[rescue] ECC [was: Re: WOT: Ebay changes to IBM from SunE10Kservers?]

[Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.]

Are you using an i840 based motherboard with one or more MTH (Memory
translator hub) chips ???  Essentially grafting SDRAM memory onto
a chip meant for RDRAM ?

I've heard about the instability of this, and I have a dual proc 
motherboard with two of these chips on it.

It uses SDRAM as well .... and I've only played with it briefly, however
what I have read is that it is vvveeerrryyy sensitive to memory timing.

If you have other DIMMS around, try other DIMMS.  Oddly enough as I 
recall it either likes slower PC100 or faster PC133... (one would
think it might be the other way around... CAS3 PC133 being very
similar to CAS2 PC100).

I've also read that if you use ECC memory that it is supposadly more
stable with ECC turned off (something again to do with timing).  I've
got ECC, and in my experiments I have done, I left ECC turned on.

Mostly I've run extensive memory tests with this with memtest86 for
hours on end.  I only had it run into an error once.

My board is a Tyan though, not Intel.

Changing memory timing parameters in the BIOS (if it allows you to)
might allow you to increase your reliability if this is the situation
you are running into.

Do you also know that all the RAM is good ?  I can highly recommend
memtest86 (free, powerfull... and most of all usefull !).

Best of luck,

  -- Curt
  
>Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 02:26:57 -0500
>From: "Jonathan C. Patschke" <jp at celestrion.net>
>To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [rescue] ECC [was: Re: WOT: Ebay changes to IBM from  
SunE10Kservers?]
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>On Mon, 14 Jul 2003, Bjorn Ramqvist wrote:
>
>> Not to defend the architecture, but...
>> Play MP3s, render MIDI and play games? Still using it although it
>> crashes every two or three hours?
>
>It's cheaper than doing it over, especially since I don't particularly
>see myself dropping any substantial amount of money on another x86
>system.
>
>> I just have no idea what you've done to assemble that machine that bad,
>> but it sounds like you have done something *really* wrong, cause my
>> machines doesn't break down that often. Not even close.
>
>I went wrong by buying an Intel motherboard.  This one has a very
>well-known failure mode, which I found out after I'd purchased 512MB of
>PC133 SDRAM for it in 2000.  Intel's fix was to replace the board with a
>different model with 128MB of RDRAM (about three times as expensive back
>then).
>
>The AMD board I had after that was terrifically stable--right up until
>the point that the power supply in that system went marginal and fried
>it.
>
>-- 
>Jonathan Patschke   )  "Leave your lawsuits at home.  I have guns."
>Elgin, TX          (                      --"Kountry" Mike Lundgren
>_______________________________________________
>rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue


Curtis Wilbar
Hawk Mountain Networks
rescue at hawkmountain.net

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