PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xp7rt . net > wrote in message
news:691i1kF2v31q3U1@mid.individual . net ...
> "Soundhaspriority" wrote ...

[snip]

>
> I still can't figure out why Bob's got his panties in such a
> knot over SER & ECC. Did he just buy a bunch of Micron
> stock? And he still hasn't explained "poorly modeled noise".

Don't bother trying to figure it out. After all, you have a nice keychain.

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d . com > wrote in message
news:D6pWj.70$vE.55@trnddc03...
> Steve L. wrote:
>
>> Here's one
>> * w w w .intel . com /products/motherboard/D975XBX2/index.htm
>
> I think I was looking at that board last time around. It seems to have
> everything that I need, though two PCI slots (I'm pretty sure the Gigabyte
> board I had on my current shopping list has three) might be a bit tight.
> Also, it's kind of expensive. Any other reason to get it than it's an
> Intel and it supports ECC memory? And how important is that? How often
> does memory fail these days?
>
According to the Micron estimate, in a machine with 4 gb of memory, one
memory soft error per power-on week. This is why Microsoft is requesting
that manufacturers switch entirely to ECC ram.

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d . com > wrote in message
news:D6pWj.70$vE.55@trnddc03...
> Steve L. wrote:
>
>> Here's one
>> * w w w .intel . com /products/motherboard/D975XBX2/index.htm
>
> I think I was looking at that board last time around. It seems to have
> everything that I need, though two PCI slots (I'm pretty sure the Gigabyte
> board I had on my current shopping list has three) might be a bit tight.
> Also, it's kind of expensive. Any other reason to get it than it's an
> Intel and it supports ECC memory? And how important is that? How often
> does memory fail these days?
>
Here is a page that will help you select an ECC capable Intel motherboard:
* w w w .intel . com /support/motherboards/desktop/sb/cs-009023.htm

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors

"Soundhaspriority" <nowhere@nowhere . com > said in response to my
bewilderment

> I recommend AMD chipsets

AMD likes to change socket platforms often.
Socket 775 from intel is pretty versitle in it's choice of chips that will
fit.
A consideration if you want to upgrade your processor in the future.

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Steve L." <email@myeamail . com > wrote in message
news:Xns9A9D6C8CDF2B9emailmemyemailcom@208.49.82.60...
> "Soundhaspriority" <nowhere@nowhere . com > said in response to my
> bewilderment
>
>> I recommend AMD chipsets
>
> AMD likes to change socket platforms often.
> Socket 775 from intel is pretty versitle in it's choice of chips that will
> fit.
> A consideration if you want to upgrade your processor in the future.

Recently, that has been true. However, since Intel is moving toward
integrated MMU next year, all the current chipsets/sockets will be out the
window in 18 months anyway.

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors

On May 13, 1:40 pm, "Steve L." <em...@myeamail . com > wrote:
> "Soundhaspriority" <nowh...@nowhere . com > said in response to my
> bewilderment
>
> > I recommend AMD chipsets
>
> AMD likes to change socket platforms often.
> Socket 775 from intel is pretty versitle in it's choice of chips that will
> fit.
> A consideration if you want to upgrade your processor in the future.

AMD for the lose, I'm sorry Soundhaspriority. Since the core 2 duo and
the quad, AMD is way behind.

Mike, I don't know why you would need ECC .Take the e8400, less heat,
more overclocking potential, more stability, more cache.

Steve, the raid is hardware, not software. There is a dedicated chip
on the motherboard in the DS3R. Performance is great, that's what I
have currently. (almost the same board as the DS3L but with integrated
Raid)

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Julien BH" <julienbh@gmail . com > wrote in message
news:54ca5512-13d5-4159-bf82-00b25319336c@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups . com ...
> On May 13, 1:40 pm, "Steve L." <em...@myeamail . com > wrote:
>> "Soundhaspriority" <nowh...@nowhere . com > said in response to my
>> bewilderment
>>
>> > I recommend AMD chipsets
>>
>> AMD likes to change socket platforms often.
>> Socket 775 from intel is pretty versitle in it's choice of chips that
>> will
>> fit.
>> A consideration if you want to upgrade your processor in the future.
>
> AMD for the lose, I'm sorry Soundhaspriority. Since the core 2 duo and
> the quad, AMD is way behind.
>
> Mike, I don't know why you would need ECC

For this reason:
* w w w .eetimes . com /news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199601761

I will not build a system without server class memory. To do so is just
plain foolish.

