Always… the user must choose to advance on this matter, has the abilities to recover a death motherboard, have backups of the Bios and/or have a SPI Programmer and experience with it. Usually when they got lucky on a mod, its all-sweet form there…wrong, it can happen on a next attempt and to all of us.
The updated bios could have limited/removed the OC ability and/or the cpu mcodes that the OEM had updated in the bios releases.
There’s old mcodes that can be inserted back in bios image or you can downgrade the bios version, etc… this is all actions with certain risks and no one can assure you of anything.
This is a board with no dual bios or bios flash back feature…
So general speaking… this is a bit time consuming from the user side, requires a bit of experience and the risks are always present.
Other similar cases, users had some success in cross flashing bios from the vendors, ex. as in your case, forced programming the Asrock B250M-PRO bios in your B250M-PRO4-IB motherboard.
You may wait for other users pov and maybe @chinobino can give you a hint about the mcodes, good luck.
hmm the new bios software on the asrock site does say “improved memory capability” and “improved dram capability”
would it be worth trying those first?
I would still love it if someone could make it so i can OC my 7700k on this.
Thanks.
Ill try to read up on everything before I go ahead with flashing.
Maybe someone can look into your bios and give an opinion about possible unlocked OC features etc… if present in the code and do remember that this is a B250 not a Z270/H270…
it was usual and still, oem’s provide oc features to sell better then in future bios releases some are removed…
EDIT: Cross flash is only with an SPI programmer, of course normal methods dont work…expected right, since your trying to trick and force the system…
Look the linked thread to see an example of a cheap CH341A programmer…
just read my conversation with @BobbyBadBoy untill the part he succeed to use the original counterpart bios for his IB board
I suggest you to also make a dump of your current bios just in case something happened, also use bios 1.20 of B250M-Pro4 and after you succeed, proceed to update to the latest bios (2.50) or any bios of that board that you want.
I have a file of my current bios already saved, I’ve just been instant flashing from my SSD, I have 3 compatible bios on my SSD (1.10p, 1.21L, 1.22L)
So What i’m gathering from the other post is,
I would take the new bios version from the retail board (B25MP2.50), put it into tool\win64 folder, run the CMSE tools latest version and flash, if it works, reboot into the bios and reflash the same retail bios again instantly using the instant flash.
if it doesn’t go successful, reflash the motherboard’s supported bios from ibuypower and reboot.
does this sound correct?
Ok so I was able to crossflash it pretty easily, followed all the steps, still dont see much new in the mb tbh.
I might try to mod the bios now to see what I can do, if I could readd the BCLK option or not.
Ok after doing some research, i believe its the asrock b150m pro4 that has a specially added chip (which is usually only in k processors) that allows you to OC.
Mine does not. I believe it might still be possible?
Gonna try using the amibcp tool to try editing mb.
Basically come this far, I’ve already cross flashed and even upgraded and downgraded from the retail bios versions now fairly easily. I see the BCLK menu here under OC tweaker “multi core enhancement” was set to disabled under optimal, I see these options already say “show” on this but for my processor (i7 7700k) they dont show, could it be a microcode issue with the processor?
Yes, it should be MCode that you might need to downgrade, but maybe the ME Version too? But i dont really know if your board does have external bclk chip.
I just tried this, I turned all of those “default” to “user”
flashed using fpt, it worked, I changed BCLK multiplier to 120, but My CPU still seems to be limited at 4500, I have turbo boost turned off and my memory actually oc’ed to 2880 with the bclk
my board does not have an external bclk chip, but i thought bclk was possible on all motherboards unless the manufacturer disables it?
it seems to be even working for me but just for my memory and not the CPU, which makes me think its definitely a microcode issue
Ok i figured out how to clean intel ME.
Quick update (if anyone is still interested), im fully able to boost the ram clock now with bclk OC. (safely from 2400 to 2880 and it is stable)
Something weird happens with the processor, I noticed its base clock speed changes from 4.2 to a multiple that prevents it from going above 4.4-4.5ish GHZ.
So for example, I changed BCLK speeds to 120, so my memory becomes 2880, and my Base clock speed changes to a weird number like 1040 mhz or 960 mhz i’ve noticed.
So I just attempted to cross flash my ASRock B250M-Pro4-IB from the stock 1.00 BIOS to the 1.20 ASRock B250M-Pro4 BIOS using FPTW64 from CSME System Tools v12 r38 using the following commands:
The backup was successful. I made a copy of the backup onto a USB stick.
The flash was successful.
As soon as I entered the FPT64 -greset command, I got an error which stated something along the lines of “could not set global reset bit” and my system rebooted. As soon as the reboot process took place, the system appeared to be off. No lights, no power, nothing! I waited a few minutes and pressed the power button. No response. I tried everything but the motherboard showed no signs of life.
I then attempted to flash the ROM chip using flashrom on a Raspberry Pi using the BIOS_PH header below the chip. I wired it according to this image which I got from here:
The Pi won’t detect the chip at all. I tried with the WP and HOLD pins connected to either the 3.3V pin, to the motherboard GND, or not connected at all. No dice! Am I missing something? Also, with all the other wires connected, a short while after connecting the VCC pin to the Pi 3.3V pin, the Pi crashes.
I just noticed that one person replied that they needed to set the bios reset jumper to clear. Is that necessary?
Finally, I inspected the backup file I made of the original 1.00 BIOS using UEFI tool. It only contains the UEFI image/BIOS region. No descriptor/GbE/ME region. If I’m going to be able to flash this chip, I might need the full iBuyPower BIOS file which I am not able to obtain since they seem to have removed it from their website and I can’t find it anywhere on the internet. The following link doesn’t work anymore: ftp://drivers.ibuypower.com/BIOS
Does anyone have a copy of the B25MPB1.** files which they could share?
Any advice would be highly appreciated as I am now stuck with a PC that won’t power on at all. Thank you in advance!
