Motherboard w/ ECC?

[Martin Cracauer]

Rob Ellis wrote on Fri, Mar 26, 2004 at 01:34:06PM -0500: 
> How important is ECC ram for a FreeBSD server? We've gone with Asus 
> motherboards in the past, but most new ones don't support ECC...
> 
> If ECC is important, any recommendations for a motherboard that supports
> AMD Athlon + ECC?

The Intel 875 chipset supports it, 865 and below do not.

I have this mainboard in my server: ASUS P4C800-E DELUXE and two
Kingston KVR400X72C3A/512 modules.  Runs fine in dual-channel and ECC.
Very satisfied with that board.  Also has non-PCI (CSA) gigabit
Ethernet and a lot of other junk, e.g. a SATA controller supported by
FreeBSD-4.9 (the in-chipset one, the additional one on the board needs
FreeBSD-5.x).

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket478/p4c800-e_d/overview.HTM

As for needing it: the error rate of intact modern RAM is very low,
there is certainly less need for ECC than there was 10 years ago.  I
am still using ECC to guard myself against the hardware getting old,
e.g. a piece of dust in the socket after fiddling with it turning
bits.  Plus ECC RAM is basically the same price.

I have a question for those in the know: if my module corrects a
one-bit error, will FreeBSD report that?

Martin
-- 
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Martin Cracauer <cracauer at cons.org>   http://www.cons.org/cracauer/
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