John Summerfield wrote: >> I'm getting memory for a very old (P2B-LS) Asus motherboard, >> and I see I can get ECC memory for some 20% more. >> >> Is there any point in getting this? >> I see there is quite a lot of work >> in getting ECC testing incorporated into the Linux kernel. >> But even if it were there, would it be very valuable? > > Whether to use ECC ram depends on the mobo; some support it, some don't. > > I suspect that mobo supports 384 Mbytes of SDRAM, probably no faster > than PC-100 (but PC-133 works fine); it might not even require it that > fast. Actually this 450MHz PIII motherboard supports 1GB of ECC PC100 RAM. > I've just been to a computer auction; I suspect that wouldn't even > attract a bid. I'm not sure that there was anything less than a 1.7 Ghz > PIV. <checks> > There were two COMPAQ DESKPRO Pentium IIIs, they went for $AU60+10% > buyers' premium +10% GST. Well, I'm not planning on selling this machine. But your comment does raise a point I've often wondered about - is CPU speed really that important, if one is not a gamer or similar? This machine is actually only used as a server, serving (externally) httpd, mysql, php and openldap. As far as I can see, the slow CPU speed of the machine has never had the slightest deleterious effect. The bottleneck in all cases has been the speed of my ADSL connection (4Mb/s download, according to my ISP, but under 2Mb/s in practice). So I do genuinely wonder - does CPU speed matter at all, in such a case? This Asus motherboard has been remarkably resilient during its long (9 1/2 years) life. The CMOS battery expired (and was replaced) about 3 years ago; and two SCSI disks have gently ended their lives, in each case giving me due warning of their coming demise. > The question isn't so much whether it can do a useful job, as for how > long it will do so. I have often thought of replacing it, as I said. But is there any real reason to do so?
