From owner-freebsd-hardware Tue Sep 16 01:06:51 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA05317 for hardware-outgoing; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 01:06:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from news.nacamar.de (news.nacamar.de [194.162.162.210]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id BAA05277 for ; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 01:06:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newsfeed (newsfeed.nacamar.de [194.162.162.196]) by news.nacamar.de (8.8.7/8.8.6) with SMTP id KAA12338; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 10:06:14 +0200 (CEST) Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19970916100515.01432790@mail.nacamar.de> X-Sender: petzi@mail.nacamar.de X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 10:05:15 +0200 To: Doug Russell , William Maddox From: Michael Beckmann Subject: Re: Parity trouble with Asus mainboard Cc: hardware@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk At 12:47 15.09.97 -0600, Doug Russell wrote: > >> Are you sure these are true parity SIMMs? Some cheap SIMMs use "logic >> parity", which just fakes a parity bit for older MBs that require it. >> These will not work with ECC, and should be avoided in any case. >> Also, you describe these SIMMs as 2 x 32, 8 x 32 and so forth. In >> standard nomenclature, the "32" is the width of the SIMM, i.e., 32 bits. >> Parity SIMMs are 2 x 36, etc. >> >> Admittedly, this doesn't explain why the Gigabyte board worked, unless >> somehow the ECC was disabled behind your back. > >It is quite possible that the Gigabyte automatically disables ECC if you >don't actually have parity memory installed as an "idiot-proof" type >feature. I honestly don't know for sure, though. My Gigabyte 586 HX has three settings for parity: enabled, disabled and auto. I set it to enabled when I tried the parity SIMMs. Later I installed the normal SIMMs again and immediately got a parity error, so the parity check seems to work. Michael