Old computer upgrade...

mzurer — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:17:40 -0800

Decrepit PC RAM question - I am trying to figure out what kind of SDRAM is supported by my K7VZA Rev 1.0 motherboard. The manual states:
The mainboard accommodates PC 100/133 SDRAM (Synchronous DRAM) or VCM (Virtual Channel Memory) up to 1.5 GB using three 3.3V unbuffered DIMM modules. The mainboard attains the highest reliability by supporting ECC (Error Checking and Correction) memory protection, enabling the mainboard to achieve superior data integrity and fault tolerance with respect to memory errors while running applications.

-and later-

Install the Memory Modules
For this mainboard, you must use 168-pin 3.3V non-buffered Dual In-line Memory Modules (DIMMs). The memory chips must be standard or registered SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory).

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So that sounds like I can use ECC registered SDRAM DIMMS, right? For whatever reason, those are actually pretty cheap on eBay. But Crucial points me toward non-ecc, non-registered, which are not substantially more expensive but more than I want to spend on this dinosaur.

Is it possible the ECC is only for onboard cache and not installed RAM? There is some BIOS setting for RAM ECC on POST, so I actually think it does support it.

And if it doesn't really support registered RAM in all configurations, then the DIMMS won't work at all, right?

For bonus, what's the distinction between high and low-density for PC133 SDRAM? And will high density work? Crucial said something about max module being 256, but the sellers on eBay tend to just say low or high not Nx256 or anything...

ECC ram for my personal server?

cowmix — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:53:23 -0800

ECC memory on a personal Linux server? My friends and I are upgrading our server that hosts a few VMs that run under VMWare Server 2.0 on a Ubuntu 8.10 box. We are buying this small ASUS 1U server (http://tinyurl.com/9dr3ee) from NewEgg and it happens to support ECC or non-ECC memory...

When I ususally build my custom whitebox servers I almost never use ECC memory.. when I do things a corporate environment I usually have no choice and always get ECC memory for servers..

Here are my questions:

1. Is it worth getting ECC memory for a personal server? I haven't had any issues in the past (that I know of) with non-ECC based servers but now I am kinda freaking out over not getting it.

2. Its not clear what RAM I would get for it if I do go the ECC route.. NewEgg has this RAM (http://tinyurl.com/9s82dk) but then NewEgg says is for HP/Compaq systems..

Lazyweb..plz help!

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Old computer upgrade...

ECC ram for my personal server?