The information in this User’s Manual has been carefully reviewed and is believed to be accurate. The vendor assumes no responsibility for any inaccuracies that may be contained in this document, makes no commitment to update or to keep current the information in this manual, or to notify any person or organization of the updates. Please Note: For the most up-to-date version of this manual, please see our web site at www.supermicro.com. SUPERMICRO COMPUTER reserves the right to make changes to the product described in this manual at any time and without notice.

This product, including software, if any, and documentation may not, in whole or in part, be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any medium or machine without prior written consent. IN NO EVENT WILL SUPERMICRO COMPUTER BE LIABLE FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING FROM THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PRODUCT OR DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN PARTICULAR, THE VENDOR SHALL NOT HAVE LIABILITY FOR ANY HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, OR DATA STORED OR USED WITH THE PRODUCT, INCLUDING THE COSTS OF REPAIRING, REPLACING, INTEGRATING, INSTALLING OR RECOVERING SUCH HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, OR DATA.

Any disputes arising between manufacturer and customer shall be governed by the laws of Santa Clara County in the State of California, USA. The State of California, County of Santa Clara shall be the exclusive venue for the resolution of any such disputes. Supermicro's total liability for all claims will not exceed the price paid for the hardware product. Unless you request and receive written permission from SUPER MICRO COMPUTER, you may not copy any part of this document. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Other products and companies referred to herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or mark holders.

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Preface Preface About This Manual This manual is written for system integrators, PC technicians and knowledgeable PC users. It provides information for the installation and use of the SUPER P4SS8/P4SSE mainboard. The SUPER P4SS8/P4SSE supports single Intel ® Xeon TM 1.8 - 2.8 GHz processors with a 512K L2 cache at a 400 MHz front side bus. Please refer to the support section of our web site (http://www.supermicro.com/TechSupport.htm) for a complete listing of sup- ported processors. This product is intended to be professionally installed.

Manual Organization Chapter 1 begins with a checklist of what should be included in your mainboard box, describes the features, specifications and performance of the motherboard and provides detailed information about the chipset. Chapter 2 begins with instructions on handling static-sensitive devices. Read this chapter when you want to install the processor and DIMM memory modules and when mounting the mainboard in the chassis. Also refer to this chapter to connect the floppy and hard disk drives, SCSI drives, the IDE interfaces, the parallel and serial ports, the front control panel functions, the speaker and the keyboard.

If you encounter any problems, see Chapter 3 , which describes trouble- shooting procedures for the video, the memory and the setup configuration stored in CMOS. For quick reference, a general FAQ [Frequently Asked Questions] section is provided. Instructions are also included for contact- ing technical support. In addition, you can visit our web site at www.supermicro.com/techsupport.htm for more detailed information. Chapter 4 includes an introduction to BIOS and provides detailed informa- tion on running the CMOS Setup utility. Appendix A gives information on BIOS error beep codes. Appendix B provides POST checkpoint codes. iii

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S UPER P4SS8/P4SSE User’s Manual Table of Contents Preface About This Manual ...................................................................................................... iii Manual Organization ................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1: Introduction 1-1 Overview ......................................................................................................... 1-1 Checklist .................................................................................................... 1-1 Contacting Supermicro ............................................................................

1-2 Super P4SS8 Image................................................................................. 1-4 Super P4SSE Image................................................................................. 1-5 Super P4SS8 Layout ............................................................................... 1-6 Super P4SS8 Quick Reference ............................................................. 1-7 Super P4SSE Quick Reference ............................................................. 1-9 Super P4SSE Layout ............................................................................... 1-8 Motherboard Features ...........................................................................

1-10 1-2 Chipset Overview......................................................................................... 1-13 ServerWorks GC - SL Chipset System Block Diagram ................... 1-12 1-3 Special Features........................................................................................... 1-13 ATI Graphics Controller ........................................................................ 1-13 BIOS Recovery ....................................................................................... 1-13 Recovery from AC Power Loss .........................................................

1-13 1-4 PC Health Monitoring .................................................................................... 1-14 1-5 ACPI Features ............................................................................................... 1-15 1-6 Power Supply ............................................................................................... 1-17 1-7 Super I/O......................................................................................................... 1-17 Chapter 2: Installation 2-1 Static-Sensitive Devices ...............................................................................

2-1 Precautions ............................................................................................... 2-1 2-2 PGA Processor and Heatsink Installation .................................................. 2-2 Unpacking .................................................................................................. 2-1 2-3 Installing DIMMs ............................................................................................... 2-5 2-4 IO Ports/Control Panel Connectors .............................................................. 2-6 2-5 Connecting Cables ..........................................................................................

2-8 ATX Power Connection .......................................................................... 2-8 Power LED ................................................................................................. 2-8 PWR_SEC Connection .............................................................................. 2-8 HDD LED .................................................................................................... 2-8 iv

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