I have this bizarre Gigabyte board I’m tinkering with and some BIOS settings are holding me back unfortunately.
I’m looking for: - Removing current and watts/tdp limits (there are entries for it, but they are capped at very low numbers) - Removing memory frequency limits (frequency multiplier caps at 16x)
Amazing if this is also possible: - Disable spread spectrum - Enable entry for BCLK - Enable loadline calibration options if there are any
UEFI dump attached
As a thank you in advance for your work, this is what I can contribute with:
This board is decent and SUPER cheap. Can be bought off Taobao.com for give or take 15$. To buy on Taobao you might need a forwarding service, I use Lovbuy but there’s many. Cheap quality DDR3 1866 can also be found there
The board has a lot of options for being only H85. This includes K overclocking. If anybody is interested in buying it too, I strongly recommend to get some heatsinks for the VRM as there is none by default.
@Enter_Plasma - What is this board, and why is it not listed on Gigabyte site? I didn’t check business side I’d like stock BIOS (not dump) if you have one? I can edit your dump, just hoped you had stock too. How did you dump the BIOS Does this board have Qflash, press END at startup or F8 while in BIOS?
1. current and watts/tdp limits << Probably cannot change, without frankenstien BIOS or crossflash etc (not ideal). I will check though, maybe you will get lucky and more options are there just suppressed. What is current limit for each? I see max as FFFF/65,535, which I know is not true, usually something like 1200-1500 for top and maybe 500-1000 for one below that. I see same for #2 below, memory multi. This may be locked to x16 by B85 chipset, or your CPU?
2. If it’s there, we can do. (See above)
Amazing if this is also possible: - Disable spread spectrum >> Yes, this is at >> MIT >> Advanced Frequency Settings (Give me image of this page) - Bclk (host clock control) is there too, it may already be visible to you (change away from auto/100 if you see it, this is Bclk) - Enable entry for BCLK - Enable loadline calibration options if there are any (I don’t see) - Show me images of your CPU Core Voltage Control page though, in case some stuff hidden from you I will make visible.
Yeah eheh it is a weird board. It’s a Chinese market-only board for DIY AIO PC’s that seem to be pretty popular there (there are similar ones from other brands, keyword is “PIO”).
Not listed in Gigabyte’s site, correct, though I did reach out to their customer support for a stock BIOS image. But I wouldn’t hope on it, Giga support is not really excellent - which is why I’m providing the dump. Dump was done with Management Engine Tools.
I can’t post any links yet so I have to modify them a bit. For anybody interested, the board looks like this:
https imgur com YpobsPl
Has the main PCIe slot on the top rather than on the bottom, and it’s 90°! It’s also slightly larger than standard ITX. The bottom PCIe is wired for x4 to chipset and can take an NVMe SSD at 2.0 speeds with an adapter.
To answer your questions:
1) Yes, the board does have QFLASH on F8
2) The current and power limits entries are as you can see here, though these are referring to TURBO power/current limits:
https imgur com 1TpPGVo
If I try to plug in a number manually, 105/95 are the best numbers it can accept, which is still really low. Usually higher end boards will go to 255/255 or straight up 0/unlimited.
IDEALLY I’d like to have both global and turbo limits being unlocked with higher limits.
I don’t plan on doing anything crazy with it, but at the same time the board with the current limits throttles a 4670K pretty hard on high loads. This is by far my main interest.
3) Memory, I think it might be a BIOS limitation. My CPU is K series unlocked, and I’ve seen some B85 boards that can offer memory OC, so it might not be a hard limit. I mean, technically speaking, you can only OC on Z87 due to “chipset limitations”. But this board lets you OC a K CPU anyways.
https imgur com u07kVMh
4) BCLK is not there unfortunately, see screenshot in #2. Default BCLK is rather low and extremely variable, so either I’m seeing the most aggressive spread spectrum I’ve ever seen or it’s not set at perfectly 100.00 - or both.
5) Voltages page:
https imgur com p0OVGzg
6) On a sidenote, since we’re at it. Do you think it would also be possible to add Broadwell support?
@Enter_Plasma - Would be nice if they give you stock BIOS at least, especially since this is a publicly available board. And due to that, even if China based only, it should then be listed on the CN/Taiwan website Maybe you could ask in the Gigabyte US or Gigabyte UK forums or Tweaktown Gigabyte forums, and someone could get you stock BIOS package?
Great it has Qflash, then I can mod BIOS you can Qflash, although I’m not sure if that works OK with a dumped BIOS. How did you dump the BIOS, via Qflash or some other way? Please put any and all BIOS images I requested in a zip and upload for me. I need them in folder while I work, not in browser, thanks. The watts may be for a reason, with no VRM heatsink, or partial heatsink, you may blow up the board if you go over those limits, so that may be why they’re set so low. I just checked my Z87MX from same era, and I can set max of 4090/1000, so yea 105/95 is crazy low. Maybe a BIOS bug, or something changed in newer BIOS. I’m not sure if I can find and adjust this, but I will look.
