Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Mon, 22 Apr 1996 17:29:56 +0100 | | From | Matthew J Brown <> | | Subject | Re: memtest86, built into kernel |
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Matti E. Aarnio writes: >> No mainframes ran with ECC memory boards, so hardware faults got logged. >> PC's _had_ parity to show you errors in RAM. Now they don't bother (I guess >> because the people who make the PC's make so much bad memory they dont want >> you to find out). > > http://www-cs.intel.com/oem_developer/chip_pci.htm > > Pick "General" from that (the URL is VERY long..), and > go see about "Evaluating the Need for Parity in Desktop PCs"
Basically they say there that with modern SIMMs the MTBF for a soft error (ie. alpha particle corruption) is between 12-30 years of continual system use.
Given that it happens so rarely, that parity is only 50% likely to catch the error anyway, and that parity requires an extra 12.5% DRAM, it doesn't seem worth it to me. ECC is more useful, since it will correct single-bit errors rather than just hanging.
-Matt
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