Date: Sun, 13 Jul 1997 22:04:27 -0600 (MDT) From: Wes Peters - Softweyr LLC <softweyr@xmission.com> To: spatula@gulf.net (Nick Johnson) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A few solutions Message-ID: <199707140404.WAA07219@xmission.xmission.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.3.96.970713130431.16120A-100000@pompano.pcola.gulf.net> from "Nick Johnson" at Jul 13, 97 01:11:19 pm
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Nick Johnson wrote:
> Also another pointer: when buying RAM, spend the extra money and get
> parity RAM. You may need to specify "True Parity". There are goofy
> parity RAM simms that have one extra chip that emulates parity
> (essentially always setting correct parity) for boards that require parity
> ram... don't buy these- they don't offer anything more than ordinary
> non-parity simms. I was having a severe problem with page faults at
> inopportune times (ie, in kernel mode) and signal 11s all over the place,
> which has now totally gone away since I replaced the non-parity ram (which
> obviously has a few bad bits somewhere) with parity ram.
Parity RAM won't prevent errors from happening, it will just tell you
when they do. The system will respond by rebooting, which really
doesn't get you much. You probably just ended up with better (or faster)
RAM than what you had before.
High-end UNIX workstations are often equipped with ECC RAM, which can
actually "fix" one-bit errors in memory accesses. This is yet another
area in which garden-variety PCs don't stack up to workstations, either
in performance or cost. ;^)
Buy good quality RAM, parity or not, and be happy.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
http://www.xmission.com/~softweyr softweyr@xmission.com
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