
edit: By searching for networks i mean for the telcos, not wifi. Then it uses all bands it is capable of.
I meant this as a figure of speech, not literally. There are no sparks flying, or something like that. "Zapping/tazing" it by applying some EMF, nothing more :)
Another option is to overclock the ram. Mine is rated for 2400 MHz and works fine up to 2666. It still 'runs' at 2800, but I get maybe 2-3 correctable ECC errors in an hour.
But I'm of course not suggesting to run it in this state whil doing anything important.
Interesting. I guess the DIMMs came blank, without heat sink/spreader on the chips, since ECC and therefore "non-gaming"? In that case i'd try some thin aftermarket clip-on.
Nothing hilarious like "HyperRacerMegaBlingMarkVII" would come with. To see if the ECC-errors occur because of running out of specification frequency wise in general, or if they just occur because of running at too high temperature because running at a too high frequency (and maybe voltage) without cooling.
Because vendor didn't plan/produce/verify for that use-case.
So I'd verify that, and enjoy in case of the latter.
I assume the 3950X is the same way. The hardware is there, the official blessing is not.