Hardware Updrage (again)

[Paul Richards]

Richard Smith wrote:

> Andrew Boothman wrote:
> >
> > I need to pick your collective brains on a related issue though. My new
> > motherboard-to-be says that it will take DIMMs, nothing more specific. A visit
> > to the manufacturer's web site reveals that it takes "PC/100, EDO, SDRAM"
> > (http://www.mycomp-tmc.com/tmc/TI5VGPds.htm). It also states "Data Integrity :
> > ECC/Parity Checking". So does thet mean that I need ECC SDRAM?
>
> The motherboard chip set should autodetect what type of DIMM is fitted.
> ECC DIMMs are significantly more expensive than your regular DIMM, and
> are only neccesary for mission critical applications.
>
> > Looking in an advert for computer memory, they list PC100 SDRAM coming in
> > normal, ECC and C 2 vareties. So which do you think is right for me?
>
> Normal SDRAM DIMM for a home system, I would say.

I'd say the opposite :-)

There are no applications that are so "uncritical" that memory integrity is not
important. A bad memory register can cause hidden corruption throughout your
filesystem, subtly modifying the contents of documents you may have. More likely,
it'll corrupt something less sutbly, like a directory pointer. Memory never (hardly
ever) fails catastrophically, usually it develops bad memory locations and you'll
see unusual things happening, mysterious reboot, unexpected signals when doing
compiles etc. Without ECC you may not realise that you've got bad memory for quite
some time.

For the sake of around £30 I'd strongly recommend ECC memory.

Paul.