help! upgrading ddr ram for K7S5A

[wokka]

hi there, im new to the board but have come across it due to the help everyone gives out
usually i dont usually have a problem working things out but if anyone could give me a bit more insight on this particular matter id be grateful
i have a K7S5A socket A athlon 2000+ motherboard/processor and currently have one 256mb ddr ram installed
the motherboard manual says it supports ddr up to 266mhz, ive also read varios places on here that it only accepts PC133 and unbuffered, non-ECC

now this is where i need help, i bought a 512 ddr ram off ebay because of it being a good price but now im not sure if its compatible or it is faulty, i will contact the bloke who sold it me either way but i dont really want to look a fool by buying something thats incompatible, usually i have sdram but since my comp was upgraded so did the ram
anyway the ram i bought is a samsung pc1600r-20220-z, 512mb ddr pc1600 200mhz CL2.0 ECC

now as ive only just realised that my motherboard does not accept non EEC but can anyone tell me is this case shut or is there way around it and can somebody give me some info on what EEC is, and is there no way to get this ram working on my comp? and also what the CL2.0 means? actually, can someone tell me it all so i dont be stupid ever again!!!

cheers for the help!!

[elroy]

The problem you have encountered is that your pc is running 266mhz and your new ram is only able to do 200mhz [PC1600]. You need PC2100 or higher. Also if that board has sdram and ddr ram slots you cannot mix the 2 types, one or the other only. I don't know if that board runs ECC and non-ECC but most boards have a bios setting to select one or the other. ECC is usually used in servers and mission critical applications. It is slightly slower than non-ECC. Non-ECC is the most common type by far.

[rabidaardvark]

I really hate that board or it really hated me which is relevant because of the religious persecution of my people.

[Peter M]

And this is relevant because ...?

wokka, the RAM doesn't work on this board not because it's ECC capable. That's just a couple of extra RAM chips on the DIMM, which are simply ignored by the mainboard if it doesn't do ECC.

There are TWO reasons why it won't work:

(1) It's PC1600, 100 MHz clock. Your 2000+ CPU requires the RAM to run at 133 MHz, which requires PC2100 DIMMs.

(2) It's "registered", meaning it has extra bus isolation chips on, rather than connecting the RAM chips directly ("unbuffered") to the system bus. This is server grade material, commodity chipsets like the SiS 735 don't support those at all.

[wokka]

cheers for the help guys, i best see if i can get a refund or an exchange and/or fimd a well priced pc2100, one last thing, does the make of the ram vary in quality? e.g. are there certain pc2100s that dont perform as well as others