Regarding the installation of Windows 10, I found it necessary to do the following:
1) Download the latest Windows 10 Media Creation Tool from
Microsoft and create a bootable USB thumbdrive with the latest version of Windows 10 Pro.
2) Before installing Windows 10, disable IOMMU and Hyper-threading in the bios. See
FAQ Entry | Online Support | Support - Super Micro Computer, Inc. for some discussion about IOMMU. I read in another article that disabling Hyper-Threading is also helpful, so I did that too.
3) Make sure that one of the Intel i210 networking ports on the H11SSL has internet access as the Windows 10 installer will grab some needed drivers during the installation.
Thanks again for this thread! it helped me pick parts for my new daily PC (as prior to this specific thread i was going to go intel 2nd gen silver + SM mb ect..) Its replacing my current daily- i7-4930x w 64gb ddr3 (nonECC)
I now have all the parts (will list below), and will be OS testing / stressing it for the next week or so. I can add this now though-
While i had your 3x points RE: changes needed to install win10 , pasted into my notes:
i can confirm that i didnt have to do *any* of those steps to get a working win10 install running on almost the exact same HW as you.
Im assuming that msft fixed the issues you point to, in the latest win10 ISO. (i used the msft media creation tool, to create/save a ISO of Win10-64b-pro, today- Sept 26 2020 , and then used Rufus to burn it to usb).
I havent changed anything in the stock SM bios (latest, v2.1 that came on board already),
except i changed these minor BIOS items:
+ disabled all Serial (com) ports
+Set SATA to Enabled (from auto)
(i have not used any sata ports yet though)
+set boot mode to UEFI (from BOTH - + disabled all network boot functions, such as PXE , http ect)
+changed the boot order to first try USB sticks (vs HDDs first).
Then used ipmi/vKVM to install win10 from usb stick to a p4800 u.2 nvme drive (connected via one of the 2x NVMe ports on the MB). It went really fast, auto-rebooted 2x times, then i was at the normal win10 "choose your region" setup prompts (and eventually win10 desktop)..
HW i ended up getting (with prices i paid);
CPU: amd 7262- $605 (provantage, cpu wo fan - said 3x in-stock but took 8 days to ship out)
Motherboard: - H11SSL-NC Rev. v2.0 - $436 (provantage - shipped out same day as order)
RAM: 4x 32gb ECC- HYNIX HMAA4GR7AJR8N-XN - $120 ea = $524 w tax for 128gb (ebay) (exact sticks are on SM mb QVL)
Disk: optane u.2 p4800x 375gb ($387 w tax - ebay) - for boot/apps, my storage is all network attached here
GPU: 2x Quadro p1000 ($246 each = $491 w tax - ebay) - i dont game nor need GPU power, i just need to run 8x monitors, many of which are 4k
Networking: 10gbit SFP+ pcie card (i have many already, so will be one of those cards)
Chassis: existing consumer chassis i already have (MB is E-ATX fyi)
Power/psu: existing consumer 1400w psu i have
Audio- Crap! i dont have this covered! i had been looking at consumer supermicro MBs and didnt realize this was a server SM mb (so no audio), will figure something out, either USB to 3.5mm or a small x1 pcie audio card. I dont need quality, just some audio and it to be stable.
so far so good!
thanks again