How do you determine if you have ECC or non-ECC ram?

[Anghang]

is there a way to determine if you have ECC or non-ECC ram installed on your desktop?

via the OS (XP)?
via the Bios?
something imprinted on the chips of the ram module?

the computer in question is a Dell Dimension 8100...

 

[nageov3t]

if it's a desktop, it's probably non-ECC.

also look at the ram itself.

 

[ViRGE]

CPU-Z should be able to tell if it's ECC, I think.

 

[imported_whatever]

if you look at the ram and it has 8 or 16 chips on it, it is non-ecc. ecc requires an extra bit (9-bit bytes), so it is ecc if it has the extra bit.

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: whatever
if you look at the ram and it has 8 or 16 chips on it, it is non-ecc. ecc requires an extra bit (9-bit bytes), so it is ecc if it has the extra bit.

Also, ECC RAM will have betwen 1 and 3 "extra" physically smaller chips in the middle of the module; they're about half the size of a DRAM chip.

 

[natto fire]

methinks Dell would not put ECC ram in a desktop machine.