Crazy overkill build ideas post here: Oldest motherboard that supports server ECC registered SDRAM? \ VOGONS

Crazy overkill build ideas post here: Oldest motherboard that supports server ECC registered SDRAM?

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First post, by cyberluke

Posted on 2021-10-18, 18:56

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My super socket 7 board supports ecc, bur probably non-registered and only 256mb ram modules. I bought 2x512 PC100 SDRAM ECC Registered modules because they were cheap...now I dont have motherboard for that. I want to build overkill retro machines, so 1gb memory should be maximum, or 4 slots and 2gb memory limit is ok. Dual socket is not required, although nice to have. No Pentium 3, that is too new and not good for this memory PC100.

If you have another crazy overkill build ideas, please let me know. Currently I have 2x128mb 72pin EDO SIMM as well.

Yes, it is a must have for me. I want to experiment with software and perhaps bring it more up to date. Also LINUX GUI is ridiculously hungry on memory and can have newest software compiled. That is just one of the use cases if you wonder why software developer wants to build overkill retro machines.

Reply 1 of 5, by dataino.it

Posted on 2021-10-18, 19:11

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I have recently recovered this card SuperMicro 370DLE https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboa … 3/LE/P3TDLE.cfm

I'm waiting for the rams. I would say it could be for you, apart from being new it is a server board at the moment it does not have a price as the seller has a full case but cannot make them work. After my tests it will decide what to do

Reply 2 of 5, by retardware

Posted on 2021-10-18, 19:15

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The sad thing with this is that the professional machines tend to get scrapped because they are not really home-friendly.
For example, the parity RAMs I recently bought for my 486 probably have been brutally scavenged from a nice Alpha machine, which possibly did more than only NMI halt on parity error.

On the other hand, if you are really RAM hungry, get older machines (workstations) with registered RAMs.
The price/GB of used registered ECC RAMs is a fraction of the price/GB with unbuffered non-ECC RAMs 😀

Reply 3 of 5, by snufkin

Posted on 2021-10-18, 19:16

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If you wanted, it might be possible to convert the registered to unregistered: Converted registered SDRAM

Reply 4 of 5, by retardware

Posted on 2021-10-18, 19:27

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snufkin wrote on 2021-10-18, 19:16:

If you wanted, it might be possible to convert the registered to unregistered: Converted registered SDRAM

wow, cool!
Would be awesome if such could be done to convert DDR3 RDIMMs into UDIMMs (without SPD reprogramming)... but I guess this is near to impossible.

Reply 5 of 5, by dionb

Posted on 2021-10-18, 19:29

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Does it have to be x86?

The first x86 chipset with registered (ECC) SDRAM support was the i440BX from april 1998. However the Digital (DEC) 21174 Pyxis chipset from early 1997 already supported 128b (dual-channel) registered SDRAM for the Alpha 21164.

Not sure that would be able to use 512MB DIMMs though, Wikipedia says it supports 512MB max.

Those DIMMs you have are designed for a 2000-era Serverworks III chipset, paired with P3 or P3 Xeon CPU. A lot of those kept the 100MHz FSB specifically to support (for then) insane amounts of RAM like this. Take a look at the Tyan Thunder 2500, it had 8 DIMM slots for max 512MB each, allowing 4GB total RAM with your (dual) P2 or P3. If you want to keep it at 100MHz FSB, it supports P3-450 onwards (and I sort of suspect it would work with P2-350 -450 as well)

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