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
>> Mike, I don't know why you would need ECC
>
> For this reason:
> * w w w .eetimes . com /news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199601761
>
> I will not build a system without server class memory. To do so is just
> plain foolish.

LOL! :-)) Microsoft is just trying to distract attention away from
the #1 through #9 causes of system crashes, their own code!

I've used 100s of computers for decades and could count on one
hand the number of crashes from RAM failures. MS can play FUD
with the best of them.

Don't believe everything you read, Bob.

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xp7rt . net > wrote in message
news:68udn5F2uvofcU1@mid.individual . net ...
> "Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
>>> Mike, I don't know why you would need ECC
>>
>> For this reason:
>> * w w w .eetimes . com /news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199601761
>>
>> I will not build a system without server class memory. To do so is just
>> plain foolish.
>
> LOL! :-)) Microsoft is just trying to distract attention away from
> the #1 through #9 causes of system crashes, their own code!
>
> I've used 100s of computers for decades and could count on one
> hand the number of crashes from RAM failures. MS can play FUD
> with the best of them.
>
> Don't believe everything you read, Bob.
>
Rich,

You should take that advice yourself. Microsoft has no vested reason to
promote the use of ECC, other than to improve the customer experience. But
the hardware industry doesn't want to charge consumers for ECC protection,
because they know it's cheaper to dupe them out of the added reliability.
Cosmic rays cause ram bit flip. This is categorized as a soft error. For
this reason, all servers, without exception, use ECC, because it completely
removes the bit-flip ram problem from practical consideration.

For someone like Mike, building his own computer, the cost of ECC is
minimal, and will provide a system that is significantly less prone to
crashes than the typical trashy consumer desktop.

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
> You should take that advice yourself. Microsoft has no vested reason to
> promote the use of ECC,

You must have missed the nine other vested reasons I cited.

> other than to improve the customer experience.

Or FUD.
* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt

> But the hardware industry doesn't want to charge consumers for ECC
> protection, because they know it's cheaper to dupe them out of the added
> reliability.

They also know that the customers won't pay for solid-gold
keyboards either because it provides no better reliabilty.

> Cosmic rays cause ram bit flip. This is categorized as a soft error. For
> this reason, all servers, without exception, use ECC, because it
> completely removes the bit-flip ram problem from practical consideration.

Don't forget that I work with people every day here at the
office who developed the first commercial DRAM chip
available on the planet, and all the generations between
256 bit and 1Mb.

It was in the lab I managed where we discovered that a
recent rash of soft-errors was the slightly-radioactive sand
used to make the ceramic packages of the 16K DRAM
chips IBM was using in its mainframes at the time.

I have a chip of the world's first 1Mb DRAM on my key-
chain in my pocket. Here's a picture for your amusement...
* w w w .rcrowley . com /images/jedii-1.jpg

I can stand up and see people 2 rows over in the Q&R
group who know more about soft-errors than most anyone
else alive (or dead, for that matter.)

> For someone like Mike, building his own computer, the cost of ECC is
> minimal, and will provide a system that is significantly less prone to
> crashes than the typical
> trashy consumer desktop.

And yet we manage to get away with using the 100s of
millions of "trashy consumer desktop" systems without
statistically significant memory failures. Go figure. We
even use those non-ECC "trashy consumer desktop"
systems to design the ECC circuits! What irony. :-)

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xp7rt . net > wrote in message
news:68uj5oF2u8m7mU1@mid.individual . net ...
> "Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
>> You should take that advice yourself. Microsoft has no vested reason
>> to promote the use of ECC,
>
> You must have missed the nine other vested reasons I cited.
>
>> other than to improve the customer experience.
>
> Or FUD.
> * en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt
>
>> But the hardware industry doesn't want to charge consumers for ECC
>> protection, because they know it's cheaper to dupe them out of the added
>> reliability.
>
> They also know that the customers won't pay for solid-gold
> keyboards either because it provides no better reliabilty.
>
>> Cosmic rays cause ram bit flip. This is categorized as a soft error. For
>> this reason, all servers, without exception, use ECC, because it
>> completely removes the bit-flip ram problem from practical consideration.
>
> Don't forget that I work with people every day here at the
> office who developed the first commercial DRAM chip
> available on the planet, and all the generations between
> 256 bit and 1Mb.
>
Rich, I'm surprised. First you implied that I am gullible with respect to
what I read, and now you're trying a credentials war.
ALL servers, without exception, use ECC for good reason.

