[Guide] CoffeeLake CPUs on Skylake and KabyLake mainboards

[ItxLeo]

Hello guys, I am currently working on an i5 8600k on my Z170 Fatal1ty Gaming K6, but I cannot make it work. I shiorted the 2 pins with a 2B pencil, isolated the opther 2 and did the bios mod. I think the problem could be in the bios mod. The board starts up for a second and then shut off. The ME version is 11.6.0.1126 is that a problem? I modded the 7.20 version of bios from this page https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Fatal1ty…ming%20K6/#BIOS. If anyone could mod it for me to support skylake and coffee in the right way it would be great. I have an SPI programmer if needed.

[mcf]

@ItxLeo I have a similar problem. Have you changed SKU?

[ItxLeo]

I didn’t because I don’t know how to. I couldn’t understand what I’ve read on the forum about it.

[mcf]

Well according to the post #161 the procedure should be simple.

[ItxLeo]

I will give it a try. The main problem is I can’t find the Intel Flash Image Tool. Could you link it to me?

[mcf]

Here is the link Intel Management Engine: Drivers, Firmware & System Tools. I think that Intel CSME System Tools v11 r14 is the right folder but not 100% sure.

[ItxLeo]

@mcf

Here is the link Intel Management Engine: Drivers, Firmware & System Tools. I think that Intel CSME System Tools v11 r14 is the right folder but not 100% sure.

I don’t know how to thank you. Everythintg and I mean EVERYTHING WORKS!!!

[s.napi]

What did you do? Only SKU change? Without ME cleaning?

[ItxLeo]

Yes, ME was already the right version though

[mcf]

@ItxLeo glad to hear your succes but no need to thank me. I too flashed the image file with changed SKU (but not cleaned) and it really worked. Since I don’t have a SPI programmer I used the method
described by MOB/Dnatwork (#116/#161) to “reset” the current ME on my board temporarily (I don’t know if this was necessary) and then used built-in Instant Flash.

@Dnatwork I haven’t experienced any bad behaviour of system yet but I’ll report if such things happen. Did you use the normal Instant Flash way when you changed Z370 SKU back to the original one?

@s.napi is ME cleaning still worth to do?

[Dnatwork]

@mcf Congratulations!

Is that the first time you tried MOB’s method to reset the ME? If so, maybe you had 11.8.5 on your board the whole time, and that’s why it would not post. You cannot flash the ME to an older version with instant flash unless you use gnu grub. You can do it with an SPI programmer, but I don’t have one, so I grubbed it.

I used instant flash both to flash the 370 bios, and to replace that with the original SKU. Once you have downgraded to 11.6 and flashed, you do not need to do the gnu grub process again.

Now that you have it running with the 370 SKU, run some benchmarks, try some programs (Minecraft was very reliable for making my system crash), see if anything lags. Then flash it with a bios with the original SKU and compare.

Only one of them should work properly.

For me, 370 was buggy immediately. If you find that everything is smooth and all your benchmarks are as high as you expected, then leave it alone.

[s.napi]

@mcf
Cleaning ME can make your PC more secure by getting rid of vulnerable code (ME 11.6 has known security issues) and/or ME backdoor functionality. It may result in loss of some (useful) functionality but for home users on desktop boards you (probably) won’t loose anything important at all.

[ItxLeo]

@Dnatwork

@mcf Congratulations!

Is that the first time you tried MOB’s method to reset the ME? If so, maybe you had 11.8.5 on your board the whole time, and that’s why it would not post. You cannot flash the ME to an older version with instant flash unless you use gnu grub. You can do it with an SPI programmer, but I don’t have one, so I grubbed it.

I used instant flash both to flash the 370 bios, and to replace that with the original SKU. Once you have downgraded to 11.6 and flashed, you do not need to do the gnu grub process again.

Now that you have it running with the 370 SKU, run some benchmarks, try some programs (Minecraft was very reliable for making my system crash), see if anything lags. Then flash it with a bios with the original SKU and compare.

Only one of them should work properly.

For me, 370 was buggy immediately. If you find that everything is smooth and all your benchmarks are as high as you expected, then leave it alone.

