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Questions about DDR RAM



 
 
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  #61  
Old October 9th 07, 05:56 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Frank McCoy
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Posts: 704
Default Questions about DDR RAM

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt "Del Cecchi"
wrote:

History would show that bad cheap drives out good. I give
you microchannel vrs ISA as an example. In fact the
whole consumer PC market is an example. With small margins,
and no evidence that people walking in walmart or best buy
have any interest in paying a premium for some nebulous reliability
claim why should manufacturers waste perfectly good bits.

Exactly.

Servers are a different story.


Which is why most ECC memory is marketed "for servers".

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  #62  
Old October 9th 07, 05:58 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Nate Edel
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Posts: 225
Default Questions about DDR RAM

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Del Cecchi wrote:
History would show that bad cheap drives out good. I give
you microchannel vrs ISA as an example.


That may have been more a matter of open vs. closed; note that VLB beat both
MCA and EISA, and (1st-gen) PCI succeeded more because of getting a lot of
manufacturers on board (including Apple) than any technical superiority.

This was a design decision made by IBM. They considered
a crash better than corrupted data. I agree.


Actually, how was windows supposed to recover from parity error?
IBM didn't write windows.


It didn't write DOS either, but given that it was the organization that
pushed and marketed DOS for Microsoft, it still shares a fair bit of
culpability. It also was the one who designed the original PC motherboard
with the dubious "parity error goes to NMI" design to begin with.

Last time I talked to my buddy that tracks failures, it was software
first, then disks, then electronics. A little research and a few
calculations will tell you how often there will be a memory error.


That certainly matches my experience. Also, cooling fans are in there
between drives and electronics: moving parts break down WAY faster than most
electronics (although bad caps are up there too.)

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/
preferred email | "With all the accumulated wit and wisdom in the
is "nate" at the | world, it is pointless to try to select a few
posting domain | choice quotes." (some guy from my HS yearbook)
  #63  
Old October 9th 07, 06:49 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
class_a
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Posts: 121
Default Questions about DDR RAM

Frank McCoy wrote:

The problem is:
WITH ECC built in, probably over half the cases of "Blue Screen of
Death" or computer crashes and foulups *could* be things of the past!


Really, so why does my linux installation run without crashes on exactly
the same hardware that Windows used to crash on regularly? I think
you'll find the problem is not related to whether it has or has not got
ECC memory!

The worst part is, people could actually be KILLED by such mistakes made
by a computer that might have been corrected with ECC ... Yet nobody
will trace it back to that; just: "Sorry, the computer crashed!"


Well, if you must insist on running Windows, that is a risk you have to
take

"I've ran my computer for years without ECC; and it ran just FINE!"
Only that ignores the freezups, crashes, blue-screens, and other crap
that got attributed to software instead of memory failures. ;-{


Try attributing those freezups, crashes, blue-screens and other crap to
WINDOWS instead of lack of ECC. Linux runs fine without ANY of these
problems on the SAME hardware (disc formatted and linux installed
instead of Windows). Current uptime, 70 days on a linux system that
runs 100% CPU usage on BOINC projects 24/7, so not just some box that is
sitting idle in the corner.

These days people seem to *expect* such failures, when 99.99% of the
ones caused by bad memory (probably well over half) could be fixed.


No, most of these failures are caused by Windows.
  #64  
Old October 9th 07, 08:41 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Robert Redelmeier
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Default Questions about DDR RAM

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Del Cecchi wrote in part:
History would show that bad cheap drives out good.


.... expensive. Plenty of similar pseudo-examples like VHS
vs beta. Yet it is a canard. Quality is an attribute like
any other. Just like price. There is such a thing as
excessive quality, particularly if it comes at the expense
of some other desireable attribute like price.

I give you microchannel vrs ISA as an example.


Another canard. I used both in the day. Yes, ISA had fun
IRQ clashes, but those were easy enough to avoid. Not worse
than todays PCI-BM card shuffling. Microchannel certainly
was more elegant but had that rather tedious install diskette
process. In the end, both boxes were stable with good drivers.
IBM usually had better, but I ran Linux MC TR for years.


