Skip to main content
  • Place orders quickly and easily
  • View orders and track your shipping status
  • Enjoy members-only rewards and discounts
  • Create and access a list of your products
  • Manage your Dell EMC sites, products, and product-level contacts using Company Administration.

Dell EMC PowerEdge C4140 Installation and Service Manual

Mode-specific guidelines

The configurations allowed depend on the memory mode selected in the System BIOS.
Table 1. Memory operating modesThis table describes the memory operating modes.
Memory Operating Mode Description
Optimizer Mode

The Optimizer Mode if enabled, the DRAM controllers operate independently in the 64-bit mode and provide optimized memory performance.

Mirror Mode The Mirror Mode if enabled, the system maintains two identical copies of data in memory, and the total available system memory is one half of the total installed physical memory. Half of the installed memory is used to mirror the active memory modules. This feature provides maximum reliability and enables the system to continue running even during a catastrophic memory failure by switching over to the mirrored copy. The installation guidelines to enable Mirror Mode require that the memory modules be identical in size, speed, and technology, and they must be populated in sets of 6 per processor.
Single Rank Spare Mode Single Rank Spare Mode allocates one rank per channel as a spare. If excessive correctable errors occur in a rank or channel, while the operating system is running, they are moved to the spare area to prevent errors from causing an uncorrectable failure. Requires two or more ranks to be populated in each channel.
Multi Rank Spare Mode Multi Rank Spare Mode allocates two ranks per channel as a spare. If excessive correctable errors occur in a rank or channel, while the operating system is running, they are moved to the spare area to prevent errors from causing an uncorrectable failure. Requires three or more ranks to be populated in each channel.
With single rank memory sparing enabled, the system memory available to the operating system is reduced by one rank per channel.

For example, in a dual-processor configuration with 24x 16 GB dual-rank memory modules, the available system memory is: 3/4 (ranks/channel) × 24 (memory modules) × 16 GB = 288 GB, and not 24 (memory modules) × 16 GB = 384 GB. For multi rank sparing, the multiplier changes to 1/2 (ranks/channel).

NOTE To use memory sparing, this feature must be enabled in the BIOS menu of System Setup.
NOTE Memory sparing does not offer protection against a multi-bit uncorrectable error.
Dell Fault Resilient Mode The Dell Fault Resilient Mode if enabled, the BIOS creates an area of memory that is fault resilient. This mode can be used by an OS that supports the feature to load critical applications or enables the OS kernel to maximize system availability.
NOTE This feature is only supported in Gold and Platinum Intel processors.
NOTE Memory configuration has to be of same size DIMM, speed, and rank.

Optimizer Mode

This mode supports Single Device Data Correction (SDDC) only for memory modules that use x4 device width. It does not impose any specific slot population requirements.

  • Dual processor: Populate the slots in round robin sequence starting with processor 1.
    NOTE Processor 1 and processor 2 population should match.
Table 2. Memory population rulesThis table describes the memory population rules.
Processor Configuration Memory population Memory population information
Dual processor (Start with processor1. processor1 and processor 2 population should match) Optimized (Independent channel) population order A{1}, B{1}, A{2}, B{2}, A{3}, B{3}…
  • Odd amount of DIMMs per processor allowed.
  • Optimizer population order is not traditional for 4 and 8 DIMM installations of single processor.
    • For 4 DIMMs: A1, A2, A4, A5
    • For 8 DIMMs: A1, A2, A4, A5, A7, A8, A10, A11
Mirroring population order

A{1,2,3,4,5,6},
B{1,2,3,4,5,6}

Mirroring is supported with 6 DIMMs per processor.
Single rank sparing population order A{1}, B{1}, A{2}, B{2}, A{3}, B{3}… Populate in this order, odd amount per processor allowed. Requires two ranks or more per channel.
Multi rank spare population order A{1}, B{1}, A{2}, B{2}, A{3}, B{3}… Populate in this order, odd amount per processor allowed. Requires three ranks or more per channel.
Fault resilient population order

A{1,2,3,4,5,6},
B{1,2,3,4,5,6}

Supported with 6 DIMMs per processor.

Rate this content

Accurate
Useful
Easy to understand
Was this article helpful?
0/3000 characters
  Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
  Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
  Please provide ratings (1-5 stars).
  Please select whether the article was helpful or not.
  Comments cannot contain these special characters: <>()\