Contents

Notices ............................................................................................

v

Safety information ..........................................................................

vi

About this guide .............................................................................

vii

ASUS contact information ............................................................

viii

P4P8X specifications summary ......................................................

ix

Chapter 1: Product introduction

1.1

Welcome! ...........................................................................

1-2

1.2

Package contents ...............................................................

1-2

1.3

Special features ..................................................................

1-3

1.4

Motherboard components ..................................................

1-5

1.5

Motherboard layout ............................................................

1-9

1.6

Before you proceed ..........................................................

1-10

1.7

Motherboard installation ....................................................

1-11

 

1.7.1

Placement direction ..............................................

1-11

 

1.7.2

Screw holes ..........................................................

1-11

1.8

Central Processing Unit (CPU) .........................................

1-12

 

1.8.1

Overview ..............................................................

1-12

 

1.8.2

Installing the CPU ................................................

1-13

1.9

System memory ...............................................................

1-14

 

1.9.1

Memory configurations ........................................

1-14

 

1.9.2

Installing a DIMM .................................................

1-16

1.10

Expansion slots ................................................................

1-17

 

1.10.1

Standard interrupt assignments ...........................

1-17

 

1.10.2

IRQ assignments for this motherboard ................

1-17

 

1.10.3

PCI slots ..............................................................

1-18

 

1.10.4

AGP slot ...............................................................

1-18

1.11

Jumpers ............................................................................

1-19

1.12

Connectors .......................................................................

1-21

Chapter 2: BIOS information

2.1

Managing and updating your BIOS ....................................

2-2

 

2.1.1 Creating a bootable floppy disk .............................

2-2

 

2.1.2 Using AFUDOS to update the BIOS ......................

2-2

 

2.1.3 Using ASUS EZ Flash to update the BIOS ............

2-4

 

2.1.4 Recovering the BIOS with CrashFree BIOS 2 .......

2-5

2.2

BIOS Setup program ..........................................................

2-7

iii