In fact the whole consumer PC market is an example.


When a new product is introduced, it is usually expensive
and aimed and very demanding customers. The quality almost
always is the maximum that can be achieved. As the product
gains acceptance and market size, both the price and the
quality should decrease because these new customers have
different values. Their values are indisputably theirs and
they have a right to pursue them.

With small margins, and no evidence that people walking in
walmart or best buy have any interest in paying a premium
for some nebulous reliability claim why should manufacturers
waste perfectly good bits.


Actually, the PC market is highly fragmented, with quite a
quality range. A desktop sells anywhere from $200 to $900+.
The upper end would surely like more to differentiate
themselves with.

If ECC was that big a reliability win, it would not be a
nebulous claim.

Servers are a different story.


Always.

Last time I talked to my buddy that tracks failures, it was
software first, then disks, then electronics. A little
research and a few calculations will tell you how often
there will be a memory error.


Electronics probably including electrolytic capacitors
which have to be at least half of all "electronic" failures.

How seriously you take it depends on how you feel about
errors and especially undetected errors.


Certainly. I would be most interested in ECC error log reports --
how many errors detected in how many GB over how many power-on
hours. Hard data like this makes a reasoned decision over ECC
possible. Otherwise, it's all anectdotal and worse.

-- Robert


  #65  
Old October 9th 07, 08:53 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt
~Mike Hollywood
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Posts: 46
Default Questions about DDR RAM

Igor,
please read your replys here and then do some
intropection.
Mike


"Igor" wrote in message newsp.tzl9yfmgkkm7ou@a...
On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 06:03:21 -0400, kony wrote:

On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:38:58 -0400, Igor
wrote:



I found the insinuation that I *should have* provided the make and model
of my motherboard, that not doing so was an oversight on my part, and
that
my questions couldn't be properly answered as I had posed them, just a
bit
patronizing.



maybe, but on the other hand if you can't make the effort to
do that, why should others make the effort to guess about
what is likely, instead of knowing more certainly if you
have hardware upon which the details might be more likely,
and/or known problems?


Like I said, they were general questions, and all that was called for were
general responses (which you did, in fact, provide, and which you did, in
fact, say in an earlier post required less effort than the detailed
answers Paul likes to give).




  #66  
Old October 9th 07, 09:10 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Frank McCoy
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Posts: 704
Default Questions about DDR RAM

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Robert Redelmeier
wrote:

Plenty of similar pseudo-examples like VHS vs beta.


While Beta was a much better *recording media* than VHS ever will be,
the competition wasn't between the media but between the *recorders*;
and there Sony completely dropped the ball. People bought VHS, not
because VHS was better or cheaper; it wasn't on BOTH counts. Beta tapes
were better, produced far better pictures, were far less likely to jam
AND were slightly cheaper (because of the reduced size). People bought
VHS *recorders* because they offered far more features (like delayed and
programmed recording) long before Beta machines ever did. Since most
people don't give a **** about minor quality issues; tiny problems not
showing up until quite a while *after* the machine was bought, the minor
price-differential (in favor of Beta, BTW), they both had similar
prerecorded movies out, and the prices of the machines were almost
identical, what made VHS "win the war" was the fact that Sony thought it
owned the market; and saw no reason to upgrade or add features to their
machines. The competition did.

I still have one of the last Beta machines around.
The only "programming" you can do is set up a recording-time pressing
buttons on the front of the machine. You can't set up multiple records,
sets of records, or even change stations from one station to another
while recording except by manually going up to the machine and pressing
another station-button. All the VHS machines by then could do FAR more;
most having on-screen programming for at least a week of recording.

Pure idiocy (in my opinion anyway) on the part of Sony management.

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  #67  
Old October 9th 07, 09:20 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Frank McCoy
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Posts: 704
Default Questions about DDR RAM

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Robert Redelmeier
wrote:

If ECC was that big a reliability win, it would not be a
nebulous claim.


Actually, it IS.
That's why almost every SERVER gets ECC memory.
What ECC doesn't have, is anybody SELLING the advantage.
For most common PC users (and retailers) nobody gives a damn; and those
few people who *do* know the advantage, usually don't speak to the
customers and TELL them.

