Tyan Computer B5102, GX21 manual Dram Data Integrity Mode

boot up your computer. For example, if it takes 5 minutes to fully boot up your system, you should select 8 Minutes.

You should not select a delay value that is unnecessarily long. Without the Thermal Monitor, your processor may heat up to a critical temperature (approximately 135°C), at which point the thermal sensor shuts down your processor by removing the core voltage within 0.5 seconds. The possible values are:

4 min/ 8 min / 16 min / 32 min

DRAM Data Integrity Mode

This BIOS feature controls the ECC feature of the memory controller.

ECC, which stands for Error Checking and Correction, enables the memory controller to detect and correct single-bit soft memory errors. The memory controller will also be able to detect double-bit errors although it will not be able to cor- rect them. This provides increased data integrity and system stability. However, this feature can only be enabled if you are using special ECC memory modules.

Because present day processors use 64-bit wide data paths, 72-bit (64-bit data + 8-bit ECC) ECC memory modules are required to implement ECC. Please note that the maximum data transfer rate of the 72-bit ECC memory module is the same as the 64-bit memory module. The extra 8-bits are only for the ECC code and do not carry any data. So, using 72-bit memory modules will not give you any boost in performance.

In fact, because the memory controller has to calculate the ECC code for every data word that is read or written, there will be some performance degradation, roughly in the region of 3-5%.

If you are using standard 64-bit memory modules, you must select the Non-ECC option.

But if you have the 72-bit ECC memory modules, you should enable the ECC feature for greater stability and data integrity. The choices are:

ECC / Non-ECC

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