[rescue] ECC [was: Re: WOT: Ebay changes to IBM from Sun E10K servers?]

[Patrick Giagnocavo +1.717.201.3366]

On Tue, Jul 08, 2003 at 04:24:41PM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 08, 2003 at 03:21:12PM -0500, Scott Newell wrote:
> > I wonder...every once in a while I run across a discussion of what
> > qualifies as a workstation vs. a personal computer'.  How about the ability
> > to use ECC memory?  I rarely see lower end FeeCee class machines with ECC
> > memory, yet it seems quite common on the Sun, SGI, IBM, and HP iron.
> 
> Most decent (i.e, known-brand-name) PC motherboards these days have the
> capability to use ECC memory.  You'll never find it in an off-the-shelf
> system, though, because that's $10 of profit margin gone.  In fact, you
> buy an off-the-shelf system, it'll almost certainly have no-brand-name
> lowest-bidder parts for everything the builder could possibly get away
> with.

Oddly though, I have had more problems with ECC RAM based PCs than
with non-ECC based PCs.  The ECC RAM would lock into place, but then
not boot unless you wiggled it; or the second stick would not be
counted, etc.  Could be a fluke however.

One main reason ECC is not widely used is that errors occurring during
operation will be blamed on the Windows OS and not on the hardware :-)
 
Cordially
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