ECC..

[Vegito]

So I had some windows problem and nuked the whole hdd.. with that I also updated the bios. Ever since, the pc crashed like theres no tomorrow, half the time windows would not install.. it stops 60% at oembios.bin.

I thought it was bad cd but it happened with my original w2k3 server. Googled around and it said oembios may be related to memory. I had ecc off in my bios but had ecc memory. Now that I turned on ECC memory, everything stopped crashing.. This is really weird.. wouldn't the behavior be the same whether its on or off ?

at least my pc is working again and not crashing..

 

[Rhagz]

Im pretty sure you have to set ECC memory if you are using it. Sorta the same way that non-ECC memory won't run in on an ECC board... well not the same, but similar. They aren't very compatible with each other.

 

[Concillian]

If you had issues related to memory errors, why wouldn't turning on ECC help?

I'm not sure which of these ECC stands for, but you get the picture: Error Checking and Correction or Error Correction Code

So yeah, you'll get more stable memory operation and fewer memory errors with ECC on while using ECC memory.

 

[Peter]

... but nonetheless, ECC memory must also work right when the system doesn't make use of ECC. The described behavior indicates that the DIMM is actually bad, but in a way that the ECC procedure is able to mask. Typical bad-DIMM problems like a single bit cell stuck on "1" or "0" are easily masked by ECC.

Now everybody take a guess at why recently, no-name ECC DIMMs have become cheaper than non-ECC DIMMs ...