Ecc Ram?

I'm not too much of a hardware person, but I just bought a Compaq 127006-041 512MB PC133 CL3 ECC SDRAM Memory chip from somebody (who I don't know that well) and tried to install it into my desktop computer and when I booted up the computer it beeped three times and wouldn't boot. I asked the guy about this and he said that it's RAM made specifically for a server, hence the ECC. Doesn't ECC stand for Error Correction Code? Is that true that ECC chips are made ONLY for servers and is that why it didn't work? I don't know if I trust this guy, so that's why I'm asking, imo he probably sold me faulty RAM, but I wouldn't make accusations unless I actually knew, so I'm asking for any insight as this isn't my area of expertise. Thanks.

Have a look at the manual that came with your motherboard, for example mine says: "... support ECC...". If yours doesn't that may explain why you get problems. Another question: are you sure your motherboard supports SDRAM? New computers nowadays use DDR#.

As for the reason why ECC is suitable for servers, I suppose that is because ECC RAM is as you already said, error correcting, hence should be more reliable.

I think the problem might be that the ECC RAM is also buffered, whilst non-ECC RAM is usually unbuffered (in fact, it's near enough impossible to find the "unbuffered ECC" and "buffered non-ECC" combinatins).

The buffering changes the timing of the signals to the memory, and unless the chipset and BIOS support this option, you are unlikely to get this memory to work in a standard motherboard.

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Mats

I am not sure but I think there are unbuffered ECCs available for desktops. But I think it needs memory controller support which usually means mainboard support. I haven't seen a desktop mainboard to support buffered RAM.

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Quote:

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Another question: are you sure your motherboard supports SDRAM? New computers nowadays use DDR#.

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DDR actually is DDRSDRAM == "Double Data Rate Synchronus Dynamic Random Access Memory".