ECC memory vs Non ECC

[Yoyo77]

I know that the error check memory has no major advantage over non ecc. What I want to know is can I mix a stick of ecc with another stick of non ecc. To be more specific my friend is thinking about buying another stick of non ecc
Rram, can he mix them with the ecc one that he already has?

Thanks in advance

 

[ragiepew]

YoYo, to my knowledge, yes you can. For further knowledge, ECC ram must also be supported by the chipset to be taken advantage of, so if he's running it on a consumer lever chipset (kt133, i815/810, etc...) chances are, even if its ECC, its not really ECC . In anycase, you should be able to intermix...

 

[Yoyo77]

Ragiepew, Thanks for the help and clearing up the ECC with consumer level chipset , never knew that they dont take advantage of it.

 

[ragiepew]

np , glad I could help.

 

[kylef]

You are incorrect about the "consumer-level" chipsets not supporting ECC. I know for a fact that the Via KX133 chipset supported the ECC algorithm (and its ensuing 72-bit wide memory bus) because Via has the datasheet on its website. And although Via does not have datasheets for its other chipsets online, I would be willing to bet that if the KX133 chipset supported ECC then so does the KT133. And I can turn on ECC support on my Gigabyte GA6Vx7-4x board that has a Via Apollo Pro 133a chipset, so I'm assuming that it also supports ECC. And Sandra agrees with me.

That means that 1-bit errors will be corrected in hardware.

However, unless you are running WinNT, 2k, or Linux/FreeBSD/unix, you will not be able to trap when such an error occurs. Windows 9x is oblivious.

 

[ragiepew]

Kylef- I have in front of me a KT133a Chipset based board (iwill kk266) as well as a KT133 based board (abit kt7-raid) and none of them support ECC, in fact in my iwill manual it says specifically that ECC is not supported but you can use ECC ram, it just wont do its ECC "thing". Anywho, I dont know specifically about the KT133 but I imagine its not too different from the KT133/A chipsets...

 

[highwire]

Maybe 1/2 of the "consumer level" boards still being used are BX boards, and ECC is a feature in these chipset/bioses that can be turned on or off. If You have all ECC sticks, turning it on gets you ECC. Otherwise it will accept ECC mixed with non-ECC. I've never heard that this is a phony feature that was not implemented.

 

[Hardware]

VIA dont support ECC!
I can laugh everytime I see the ECC option in my Abit VIA MB!

 

[ragiepew]

thank you hardware...

and neither does Intel in the i810/5 series... That I would say covers a large quantity of the "consumer" level chipsets...

 

[jamarno]

The old VIA VP2 and MVP3 chips support ECC, and FIC managed to miswrite one BIOS for their VP2 board so that the floppies wouldn't work if ECC was active.

 

[kylef]

<< VIA dont support ECC! >>



Well, Hardware, thank you for your enlightened and well-researched comment. But then, how do you explain the fact that both the Apollo Pro 133a and Kx 133 chipsets support ECC memory according to Via's own whitepapers? (Just look at the title page of the documents!)

Ragiepew: There is a difference between a CHIPSET supporting a particular feature and a motherboard manufacturer enabling that feature. The BIOS must support ECC memory detection in order to turn on ECC memory support on the chipset. Many motherboard manufacturers have crappy BIOS support for chipset features and do not implement them.

I was aware that the Iwill did not support ECC memory, but it is NOT because the Kt133a chipset does not offer that support. Rather, they have chosen not to implement it in their BIOS. MSI's K7T Turbo uses the same KT133a chipset, but its BIOS does have the ECC feature enabled. Perhaps because of some incompatibilities in the past, some motherboard manufacturers have regrettably decided to disable ECC support in their BIOS.

I was unaware that the i815 &quot;Solano&quot; chipset did not support ECC memory. However, I don't believe that one chipset lacking ECC support represents a &quot;majority&quot; of consumer-level chipsets.