ECC Memory And Shuttle Athlon Motherboards? 9
A not-so-nameless Anonymous Coward asks: "Anyone knows of a specific instance where an AMD Athlon motherboard worked with PC100 ECC Memory? I have heard
some rumors that they don't like ECC memory. I built a server, and foolish me decided to do the right thing and get the good memory: 256 Megs corsair registered, ECC PC100 strip. However, they didn't work in the Shuttle AMD K7 Athlon motherboard. Now, before you ask me why shuttle AI61, I was in a hurry and it was the only thing in hand. The 256Meg used 256Mbit chips, so I thought perhaps the BIOS didn't support 256 Mbits chips, 128 Meg PC100 ECC generic brand didn't help. Cheapo PC100 works just fine! An e-mail to shuttle went unanswered and their distributor didn't help much either."
Re:Asking sd: Why use ECC? (Score:1)
Modules should be tested in manufacturing before being shipped. This really does catch many things...
>Of all the web servers, what percentage are using ECC memory?
Well, all <I>real</I> servers use it. Not just PCs geared up to serve things, but boxes with other serveresque features (ex: IBM: RS,AS,390,Netfinity Dell: Poweredge, etc..). These are *not* stock PC backplanes (especially the RISC boxen 8^D), and ship with (usually registered) ECC memory. For everyday PCs, it's not such a big deal, since the rates are very low, and the memory isn't sustained for a long period of time. Some AS/400s, OTOH, can have areas of DRAM preserved for several years, and over time, there's far more chance for an error to occur. ECC lets you do systematic reading of the memory to 'scrub' these errors.
The rates are low, and consumer hardware doesn't need to support reporting and monitoring (extra hw/firmware, plus OS support), so 'just fix it' is usually ok...
I hope there aren't too many boards that fake it. You can ignore the ECC bits, but you shouldn't have a BIOS option to enable ECC, then...
Re:Registered, ECC - two separate issues (Score:1)
Re:Registered, ECC - two separate issues (Score:1)
oh, and the registered ECC tests just about as fast as my standard non-ECC sticks...
Epox K7XA w/ ECC (Score:1)
Asking sd: Why use ECC? (Score:2)
ECC and Athalon - Together again (Score:2)
There were problems when we mixed and matched 128M of PC133 non-ECC w/ the 256ECC.....it didn't seem to like it. But there have never been any problems with the ECC and the Asus board for me.
Registered, ECC - two separate issues (Score:2)
Basically, registering is a performance enhancement, ECC is a reliability feature. ECC is supported much more widely than resistering on motherboards targeted to home users.
Registered memory (Score:2)
Not Shuttle's fault, see AMD Athlon FAQ (Score:3)
Question:
My memory has all the requirements listed above, but it also has ECC (Error Correction Code). Is that a good thing?
Answer:
ECC is an excellent function for memory, but it is of no advantage for your new AMD Athlon processor-based system. In fact, it may slow down the performance of your new system. You may want to consider using memory that is not ECC.