[RndTbl] ECC - 8 chips?

Trevor Cordes trevor at tecnopolis.ca
Tue Dec 1 19:51:17 CST 2015


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.

> 2. 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.

> 3. 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?


More information about the Roundtable mailing list