ECC and DDR5

Post by sliken » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

auspiv wrote: post #72

nu11ptr wrote: post #51

I've always thought it odd that we don't use ECC as a standard on all computers. I think people really downplay the impact of memory issues. They can be devastating, especially over time. They will slowly corrupt your file system, documents, binary files, code, everything. You notice when things like your compressed files start giving CRC/checksum errors or your downloads don't match SHA-512. You are then left with t…

This is/was classic market segmentation. Want ECC? Pay up for Xeon (server/workstation CPU)

Sort of, often there's workstation chips, like the xeon E3, which is a warmed over desktop chip ... with ECC. Price difference when I bought was $20 CHEAPER for the CPU (at the cost of 100 MHz or so). I did pay $50 more for a motherboard and 10-15% more for ram.

Or just get an AMD Ryzen.

Post by sliken » Thu, Jul 23, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #22

nahuel0x wrote: post #3

Something important not discussed here is that you need not only error correction (when possible) but also error reporting, so you can know you RAM is failing. Sadly, is not possible to get DDR5 on-die ECC error counts reported to the OS. Alternative solution, use IBECC with DDR5, where the CPU reserves a portion of the RAM for parity bits and does the check / reporting.

My Linux installation came with an AMD MCE driver that reports them to dmesg. It logs a few corrected errors a day.

Sounds like an issue with hardware. I watch ECC errors for 2500 servers and see a few some days, and zero others. Said servers at an elevation of 6,000 feet or so. A few per day for a single machine is crazy high. You likely have a dimm, dimm slot, motherboard, or CPU issue that's susceptible to RF noise, vibration, temp changes or similar.

Re: ECC and DDR5

Re: ECC and DDR5