ECC Memory and Slowdowns

[LaneC]

I have a Mid 2010 Mac Pro with ECC RAM.  The system is reporting that one of the sticks has errors.  I am also noticing the system is slightly slower than usual.  Would the ECC memory be causing this or could it be the symptom of a more severe hardware issue?

 

I'm trying to justify investing in new RAM for such an old machine.  Not sure if it's worth it.  

[DXMember]

well ECC stands for Error Checking and Correction (at a cost of some performance),

usually shouldn't be very impactful, but if you're running into a lot of error it might...

also doesn't RAM have like lifetime warranty?

[DXMember]

Just now, CUDA_Cores said:

technically yes. Although I once tried to RMA a stick of kingston RAM with a "lifetime warranty" and they denied me because I had to have proof of purchase. 

of course you do, because maybe you stole it or maybe you put that thing together in your garage and that's not made by Kingston

[DXMember]

Just now, CUDA_Cores said:

I got it on craigslist for $5 and it was dead. When a product says "lifetime warranty" I assume that warranty follows the product, not the owner. Also if kingston got the stick and noticed anything wrong with it, they could've simply denied my RMA then, not up front. 

But man how do they know it's their product without you providing a proof of purchase? Maybe it's a cheap Chinese knock-off, you can't expect Kingston to replace someone else's hardware. You surely can't expect them to check and keep track of all their serial numbers, are you insane?

[DXMember]

3 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

each and every stick of RAM they make has a serial number corresponding to the manufacturing date and factory it was made in. They could've checked the number in their database and saw if it was there. No chinese man can fake a serial number without having access to the database itself. 

 

5 minutes ago, DXMember said:

You surely can't expect them to check and keep track of all their serial numbers, are you insane?

 

[dalekphalm]

You need to test your RAM.

 

Run Memtest for at least 12 hours (ideally 24 hours), and see if the stick has any errors.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, CUDA_Cores said:

Do you have any ideas how easy it is to search a database? It's like searching google. you type the number into the search box and the serial number comes popping right up. the serial numbers themselves are entered entirely automatically so there is no need for human intervention. 

God...

 

Sarcasm->

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

you->

 

He was joking, obviously.

[DXMember]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

You need to test your RAM.

 

Run Memtest for at least 12 hours (ideally 24 hours), and see if the stick has any errors.

though it would appear that ECC is correcting the errors and reporting the fact, which causes the slowdown for end-user, so the errors might not appear for diagnostic tools

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, DXMember said:

though it would appear that ECC is correcting the errors and reporting the fact, which causes the slowdown for end-user, so the errors might not appear for diagnostic tools

Memtest has ECC support... so.... yeah I think it would be fine. There's literally an option for selecting ECC in the program.

[DXMember]

11 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Memtest has ECC support... so.... yeah I think it would be fine. There's literally an option for selecting ECC in the program.

YLYL

[leadeater]

Has the stick of ram also been disabled and your system is slower due to the lesser amount of active ram?

[LaneC]

I operate my own company and have used the system regularly for years without any impact to performance so I assume the performance is related to the ECC error that OS X is telling me about.  It's pretty beefy even by todays standards with 96GB of RAM that I use for virtualizing a lot of environments.

 

Like I mentioned, I have noticed the performance hit ever so slightly so I can tolerate it till I find time to pull the DIMM's in the corresponding banks to see if that's the performance issue.  If it isn't then I guess it's time to start evaluating solutions in a post Mac Pro world since they abandoned us pro users with the trashcan model.