ECC BIOS setting for Epox 8K7A

[Muse]

Choices are:
Disabled, Check Only, Correct Errors, Correct+Scrub.

How do I decide? I've seen some posts, but they were general evaluations of the issues of having/not having ECC RAM. If I had to guess, it would be Correct Errors, but that's quite possibly totally wrong.

I have 2 x 256 MB Crucial DDR ECC. Thanks.

Dan

 

[Muse]

BTW, here's my system specs along with my preliminary PCI card assignments. Haven't installed Win2k yet or anything. Got a POST and can boot to floppy.
- - - -
Epox 8K7A
Athlon 1.2 GHz
512 MB Crucial DDR ECC PC2100 266
MSI geforce2 Pro 64 MB DDR
Hercules Game Theater XP
USR Model 2977 PCI hardware modem
Promise Ultra100 TX2 IDE controller
IBM 60GXP 41 GB HDD ATA-100 IDE (Promise IDE1 Master)
IBM Deskstar 8.4 GB HDD ATA-3 IDE (Promise IDE2 Master)
Pioneer 16x 106S Slot loader DVD IDE (Motherboard IDE1 Master)
Creative 8-4-32 CD-RW IDE (Motherboard IDE2 Master)
Iomega Zip 250 IDE (Motherboard IDE2 slave)
Iomega Zip 250 IDE (Motherboard IDE2 slave)
Mitsumi Floppy
Windows 2000 Professional

PCI 3 - Promise IDE controller
PCI 4 - NIC
PCI 5 - Modem
PCI 6 - Sound card

 

[Buz2b]

My question is why have ECC RAM unless you want it to Correct Errors? That is the one you need to choose. Keep in mind (and since you already own ECC you probably know this), you will take a very small preformance hit because of this. Whether it is noticable is in question. From what I understand, Correct and Scub is not a good choice. Your mileage may vary, of course.

 

[Muse]

<< My question is why have ECC RAM unless you want it to Correct Errors? That is the one you need to choose. Keep in mind (and since you already own ECC you probably know this), you will take a very small preformance hit because of this. Whether it is noticable is in question. From what I understand, Correct and Scub is not a good choice. Your mileage may vary, of course. >>



I saw a thread in NG and a guy said just buy the ECC and I did. Maybe it will save me from some BSODs.

 

[Buz2b]

<< I saw a thread in NG and a guy said just buy the ECC and I did. Maybe it will save me from some BSODs. >>

Uhh, I don't think so. I believe the ECC is more concerned with Data errors; not usually a cause of BSODs. I could be wrong, but if so I'm sure someone will correct me. Anyway, you've got it now, so you might as well use it! Good Luck!

 

[Muse]

<<

<< I saw a thread in NG and a guy said just buy the ECC and I did. Maybe it will save me from some BSODs. >>

Uhh, I don't think so. I believe the ECC is more concerned with Data errors; not usually a cause of BSODs. I could be wrong, but if so I'm sure someone will correct me. Anyway, you've got it now, so you might as well use it! Good Luck! >>



On the NG thread they were talking about sort of random errors like ones that could be caused by cosmic rays - i.e. gamma rays, that would generate a spurious unpredictable result. Things like that can bring down a server, and that's why they use ECC in mission critical situations and in situations where an error could have disastrous consequences, such as an error in a mission critical program. There was some talk of decreasing the chances of system crashes.