This read-only Counter reports the number of times the Ethernet interface's local memory experienced a parity error during a DMA memory cycle, which the description notes would normally indicate a hardware problem. An admin seeing this counter increment would treat it as a strong signal to schedule hardware replacement for this interface card. For example, a nonzero and growing cntdot3PICDMAErrs count would justify swapping the card even if the interface is still passing some traffic.