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Albertech.net

Intel SS4200-E Server with Windows Server 2008

February 9, 2010 5:01 am / Albertech.net

I just finished installing my new server at home on an Intel SS4200-E box. The server is an incredible value at $135 on eBay. It has a solid case with 4 SATA ports, Celeron 1.6 Ghz processor, 512 MB DDR2 RAM (which I upped to 1GB), rubber drive mounts, and 4 USB ports. The intended use for this box is for running Windows Home server 2003 w/o any video ports.

How do you get video on the Intel SS4200?

 

Without any video port, I could see myself spending a lot of time trying to install an unattended Windows install w/a perfect answer file. So, I wanted to find out a way to get this to work with a video card. The Intel SS4200-E has one PCI-Express X1 slot. If you haven’t looked, PCI-Express X1 cards are in the $100-150 range, which costs as much as my Intel server. Ouch. Newegg offers an PCI-Express X1 to X16 adapter card, but its too much hassle since you would need to take apart the case to use it.  I decided to go for the route of buying the PCI-Express X1 adapter cable to plugin to my PCI-Express X16 card. Ebay has auctions for PCI-E X1 to PCI-E X1 extension cable  in the ~$6 range shipped. However, shipping is slow since the only sellers that carry this item are out of the country.

[Disclaimer: Modify the cable adapter at your own risk. Use a cheap video card and take your time cutting the adapter. Always wear proper safety gear including googles. I take no responsibility for any damages.]

In order to use the X1 cable on your X16 card, you will need to dremel off one of the sides to make it fit.  I opened up the end of the shorter slot so that the X16 card fits properly. Basically, one of the slots will fit into the adapter, while the other side is like 1/8 the length of the card. Be careful not to damage any of the pins in the adapter. After you are able to get the adapter to fit onto your video card, connect the other end to the Intel SS4200 PCI-Express X1 slot. Power up the computer. You should see the AMI Bios screen if the adapter works properly. Amazingly, there are a lot of options in the BIOS. An interesting one is the RAID capability. I will be testing out the additional features in future blog postings. Please see the photos below on my install.

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Posted in: Computer Mods / Tagged: PCI X1 to X16, SS4200-E

8 Thoughts on “Intel SS4200-E Server with Windows Server 2008”

  1. Pingback: Al

  2. markro1 on March 14, 2010 at 8:24 am said:

    Instead of using the flex adapter could you have dremeled (shaved) the extra PCI-E board connector down so it could be plugged directly into the MB? Also removing the faceplate and wedging something under it to not short anything?

  3. admin on March 30, 2010 at 1:34 pm said:

    I thought about doing that, but theres some risk involved with dremeling the board vs. a cheap flex connector. Mounting the card would be another issue since you would need to disassemble the case in order to fit the video card into the board.

  4. pslak on May 13, 2010 at 1:54 pm said:

    Thanks for the post. I have ordered the cable from ebay. I believe challenging part will be to dremel off the side of connector without destroying any pin. Any tool you recommend?

    Can you also post the bigger(high resolution) pictures to make it more clear? You can have them as optional download as I understand that embedding them on web page will make page loading slow. I am trying hard to find out how to fit in PCI-E connector to X16 video card.

    Thanks for posting it!

  5. xxlk9 on December 20, 2010 at 2:44 pm said:

    admin,

    Thanks for the info. Just wondering how you got the keyboard connected to get to the bios. USB port?

  6. admin on December 30, 2010 at 3:22 am said:

    I used a USB keyboard to get to the BIOS. There are 4 USB ports on the SS4200-E box, so I usually use one for the keyboard and mouse.

  7. JJ on March 7, 2012 at 1:40 am said:

    I don’t know if you still monitor this post, but I have an SS4200e and tried to get the video working via the x1 to x16 cable and a basic x16 card (it says Orion AD02 on it) with a DVI cable to a basic LCD monitor. My monitor shows no video signal present. Is there any way to reset the SS4200 board to make the video output or do I have to use an x1 card with extender cable? Thanks.

  8. admin on March 12, 2012 at 1:02 pm said:

    I would try running another video card if you have one available. It has to be a very basic one since there isn’t much power going to the the PCI Express port on the SS4200. If you don’t have one available, I’d look into getting a replacement 16x to 1x cable. Good luck!

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