Tyan Computer GX21 - Manual (Page 78)

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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