Upgrade or not?

[algae]

Hi all,
I have a PII 400, 128 RAM, Hercules Prophet Geforce Mx. The motherboard has PC133 Ram in it which I know is more than the mobo can handle.
It will take up to a PIII 500 chip (I think).
Expert recommendations??...leave it as is, it's not worth any more upgrades or more RAM? What do you think?
Also I see that the PC133 RAM comes with and without ECC...what does that mean?
TIA for any suggestions?
Gary

 

[LXi]

What motherboard have you got there?

Not all PC133s are ECC, ECC stands for Error Correction, its actually slower than regular PC133s, recommended for workstations and servers.

 

[mgc]

ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) performs "double bit detection and single bit correction". This means that if you have a single bit memory error, the chipset and memory will find and repair the error on the fly without you knowing that it happened. If you have a double bit memory error, it will detect and report it. Using ECC decreases your PC's performance by about 2%. Current technology DRAM is very stable and memory errors are rare, so unless you have a need for ECC, you are better served with non-ECC SDRAM.

 

[LXi]

Hm... I thought ECC stands for Error Correction Code.

 

[algae]

Thanks guys..so I don't want ECC I think. What do you think about the processer upgrade? Worth it or not?
Gary