The original SKU would provide better performance? Because before the change of the SKU I couldn’t make coffee run, but I wonder if there is a way to make it run with the original SKU. But only if needed, at the moment I find the it is all running flawless

[ItxLeo]

@mtothaj

The following may be useful for anyone using a modified 100 or 200 series board bios with a 6C Coffee CPU, and especially an unlocked one e.g. 8600k. The problem is that overclocking support in the bios is limited to 4 cores, and even if one selects ‘sync all cores’ this will only change the multiplier on cores 1-4, leaving the cores 5-6 unchanged. Intel XTU is an option, however the program frequently crashes, needs to be turned on at each boot and remains as a background process.
This method uses a powershell script to change core ratio on all cores at startup and relies on I) the fact that XTU has access to the MSR registers and ii) that it accepts command line input, and then kills the XTU process.
It goes as follows:

Files: https://files.fm/u/ut43xqzk

1) In the bios disable all the usual crap one would turn off when overclocking - c states, speedshift, all core enhancement / xmp etc.
2) download and install XTU
3) open Powershell and type Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned - choose All (a) - one time thing
3) create a folder on your c: drive - OCXTU (i.e. C:\OCXTU)
4) copy the two attached files from inside the .rar archive to that directory
5) create a link in your windows startup folder to oc.vbs

Now every time you start up your PC, core ratio multiplier on all cores will be set to 43x and XTU will not be running (and crashing) in the background. The script kills the XTU process right after the multiplier has been changed. If you want to change the multiplier, edit the oc.ps1 file and change the 43 to whatever core ratio you want.
You don’t have to add it to startup if you do not want to - you can keep the os.ps1 file on your desktop and run it manually if you wish - or have several .ps1 files with different oc settings. The purpose of the oc.vbs file is to make it a seamless / automatic process.
So basically set all your usual stuff in the bios - voltage, loadline etc. and set the multiplier in the ps1 file.
Tested this extensively and works fine, hope it may be useful for someone.

Part of the credit for this method should go to the guy who created this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/…ning-it.802143/ since the method is essentially based on that only that we are not undervolting but increasing all core ratio. There are other stuff we can change using this approach, if anyone is interested I can post some more info.

EDIT: some more stuff that can be changed using the above method - substitute 3489660933 (Processor core ratio) for any number from the first column and assign an appropriate value:

48 Turbo Boost Power Max 4095.875W 1.000 4095.875 0.125 7994

47 Turbo Boost Short Power Max 4095.875W 1.000 4095.875 0.125 7994

49 Turbo Boost Short Power Max Enable 1 0 1 1 2

66 Turbo Boost Power Time Window 8Seconds 0.25 96.0 0.062 35 110 1 0 1 1 2

80 Overclocking Lock 1 0 1 1 2

50 Package Turbo Power Lock 0 0 1 1 2

41 Enhanced Intel® SpeedStep Technology 1 0 1 1 2

26 Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 1 0 1 1 2

2 Core Voltage 0V 0 2.000 0.500 1538

34 Core Voltage Offset 0mV -1000 999 1 2048

102 Processor Core IccMax 255.500A 1.000 255.750 0.250 1020

77 Cache Voltage 0V 0 2.000 0.500 1538

79 Cache Voltage Offset 0mV -1000 999 1 2048

106 Cache IccMax 255.500A 1.000 255.750 0.250 1020

114 AVX Ratio Offset 0.0x 0.0 31.0 1.0 32

29 1 Active Core 44x 8 83 1 76

30 2 Active Cores 44x 8 83 1 76

31 3 Active Cores 44x 8 83 1 76

32 4 Active Cores 44x 8 83 1 76

42 5 Active Cores 44x 8 83 1 76

43 6 Active Cores 44x 8 83 1 76

3489660933 Processor Core Ratio 44x 8 83 1 76

116 Core 0 83x 8 83 1 76

117 Core 1 83x 8 83 1 76

118 Core 2 83x 8 83 1 76

119 Core 3 83x 8 83 1 76

120 Core 4 83x 8 83 1 76

121 Core 5 83x 8 83 1 76

76 Processor Cache Ratio 40x 8 83 1 76

I cannot download the files, could you copy paste them here or re-upload them? Thanks in advance
Also, the guy who modded the Z170M OC formula made possible to adjust the ratio in the bios. Can we do that mod too?

[mcf]

@Dnatwork I had the ME version 11.6.0.1126 already. I did use the method once before when I was lowering the ME version of the board but I can’t remember whether I flashed my first mod (right after the procedure) or some previous official bios. So you flashed your final mod with the original SKU in normal way via Instant Flash? Then maybe something left behind from Z370 SKU.

[anon53639373]

@ItxLeo

Also, the guy who modded the Z170M OC formula made possible to adjust the ratio in the bios. Can we do that mod too?

