[Beowulf] Re: ECC Memory and Job Failures (Huw Lynes)

[David Mathog]

Huw Lynes <lynesh at cardiff.ac.uk> wrote:

> http://blog.revolution-computing.com/2009/04/blame-it-on-cosmic-rays.html
> 
> Apparently someone ran a large cluster job with both ECC and none-ECC
> RAM. They consistently got the wrong answer when foregoing ECC.

There were not very many details given.  I would not rule out the
possibility that the nonECC memory was slightly faulty, and that the
observed errors had nothing to do with gamma rays at all.  A better test
would have been to use the same ECC memory for both tests, and to turn
ECC memory correction on and off in the BIOS.

Regards,

David Mathog
mathog at caltech.edu
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech