ECC not working ... is it the BIOS ?

jojo

Hi folks !
It´s me again. I´m a proud owner of a Ga-6BX7+ Board (with 440BX as you know).
I stuffed this board with 1024MB non registered ECC Ram (Typ Infineon HYS72V32220GU-7-C2, 32Mx72,128M, 100-222,133-222)

The Ram is fully recognized (as I assumed) so this is not the problem.

The problem is the ECC checking: testing the Ram with CTRAM51 ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/ctramtst.zip
(ECC/Parity check, refreshrate 60s-> to force errors) gives me several Multibit and Singlebit errors and NO Parity errors. So this means the ECC is not working at all.

What´s the problem with all that ?
Is it the Bios ? (Remember Ram IS ECC!) ECC Mode is enabled ...
Is it the Board ?(manual mentioned ECC compatibility)
The german guy at CT (german computer magazin) mentioned that the boards layout could be faulty in not having wired all pins of the Ram modules ...

PS. Bios is F5D (with a patched Microcode -> Thanks again guys, and a patched promise U66 Bios)

Thanks so much !!!!

ajzchips · Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2002 1:18 pm Post subject:

I remember some boards' BIOSes that would disable ECC (usually a bug) when exceeding a certain amount of RAM (i.e. 512MB), even if set to ENABLED in BIOS.
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jojo · Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2002 2:51 pm Post subject:

[quote="ajzchips"]I remember some boards' BIOSes that would disable ECC (usually a bug) when exceeding a certain amount of RAM (i.e. 512MB), even if set to ENABLED in BIOS.[/quote]

Wow fast reply !

Could you give me an example of an BX Board with this prob ?

So what should I do now ? Is there a way of getting this prob solved with some bios-utilities or should I call Gigabyte (I doubt they will even check this bios anymore) ...

hmmm ....

It´s really sad to have the best BX Board with non-working ECC ...

Thanks !

PS. Should I post this in the High tech bios section ?

NickS · Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2002 2:54 pm Post subject:

Don't repost! This is just the right place.
Is there a parity/ECC option in the CMOS ?
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jojo · Posted: Thu Oct 17, 2002 3:03 pm Post subject:

Well there´s only the option:
"DRAM Data Integrity Mode: Non-ECC / ECC"
I enabled ECC mode.

Hope this answers your question.

Bios is an Award 4.51pg Dual Bios
Main Boot Bios is patched F5D.
Backup Bios is F4.

jojo

back on the track ...
I collected some wisdom (mainly ready som spec sheets).
It seems that the BX hostcontroller is wrongly prorammed (i.e. non ECC mode) by the Bios.

The 440 Bx has (As far as I understood) three modes:: Non-ECC, EC und ECC. Switching between the two first-mentioned states is done by a register setting (NBXCFG bits 8:7 DDIM set to 01). Switching from EC to ECC "is performed entirely by software" ...
(whatever that means)

Well I hope that this could somehow help.
I´m personally not skilled enough to solve this.

Maybe it´s a real challenge for you guys ... ;)

PS.
Don´t know how STR affects the programming of the BX (maybe it´s even set to default in this state or at wake up )

Thanks for your interest and patience!!!