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
> Rich, I'm surprised. First you implied that I am gullible with respect to
> what I read,

Given the actual soft-error rates real people experience out
in the world, the article seems suspicious. I question
*everything* I read, don't you?

> and now you're trying a credentials war.

None of the Q&R people use computers with ECC.
If they aren't worred about it, dunno why I should be.
I'd rather spend the $$$ on more (non-ECC) RAM.

> ALL servers, without exception, use ECC for good reason.

The risk of soft errors is not zero. But it isn't high enough to
warrant using ECC in workstations. The stakes are higher in
servers, so it is more common in that application.

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xp7rt . net > wrote in message
news:68uo40F2u1anhU1@mid.individual . net ...
> "Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
>> Rich, I'm surprised. First you implied that I am gullible with respect to
>> what I read,
>
> Given the actual soft-error rates real people experience out
> in the world, the article seems suspicious. I question
> *everything* I read, don't you?
>
Yes, like the above.

>> and now you're trying a credentials war.
>
> None of the Q&R people use computers with ECC.
> If they aren't worred about it, dunno why I should be.
> I'd rather spend the $$$ on more (non-ECC) RAM.
>
>> ALL servers, without exception, use ECC for good reason.
>
> The risk of soft errors is not zero. But it isn't high enough to
> warrant using ECC in workstations. The stakes are higher in
> servers, so it is more common in that application.
You can't define the "stakes" for someone else. Everyone has their own
priorities. For some of us, this is: not losing a project through corruption
of project files, OS corruption, or misdirected writes to disk. The damage
caused by a soft error can be zero, or it can be so slight as to be
indetectable, until months later, a particular operation is attempted. Soft
errors are the cancers of software.

Several years ago, Intel removed ECC capabilities from their chipsets, which
Steve L. tells me they have now introduced. The removal was a bad corporate
decision by Intel. Intel is a good company, but they are not immune to this
type of logical error. One should make every reasonable attempt to remove
error from a computer system. The cost of ECC is nominal.

The likely cause of this kind of thinking was the rise of the gaming market.
For gamers, the purchase equation is heavily weighted towards performance at
the expense of reliability. It is very difficult to educate the mainstream
consumer. As we discuss, Mike Rivers is trying to find out what ECC means to
him, and it isn't obvious.

Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors

"Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
> Several years ago, Intel removed ECC capabilities from their chipsets,

Reference? What remarkable twaddle.

Re: PC Motherboard Chipsets and Parts Vendors


"Richard Crowley" <rcrowley@xp7rt . net > wrote in message
news:UqidnSVk4IRYULfVnZ2dnUVZ_rfinZ2d@posted.pcez...
> "Soundhaspriority" wrote ...
>> Several years ago, Intel removed ECC capabilities from their chipsets,
>
> Reference? What remarkable twaddle.

Rich,
Please accept my deepest apology. While so far in this discussion I
have provided the following references:
* w w w .eetimes . com /news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199601761
w w w .tezzaron . com /about/papers/soft_errors_1_1_secure.pdf

you have provided your keychain: "I have a chip of the world's first 1Mb
DRAM on my key-
chain in my pocket. Here's a picture for your amusement..."

I would certainly not want to go up against your eminent keychain. In fact,
I am very interested in what it has to say. In any contest between a
keychain and references, the keychain wins hands down. I should quit now! :)

Now let's try to help each other out on this. One important clarification
is that a motherboard may incorporate a chipset that supports ECC, while the
BIOS does not. For several years, there were no desktop motherboards on the
market past the Pentium IV level that supported ECC. Steve L. tells us
that some Intel products once again support ECC.

Since you are an Intel insider, I respectfully request some document links
so we can establish what Intel desktop motherboard products do support ECC.

Regards,
Bob Morein
(310) 237-6511