[danieltillett]

I thought that single bit flips was all that ecc memory protected against [1].

It is not flip errors per say that causes kernel panics (it is not going to cause any problems if a section of unallocated memory has a bit flip), but the probability of an uncorrected bit flip in a critical memory location. I am certainly willing to be corrected, but if don’t see how increasing the amount of non-critical memory increases the chance of a kernel panic.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory