I'm doing some ECC RAM shopping on ebay (as per prev postings).
I came across something weird. There's a stick showing up in various places that claims to be ECC but all pics (and the physical unit, I've confirmed) have only 8 (or 16) DRAM chips, not 9 or 18.
Does this make any sense to anybody? Is this possible??
The stick is Kingston KTH-XW4400E6/2G
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Kingston-KTH-XW4400E6-2G-2GB-ECC-DDR2-800-240-pin-... http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221949985186?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134842 specifically says in "overview" it has "Error Checking and Correcting Technology"
Kingston has discontinued this part and it's hard to even find on the site anymore, but here's:
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/hyperx_us/partsinfo.asp?root=&ktcpartno=... says x72 ECC The equiv HP #'s they provide all show up on the net as 9 chip, so this Kingston stick should be ecc.
??? WTF?
Off the top, I'd say don't touch it! It could be a revival of those fraudulent "phantom parity" stick that were marketed long ago, though I can't imagine Kingston or HP engaging in that fraud.
There is, however, one way these could be ECC after all. If the 4 chips on one end are the main data chips, and the other 4 chips at the other end are of much lower capacity and carry the parity bits. Unfortunately, on the eBay pic, a sticker is covering all 4 chips at one end, so you can't compare.
Oh, there is one other (not uncommon) possibility - some lower capacity chips on the back of the DIMM to carry the parity bits. Do we have a pic of the back anywhere?
Hartmut W Sager - Tel +1-204-339-8331
On 1 December 2015 at 17:52, Trevor Cordes trevor@tecnopolis.ca wrote:
I'm doing some ECC RAM shopping on ebay (as per prev postings).
I came across something weird. There's a stick showing up in various places that claims to be ECC but all pics (and the physical unit, I've confirmed) have only 8 (or 16) DRAM chips, not 9 or 18.
Does this make any sense to anybody? Is this possible??
The stick is Kingston KTH-XW4400E6/2G
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Kingston-KTH-XW4400E6-2G-2GB-ECC-DDR2-800-240-pin-... http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221949985186?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134842 specifically says in "overview" it has "Error Checking and Correcting Technology"
Kingston has discontinued this part and it's hard to even find on the site anymore, but here's:
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/hyperx_us/partsinfo.asp?root=&ktcpartno=... says x72 ECC The equiv HP #'s they provide all show up on the net as 9 chip, so this Kingston stick should be ecc.
??? WTF? _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
1. I've seen DIMMs with parity on the back side. That's a possibility. I recall encountering Registered DRAM (which these might be) where the parity function was somehow integrated into the latch register chip. 2. Most of the non-eBay images I've found are *definitely not* of that part # and are therefore worthless as data points. 3. That is *not* a HyperX part# despite what's in the Kingston URL. 4. It's system-specific RAM: you know as well as I do that's often the regular stuff, just better tested. But not always.
In short... If you have an HP XW (Kayak) series workstation, go ahead and use these. If you have an HP server, tread carefully: trust but verify. For any other use, I'd probably stay away.
-Adam
On December 1, 2015 6:26:06 PM CST, Hartmut W Sager hwsager@marityme.net wrote:
Off the top, I'd say don't touch it! It could be a revival of those fraudulent "phantom parity" stick that were marketed long ago, though I can't imagine Kingston or HP engaging in that fraud.
There is, however, one way these could be ECC after all. If the 4 chips on one end are the main data chips, and the other 4 chips at the other end are of much lower capacity and carry the parity bits. Unfortunately, on the eBay pic, a sticker is covering all 4 chips at one end, so you can't compare.
Oh, there is one other (not uncommon) possibility - some lower capacity chips on the back of the DIMM to carry the parity bits. Do we have a pic of the back anywhere?
Hartmut W Sager - Tel +1-204-339-8331
On 1 December 2015 at 17:52, Trevor Cordes trevor@tecnopolis.ca wrote:
I'm doing some ECC RAM shopping on ebay (as per prev postings).
I came across something weird. There's a stick showing up in various places that claims to be ECC but all pics (and the physical unit,
I've
confirmed) have only 8 (or 16) DRAM chips, not 9 or 18.
Does this make any sense to anybody? Is this possible??
The stick is Kingston KTH-XW4400E6/2G
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Kingston-KTH-XW4400E6-2G-2GB-ECC-DDR2-800-240-pin-...
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221949985186?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134842 specifically says in "overview" it has "Error Checking and Correcting Technology"
Kingston has discontinued this part and it's hard to even find on the
site
anymore, but here's:
http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/hyperx_us/partsinfo.asp?root=&ktcpartno=...
says x72 ECC The equiv HP #'s they provide all show up on the net as 9 chip, so
this
Kingston stick should be ecc.
??? WTF? _______________________________________________ Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
Roundtable mailing list Roundtable@muug.mb.ca http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/roundtable
On 2015-12-01 Hartmut W Sager wrote:
Off the top, I'd say don't touch it! It could be a revival of those fraudulent "phantom parity" stick that were marketed long ago, though I can't imagine Kingston or HP engaging in that fraud.
That's what I started thinking.
There is, however, one way these could be ECC after all. If the 4 chips on one end are the main data chips, and the other 4 chips at
That would be pretty rare for a DDR2 vintage stick. The walmart pic shows the chips all the same size.
Oh, there is one other (not uncommon) possibility - some lower capacity chips on the back of the DIMM to carry the parity bits. Do we have a pic of the back anywhere?
I asked a guy who has these sticks and he says zero chips on back, 8 chips on front.
On 2015-12-01 Adam Thompson wrote:
I recall encountering Registered DRAM (which these might be) where the parity function was somehow integrated into the latch register chip.
Nope, no reg or FB here. These are plain jane sticks.
- Most of the non-eBay images I've found are
*definitely not* of that part # and are therefore worthless as data points.
Ya, but newegg and amazon are usually pretty reliable for pics, as should be the people on ebay claiming their pics are the actual pics.
Here's something weird, there's also a KTH-XW4400E/2G model (just without the "6" after the "E", that appears to be exactly the same just with a 6 timing spec. And those sticks also say ECC and their pics do appear to be 9 chip.
- That is *not* a HyperX part# despite what's in the
Kingston URL.
Ya, I think DDR2 was before their "HyperX" brand came out? In any case, HyperX usually doesn't apply to system-specific RAM.
I'll try emailing Kingston to get a definitive answer. Now for the fun part, if you have this stick and it was wrongly described, and the stick is brand new (sealed) will Kingston honor the lifetime warranty and replace it with a real ECC stick even though it's now long EOL?
Oh, it looks like it's much simpler than all this. I looked more carefully at the ebay auction pics and noticed a few things that provide answers. It's all just a case of ebay fraud/misrepresentation/ stupidity, as usual. (I'm focusing on this ebay auction because I already bought it through my buddy in the USA. Doh!)
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/221949985186
1. The PN on the pkg sticker doesn't match the PN on at least 2 of the sticks (9995315-028). The middle stick in the pic does appear to be the correct PN (9905321-031), so that probably has 9 chips. The left one is not visible, but could be also. The open stick and the right-hand stick are clearly the wrong PN, and that PN googles out to be a non-ECC stick.
2. The "sealed" sticks (according to his description) are obviously not sealed, beacause the sticks are in 3 different orientations in the package, and obviously Kingston ships them all the same. Should been an immediate tip off.
So the seller either is ignorant or fraudulent. Even with his "no returns" statement ebay will force a refund for misrepresented goods.
Once again reinforces my belief that some categories of goods are very risky to buy on ebay.
-
Adam Thompson -
Hartmut W Sager -
Trevor Cordes