Is ECC memory any use?
Timothy Murphy
tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
Sat Dec 8 19:57:20 UTC 2007
John Summerfield wrote:
>> I'm getting memory for a very old (P2B-LS) Asus motherboard,
>> and I see I can get ECC memory for some 20% more.
>>
>> Is there any point in getting this?
>> I see there is quite a lot of work
>> in getting ECC testing incorporated into the Linux kernel.
>> But even if it were there, would it be very valuable?
>
> Whether to use ECC ram depends on the mobo; some support it, some don't.
>
> I suspect that mobo supports 384 Mbytes of SDRAM, probably no faster
> than PC-100 (but PC-133 works fine); it might not even require it that
> fast.
Actually this 450MHz PIII motherboard supports 1GB of ECC PC100 RAM.
> I've just been to a computer auction; I suspect that wouldn't even
> attract a bid. I'm not sure that there was anything less than a 1.7 Ghz
> PIV. <checks>
> There were two COMPAQ DESKPRO Pentium IIIs, they went for $AU60+10%
> buyers' premium +10% GST.
Well, I'm not planning on selling this machine.
But your comment does raise a point I've often wondered about -
is CPU speed really that important, if one is not a gamer or similar?
This machine is actually only used as a server,
serving (externally) httpd, mysql, php and openldap.
As far as I can see, the slow CPU speed of the machine
has never had the slightest deleterious effect.
The bottleneck in all cases has been the speed of my ADSL connection
(4Mb/s download, according to my ISP, but under 2Mb/s in practice).
So I do genuinely wonder - does CPU speed matter at all, in such a case?
This Asus motherboard has been remarkably resilient
during its long (9 1/2 years) life.
The CMOS battery expired (and was replaced) about 3 years ago;
and two SCSI disks have gently ended their lives,
in each case giving me due warning of their coming demise.
> The question isn't so much whether it can do a useful job, as for how
> long it will do so.
I have often thought of replacing it, as I said.
But is there any real reason to do so?
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