Stephen wrote:
Hello, I had a GA-MA770DS3 motherboard which will not power on. I
wanted to buy a replacement but AM2+ boards are hard to find. The only
gigabyte model I can find is the GA-M68M-S2P. However I was using ECC
memory in my original motherboard. Does the m68m-s2p support ecc, I do
not think it does. I was using Kingston kvr800d2e5/1g. I don't think
the m68m supports ecc. Could I fit the ram and use it without the ecc
function or would it not work at all?
GA-MA770-DS3 (rev. 2.0)
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=2874#ov
4 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory
Support for DDR2 1066
Support ECC memory [Use of a CPU that supports ECC is required]
GA-M68M-S2P (rev. 2.3)
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/pro...px?pid=3498#sp
2 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8GB of system memory
Support for DDR2 1066
So you're only getting two slots on that one.
The modules should fit, as I don't think UDIMM versus UDIMM ECC makes
any difference to slot keying. The BIOS could choose to ignore the
ECC, and if for some reason the extra eight bits weren't wired up,
it shouldn't hurt anything.
As far as I know, the only real saving for removing ECC from a design,
is if the ECC signals are hard to route, away from the memory controller.
Years ago, Intel made a chipset, where the motherboard layout required
going to a 6 layer PCB to achieve the connection of the ECC signals.
As a result, many products were built on 4 layers, and the ECC was
disconnected. But I've never heard of that issue since, so I assume
the breakout is easy enough to do, with a 4 layer board now.
The other issue is BIOS support. The only potential downside, would be
a BIOS that notices ECC in the module serial presence data, and does the
wrong thing (i.e. refuse to POST, issue "memory error" beep).
I couldn't find any forum-type reports of mixing ECC with the GA-M68M-S2P.
It might work, or not work, as a function of the BIOS.
DDR3 memory is relatively cheap (and is due to go up in price again),
and getting a DDR3 motherboard + RAM would be another alternative. Whether
that will work, depends on your processor.
Gigabyte has a CPU support list, where you can search by processor and
look for resulting motherboards.
http://www.gigabyte.com/support-down...u-support.aspx
Paul