How is anybody supposed to know the difference, if they'r not educated?
Besides, all most lusers see on the sticker is the hard-drive size, the
monitor-size, the CPU speed, and the memory-size. Since NONE of the
packaged products comes default-with ECC, how are they going to know
it's even an option?

Nobody mentions it to them. Nobody *suggests* it as an option. Nobody
sees it in any on-shelf PC. Only those who *know* about it would even
ask! How many are that? Less than 1%?

If it ain't being sold, *of course* it ain't going to sell!

Now most professionals, people who build server-boxes, probably wouldn't
be caught dead putting non-ECC memory into a system. But THEY know what
it is and is-for, what it does, and how it improves reliability.

However geeks like that don't talk to home-PC customers.
I'll bet most put ECC memory in their own systems at home though.
Just like they buy decent power-supplies and motherboards; not the crap
that Dell sells.

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  #68  
Old October 9th 07, 09:34 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
daytripper
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Posts: 265
Default Questions about DDR RAM

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:20:43 -0500, Frank McCoy wrote:
[blah blah ...]
Now most professionals, people who build server-boxes, probably wouldn't
be caught dead putting non-ECC memory into a system. But THEY know what
it is and is-for, what it does, and how it improves reliability.


Well, no. The *customer* has a check list, and ECC is on it. Otherwise the
"people who build server boxes" would put non-ECC memory in it and pocket the
cost differential.

However geeks like that don't talk to home-PC customers.
I'll bet most put ECC memory in their own systems at home though.


So, how many desktop chipsets actually even support ECC these days?

/daytripper
  #69  
Old October 9th 07, 09:59 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
Frank McCoy
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Posts: 704
Default Questions about DDR RAM

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt daytripper
wrote:

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:20:43 -0500, Frank McCoy wrote:
[blah blah ...]
Now most professionals, people who build server-boxes, probably wouldn't
be caught dead putting non-ECC memory into a system. But THEY know what
it is and is-for, what it does, and how it improves reliability.


Well, no. The *customer* has a check list, and ECC is on it. Otherwise the
"people who build server boxes" would put non-ECC memory in it and pocket the
cost differential.

However geeks like that don't talk to home-PC customers.
I'll bet most put ECC memory in their own systems at home though.


So, how many desktop chipsets actually even support ECC these days?

ALL of them do.
It's on the DIMM, not the motherboard.
Completely transparent. The mobo doesn't even know it's there.
The DIMM is just a bit bigger; and has extra chips on it.
Fits in the same slot.
You just buy PC2100 ECC memory instead of PC2100 non-ECC memory.
They meet the exact same specifications.

The only difference is the ECC memory doesn't have errors.

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  #70  
Old October 9th 07, 11:18 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt,alt.comp.hardware,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips
daytripper
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Posts: 265
Default Questions about DDR RAM

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:59:05 -0500, Frank McCoy wrote:

In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt daytripper
wrote:

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:20:43 -0500, Frank McCoy wrote:
[blah blah ...]
Now most professionals, people who build server-boxes, probably wouldn't
be caught dead putting non-ECC memory into a system. But THEY know what
it is and is-for, what it does, and how it improves reliability.


Well, no. The *customer* has a check list, and ECC is on it. Otherwise the
"people who build server boxes" would put non-ECC memory in it and pocket the
cost differential.

However geeks like that don't talk to home-PC customers.
I'll bet most put ECC memory in their own systems at home though.


So, how many desktop chipsets actually even support ECC these days?

ALL of them do.
It's on the DIMM, not the motherboard.
Completely transparent. The mobo doesn't even know it's there.
The DIMM is just a bit bigger; and has extra chips on it.
Fits in the same slot.
You just buy PC2100 ECC memory instead of PC2100 non-ECC memory.
They meet the exact same specifications.

The only difference is the ECC memory doesn't have errors.


Ummm....No. And might I add, you really stepped in the dog poo this time...

/daytripper (sic' im, Keith ;-)
 




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