The ASUS KCMA-D8, often referred to as “D8”, is the KGPE-D16's “little brother” in a smaller ATX board configuration (SSI-EEB configuration on the KGPE-D16) and AMD's C32 socket (socket G34 on the KGPE-D16). Southbridge/northbridge and platform are similar to the KGPE-D16; both had been ported to coreboot (initial efforts by Raptor Engineering, Inc.) with only small differences in source code.

It is also useful for a router/firewall or secure applications device as it has an IOMMU and compatible low wattage CPU's such as the 35W Opteron 42xxEE series.

Vikings made built-to-order workstations and offers part sets (mainboard/CPU/RAM etc. for DYI builds) based on the ASUS KCMA-D8 mainboard together with coreboot and removal of AMD PSP back doors until April 2021.

The D8 Workstation has been FSF RYF certfied on February 7, 2019.

The Vikings D8 Mainboard has been FSF RYF certfified on 7 February 2019 as well.

The ASUS KCMA-D8 mainboard is compatible with all available Opteron 4100 CPUs and depending on the board revision also with all available Opteron 4200/4300 CPUs (see information below).

While working it is not recommended; IOMMU missing. In addition, it has not yet been tested; it may or may not work.

The Opteron 4200 series CPUs works well, even without CPU microcode updates and with hardware virtualization.

The Opteron 4300 series CPUs also work well, are faster than their Opteron 4200 counterparts and may offer more CPU flags. However they require CPU microcode updates for stable operation.

The Opteron 4200/4300 series only work with board revisions starting with specific board revision/serial number/BIOS version: The serial number B9S2* or above is required. B means year, B=2011, C=2012…; 9 means month, 1…9, A, B, C.

The sticker with the serial number is located on the ATXPWR1 24-pin power connector.

If your boards serial number is B9S2* or above, verify that BIOS version 2001 (or later) is installed. Otherwise please update your BIOS: http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstation/Server_Motherboards/KCMAD8/#download

Be aware that other sources of hardware (ebay, aliexpress etc.) may ship you an older, unusable board. Make sure to inquire prior purchasing from sellers you don't trust.

Vikings only sells KCMA-D8 mainboards compatible with the Opteron 4200/4300 CPUs.

If your board does not use coreboot, you won't be affected.

For general info regarding fancontrol please see fancontrol.

TL;DR: If you have two HSFs installed, they will always have the same fan speed. If you want to rely on PWM with the KCMA-D8, we recommend using the thermal sensors of the CPU that is the warmest, depending on how you set your airflow.

The thermal management hardware of the KCMA-D8 is somewhat unusual and limited. It supports both 4-pin and 3-pin fans, however even though it contains a PWM controller with 8 hardware channels ASUS has only wired up two PWM channels to the fan connectors. To make matters worse, PWM channel 1 is routed to all 4-pin fans while PWM channel 2 is routed to all 3-pin fans.

For these reasons we recommend using quiet fixed speed (3-pin) fans (e.g. the Noctua NH-U9DO HSF). As of ~2020 these HSFs are only available on the second hand market. Installing a water cooling system is another option, which should still be available from select sources (such as the Vikings Shop).

RAM testing is done against the latest coreboot release.

Vikings is not testing this target against Libreboot due to the age of Libreboots code base. There has been **a lot** of progress on RAM initialization in coreboot since then, making the compatible module list a bit longer.

The following RAM models and configurations have been tested and are know to work as of the stated version/Git revision.

Manufacturer	Model	Voltage	Max tested RAM	Size	Speed	Type	ECC	Populated Slots	CPU	Mainboard Type	Firmware
Kingston	KVR16E11/8 1 (Discontinued)	1.5V	32GB	8GB	DDR3-1600	Unbuffered	Yes	A2 / A1 / B2 / B1	1x 4284	KCMA-D8 Rev. 1.03, 1.02	coreboot-4.09, coreboot-4.11
Crucial	CT102472BA160B.18FED	1.5V	8GB	8GB (not working with more than 1 module)	DDR3-1600	Unbuffered	Yes	A1	1x 4284	KCMA-D8 Rev. 1.03, 1.02	coreboot-4.11
Crucial	CT102464BD160B.C16FED 2	1.35V	32GB	8GB hardware/kcma-d8.txt · Last modified: 2026/04/22 11:52 by thum