ECC RAM probably won't fix intermittent crashes.

No. ECC RAM fixes silent memory corruption, not random crashes. If your workstation is crashing intermittently, the culprit is almost always something else.

Overheating, a dying power supply, bad RAM timings, or driver issues top the list. On a budget Linux machine, ECC RAM often isn’t even supported by the CPU or motherboard. You’d need to swap out half the system to use it, which defeats the whole “budget” thing.

Before you drop money on ECC, run a memtest86 check. If regular RAM passes, ECC won’t help. Look at logs (journalctl -p 3 -xb), check temperatures, and reseat everything. That’s where the real fix lives.

Invest in a cheap UPS before you invest in ECC. Dirty power causes more workstation crashes than memory bit flips ever will.