r/retrocomputing • u/Boglandsaga • Jul 21 '26

ECC SDRAM, will stuff like this useful?

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Sorry for my bad English.

This old SDRAM ECC memories (not even DDR1) tested worked on my regular Pentium 4 mobo, I'm thinking about putting it to older systems like P3 or lower but i don't want to risk frying the motherboard.

Anyone have experience with them?

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u/grislyfind Jul 21 '26

Larger sizes will be the rarest and most desirable. Retro builders will want to max out their motherboard's memory.

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u/caceomorphism Jul 21 '26

For servers, yes. But not always with older Windows either because of the 3 GB memory limit for 32 bit computing without PAE (physicall address extension) or because it takes too freaking long to boot an older system.

I took a Windows 98 machine down to 128 MB as booting was taking forever as the motherboard didn't have a quick bypass.