Did you mean the bios that you can download in hwbot forum? The guy who did the mod to it is the designer from the ocf-m board. Employee from asrock, so I think he has access to more tools.

[Dnatwork]

@mcf If everything is working consistently at the speeds you expected, then I guess you needed the 370 SKU. I think you’re done.

To answer your last question, yes, after I downgraded to 11.6 and used instant flash to install a BIOS with the 370 SKU, I was then able to use instant flash again, immediately without any other steps, to install a different BIOS that never had 370 in it.

I don’t think any part of the 370 SKU code could still be in the BIOS. That is the only thing I changed between the two mods. The one with 370 made everything work badly; the one without made everything work perfectly.

My only guess is that ASRock had to shave corners and jettison parts to get down to the mini-STX form factor, so the BIOS is not the latest and greatest of everything–it’s the smallest and lightest that would do the job. But older code wouldn’t know the difference between 270 and 370, so it just works. In contrast, the code for 370 probably assumes newer parts that aren’t on my board, so it was sending the wrong instructions for the parts I actually have.

Your board probably had a more up-to-date BIOS out of the box, even though we both have H110 chipsets, because your board has more and newer parts to run. So you had to go to 370 because something in your original BIOS was programmed to check for Kaby Lake or something.

[ItxLeo]

@anon53639373

Zitat von ItxLeo im Beitrag #454

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Also, the guy who modded the Z170M OC formula made possible to adjust the ratio in the bios. Can we do that mod too?

Did you mean the bios that you can download in hwbot forum? The guy who did the mod to it is the designer from the ocf-m board. Employee from asrock, so I think he has access to more tools.

---

Oh okay, thanks a lot. In the end I managed to OC the 8600k via BCLK, achieving a nice 4.75Ghz with 1.225 Vcore and 4.25Ghz Cache, which is pretty good in my opinion, since it’s delidded and temps are in the 50s

[ItxLeo]

@Dnatwork

I got the i7-8700 running on the ASRock Deskmini H110M-STX motherboard. Various stumbles along the way.

The 2D video benchmark is slower than on the i7-7700k, and the disk read-write scores are lower, too. I don't know why.

In CPUID, the available multipliers on the CPU are 8-46, but it never runs above x43 (4300 MHz). Again, I don't know why. The i7-7700k runs at 4500 MHz during benchmarking, same board, so it should be able to go higher. Maybe it's limited by the memory multiplier? I have only DDR2-2400 ram, not 2666, so maybe the CPU can't run ahead of the memory or it would crash.

The six cores were all recognized before I tried the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility; that didn't seem to do much. I can try again. I did see that the first time I booted after installing the modified BIOS, the whole system was confused; CPU would not go over 800 MHz, video clock stuck at 450 MHz. But rebooting alone seemed to fix that.

Some notes:

I shorted the two pins as shown in the hwbot forum (I now understand they are CPU ID pins?). I used a pencil to make the connection, and I used an Ohm meter to check that there was low-ish resistance. Not perfect connection, but 80%.

I did not mask the other two reserved pins that have to be covered on some boards (to prevent the melting of the pins in the socket). I guess ASRock followed the rules and did not connect those pins because they were reserved.

I did change the SKU on the BIOS to Z370, as recommended for the six-core chip. However, the instructions were very vague for me; I need the little steps explained because I haven't done this before. Many thanks to @Wolf Larsen and @mtothaj, nevertheless. To change the SKU:
1) open the Intel Flash Image Tool (I'll edit this later to say where it is; it's part of a package of tools)
2) open the modified BIOS from there; your BIOS name has to end with .bin to be recognized. I just made a copy and changed the extension for this purpose.
3) use the drop-down at the top to choose the Z370 chipset (as shown by @Wolf Larsen previously in post #128 of this thread)
4) go to the Build menu, and choose Build Image (don't go to Save on the File menu; that just creates a pdf or something)
5) you'll get a warning that your BIOS doesn't have Boot Guard, are you sure you want to proceed? Yes, you want to proceed. Ignore Intel's attempt to lock down your BIOS.
6) that should create a file called "outimage.bin". It should have the exact same size as the file you started with. If it is a different size, don't flash. Consult the info on this forum and all the good folks on what to do when you need to resize the BIOS after mods.
7) copy the outimage.bin file to your USB drive, and rename it to the correct name format for your board (mine had to be H110STX7.20 or H110STX7.20.rom, or the instant flash utility for my board would not even see the file).
8) go to UEFI and flash your BIOS
9) swap in the coffee lake CPU and see if it works.

