non-ECC ram on ECC mobo

[kapul4]

Greetings,can I use 2X4GB Samsung DDR2 non-ECC ram on ECC mobo(M4A78)?
Specs are https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4A78/specifications/

 

[das_stig]

Has to be a spelling error on a consumer class motherboard, should be non-ecc, so I would say YES !

 

[kapul4]

Has to be a spelling error on a consumer class motherboard, should be non-ecc, so I would say YES !

Hmm,on the ASUS website it says ECC.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Ok, having had to deal with the fun of ECC and nonECC motherboards for a while now, generally I tend to find:

1) ECC is dependent on the memory controller in the CPU for any of the AM2/3 motherboards.
2) If the motherboard specifies Registered ECC DIMMs (RDIMMS), those are the only ones that will work and Registered ECC modules are required along with a CPU to support them (Opteron series).
3) If the motherboard specifies Unbuffered ECC DIMMs (UDIMMS), then you can use either ECC, or non-ECC UDIMMs, and if CPU supports ECC (Opteron series) then it will use ECC -if- the motherboard has ECC UDIMMs in it. If it doesn't have ECC UDIMMs, then it will ignore ECC and fall back to non-ECC operation.
4) The motherboard you have spec'd above lists support for Athlon/Phenom/Sempron support, all of which are consumer grade CPUs and which do NOT have ECC capable memory controllers. Only the Opteron series CPUs (server class) have ECC memory controllers.

For reference, I am currently running a Gigabyte DDR2 (ga-ma770-ud3) motherboard which has the same support - AM2+, DDR2 ECC UDIMMs, with an Opteron 1300 series CPU and non-ECC RAM with no problems. I would personally prefer to run ECC UDIMMs, but looking at the pricing even on eBay, they're expensive for used RAM ($80 for 4x2GB).