S3420GPLC/ Supported Memory

[TMon]

I'm wondering if anyone has gotten RDIMMs outside those listed of the validated memory list to work for this board?

We've got about 20 of these boards running in CAD workstations with the max 16GB UDIMMs (generic Kingston DDR1333's, not on the validated memory list), and they're running great, albeit users complaining about needing more memory... We've started phasing out some of older servers, and would like to re-use the memory from them to give us another 6-8 months of life in the workstations (bumping them up to 24GB) before we replace them with S2600-series boards and E5's in the new fiscal year.

The RAM we're pulling from the servers is Samsung M392B5170EM1-CH9, which isn't on the validated memory list. However, the validated memory list does contain M393B5170EH1-CH9. Based on the spec sheet, the 'only' difference is the fact the ones we have on hand are VLPs (93 vs 92), which utilize a different packaging (DDP) - spec sheet attached.

My question is - does the board's bios actively block RDIMMs not on the list? Or is there something inherently different with the modules (they meet all the requirements from the memory guide, aside from not being on the list) that makes the boards reject them?

Thanks in advance.

Trini

[Daniel_O_Intel]

The board doesn't actively block the DIMMs from working.

In my experience, about a third of the time the untested memory works fine, a third of the time it throws random errors/reboots every couple weeks, and the last third of the time the failures are immediately obvious within the first hour or so.