I don't know if it was truly necessary to change the SKU, and I wonder if the differences between Z370 and H110 could be part of the problems with video and core clocks that I'm seeing. I will probably reflash with a BIOS that is not Z370 just to see, and report back if that's a total failure or what.

Also, there was a very helpful post from @MOB about downgrading the Intel ME firmware from 11.8.5 to 11.6. I got a replacement board from ASRock, but they "helpfully" flashed it with the latest BIOS, so I couldn't use it at first. But the instructions for downgrading didn't work for me because I kept booting from the USB drive to GNU grub. The correct steps are:
1) download the efi.shell.zip file that @MOB provided in post #116 of this thread, and extract the contents. It will be a folder with more folders inside, and in the lowest folder is a file called "boot64.efi".
2) place the extracted contents on your USB drive, but don't stop there!
2A) the instructions say "some boards require it to be in the root directory." For safety, I put the whole folder on the USB drive, then I copied the lowest folder to the root directory of the USB drive.
2B) that did not work. Don't do it.
3) reboot your system into the UEFI/BIOS. Search for a command like "Launch shell from filesystem..." In my case, it was under the Save & Exit menu.
3A) do not click on that command, just navigate to it with your arrow keys or mouse wheel. When it is highlighted, the automatic help tips should tell you the filename that the UEFI expects to find. In my case, it said "Launch EFI.Shell from filesystem directory."
3B) write down the name of the file and where it should be, if it tells you
4) exit the UEFI and boot to your OS
5) make a copy of the boot64.efi file, paste it into the directory where your EFI expects to find it, and rename it to the expected name. In my case, I put the file in the root directory of the USB drive, and renamed it to efi.shell.
6) go back to your UEFI, and this time, click on the command to "Launch shell from filesystem" (or whatever that command is called in your system)
7) Now you will see the GNU grub screen, and you can enter the commands that @MOB described
7A) type: setup_var 0x28 0x01
7B) press ENTER
7C) wait for "grub>" prompt
7D) remove the USB drive from the port (VERY IMPORTANT; if you leave the USB drive in the port, you will reboot to GNU grub, but the reset on the Intel ME works for only one reboot, so you will have to do it over again)
7E) type: reboot
7F) press ENTER
8) get to your UEFI during that reboot (press DELETE or F2 or whatever); don't let it get to the OS or you have to repeat steps 6 and 7
9) navigate to the screen that tells you the ME firmware number; I think it was "Chipset Configuration" in mine. You should see 0.0.0.0.
10) Now you can insert your USB drive with your downgraded BIOS (with ME 11.6 or whatever you are trying to install)
11) use the instant flash utility to flash your BIOS

That worked for me! I went straight to my modified BIOS, which has 11.6; you could do it in two or more steps, if you want to see what changes with the ME downgrade, and then separately make the switch to the coffee lake CPU.

Now I'm going to try to make my board recognize a video card through the M.2 slot. It is PCIE 3.0 x4, but it originally supports only NVME drives, not PCIE cards. But external video is supported through M.2 in the H310 version that ASRock will start selling this year. I looked through the BIOS with AMIBCP 5.2, but I couldn't find any hidden options or menus. In fact, there is an option for turning off the integrated GPU and using an external card that says it is not hidden, but it doesn't show up when the UEFI is on-screen.

Cheers!

@Dnatwork Sorry if it is a little off topic here, but I have an issue with the ME on an DX79To board, and I find your method to clean it very interesting. Do you think I could do it on the X79 as well? I don’t have the "Launch shell from Filesystem" though.

[Dnatwork]

@itxleo I’m not an expert. I wrote the very detailed steps because it took me so long to get it to work myself.

Look for something like the “launch” option, most likely in the Exit and Save section, but not necessarily.

If your BIOS was locked down by the manufacturer, such commands would be hidden. I have an old Gateway where almost everything is hidden; a physically identical machine from Acer had all options visible. That way they could charge more for the Acer version, I guess.

Anyway, if it’s locked down, there are ways to unlock the hidden options. I’ve seen threads here that discuss and explain how, and I even tried to do some of that briefly. I wanted to enable a video card via the M2 slot. Didn’t work for me; the BIOS said it was already enabled, so I don’t know why it doesn’t work. But the folks in those threads can surely help you more than I can.

Sorry, it was months ago, I don’t remember which threads at the moment.