K-OC fixes, may only apply towards CPU freq/multi, not sure those can get around any memory limits imposed by chipset. Z87 would not be memory limited, so not a good chipset comparison there Quick google leads me to see that B85 is limited to 1400, or 1600 if you set manually or use XMP, and only Z boards allow higher than this.
Once I get your BIOS images I asked for, I’ll make you a BIOS real quick to enable the hidden settings, then I’ll work on finding and changing those watt/amp limits, if I can.
Broadwell, if you link me to info about doing such, then I probably can, but last I seen someone discuss it was only on few models that some BIOS modders in China have made BIOS for, I think you have to use mod ME FW and parts or all of a Z97 BIOS etc. It’s not just about inserting a microcode for that one.
@dsanke - Do you have broadwell BIOS for B85M-PIO-SI? Or, can it be done w/ some simple edits? If yes, can you do, or tell me what I need to do, thanks! Also, while I have your eye, do you have any “Stock” BIOS file for this model? I found one on Chinafix website, but I can’t download this, and don’t know what version it is
@Lost_N_BIOS yeah I’ll definitely keep you posted on updates from Gigabyte. Crossing my fingers, but honestly never had good luck with them before.
For the bios, I dumped it following a guide using the Intel ME Tools.
Again, can’t post the link, but used the tools posted in this forum in: Win-Raid Forum (Drivers - Firmware - Modding) » Special Topics » Intel Management Engine » Intel Management Engine: Drivers, Firmware & System Tools
Then gave it command: FPTW64.exe -d “bios_dump.rom” -bios
The board limits make sense if you take in consideration what it’s built for. Naked VRM’s + constrained enclosure with limited airflow. I pimped it out, have good cooling, and the board has good monitoring on it. I’m confident it can handle some extra load and I’m willing to take the risks
The memory support is a weird and very interesting thing, because I also remembered that B85 was hard-capped to 1600mhz by chipset.
But then googling, I found a few boards that seem to support higher speeds. See MSI B85-G43 GAMING - this one says support up to 1600 only on website, but in the manual straight up confirms support for up to 3000 (OC only). Biostar B85MG Ver. 6.5/6.7 - has 1866+mhz memory in QVL, although says supports only up to 1600. This made me think that it might actually be just a BIOS limit.
Broadwell support, eh, I’m rather new to BIOS modding and can’t give any pointers, heck I don’t even know if it’s possible, all I know is that indeed usually it’s limited to the 90 series chipsets.
@Enter_Plasma - You can post links now So you dumped BIOS region only. Please make a new dump using this command and send to me, this is full BIOS dump >> FPTw.exe -d SPI.BIN Also, please get me all those images of the BIOS I requested, into a zip, thanks.
Manual may be wrong on that MSI, can you confirm that by anyone’s screenshots? QVL support means nothing, you can run 2800 memory on a 1600 limited board and it will just run at 1600.
Broadwell, I’ve seen a few 8 series mod BIOS and running result images, but I don’t remember what and I know it was limited to a few certain boards and some BIOS may not have ever been shared either, not sure.
The product in question was produced for an OEM and not marketed by GIGABYTE directly. Due to OEM agreements with this PC manufacturer GIGABYTE cannot give any support related to the motherboard which was sold as a part of the OEM’s product. Please direct any query related to the product directly to the OEM in question. Thank you for your understanding."
Of course, can’t find the OEM for the love of my life.
I am new to win-raid. I have the Skylake version of @Enter_Plasma board (GA-B150M-PIO-SI) and have the same issue getting any support from Gigabyte. It is a fun board to own and the top mounted, right angled PCIE slot allows for some creative custom case builds
I am not sure if this is of benefit to you but you can download the Gigabyte utility called "@Bois" which can save your current Bios as a bin file. Just head to Gigabytes website and look for another B85M motherboard (one with similar features to yours). I was able to install and use off the Gigabyte utilities (such as fan speed control) on my B150M-PIO-SI.
After many hours of searching, I found a bit of info on the Gigabyte PIO-SI boards: The GA-B85M-PIO-SI was made by Gigabyte and sold as a All In One Gaming PC called hkc x320. Used in internet Cafes due to the compact size. The GA-B150M-PIO-SI was made by Onebot model C3216 (search term “人onebot c3216”). I still can’t find any BIOS for these motherboards…
@Lost_N_BIOS Can BIOS files from a Qflash dump work for modding or is it too dangerous?
I am looking at modding my BIOS to include Coffee Lake processors such as QTJ2 or similar (as done by yourself and user vismut1822). I looked into the CoffeeTime program and I think I can work my way through that ok. Would you know if the Gigabyte B150m motherboards can be modded to increase CPU voltage, CPU multiplier or BCLK frequency? I had a look through the BIOS via AMIBCP but there are many areas that deal with Turbo Ratios, BLCK freq, Overclock Lock etc. I am not sure what needs to happen…
