[Guide] CoffeeLake CPUs on Skylake and KabyLake mainboards

BIOS/UEFI Modding BIOS Modding Guides and Problems
101

So it looks like this whole automatic dual Gigabyte BIOS is just another shitty feature and you have to reach for hardware SPI programmer anyway.
If you want to check or confirm ME version you may also use FWUpdate. Save current FW version to image with -save <file.bin> and then check with -fwver <file.bin>.

Some of my results with borrowed CPU :slight_smile:
i3-8100 + Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K4/D3 + DDR3:


i3-8100 + Maximus IX Hero (Z270) +DDR4:

102



It says FW Version: 11.6.0.1126. So that must mean QFlash can replace a newer ME FW with an older one?

103

Anyone tried this out on an Asus Maximus 8 Ranger? Also does the 6 core cpus work on other boards that arenā€™t asrock?

104



Yesā€¦ asside asrock boards, the board from Asus, GB, MSI all work with 6-core but you have to load an bios region from a compatible Z370 board, and than you have full controls over the 6-core including bclk OC for non-k skus

105

One thing Iā€™m very curious about, can the hexacore CPUs work with DDR3 on a DDR3 board? I havenā€™t been able to find anything about this anywhere.

106

Regarding ASUS Z170, as has been mentioned by LittleHill the risk in loading a Z370 bios region is the TPU. If this gets loaded with the wrong firmware, the board gets bricked with no easy way to recover. I have an Asus Z170 Maximus VIII Impact and the bios has actually 3 separate TPU modules, IROG1, IROG2 and IROG3, each with their own firmware version as visible in the bios. The respective GUIDā€™s are:

iROG1: GUID 38715E0A-ECD3-4776-8AC4-7D93510A7468
iROG2: GUID 475EB5AF-16F2-4727-BD69-0D1BF383196C
iROG3: DE9A07DF-B1C6-448B-B700-715F6BE6676D

The GUID addresses are applicable to all ASUS boards, however the actual contents of the RAW file inside is different for different motherboards - I have compared M8I vs M10F. SO flashing the Z370 bios region will most likely force an update of the firmware of these modules and in consequence brick the board. Would suggest trying to first flash the standard bios with these GUIDs deleted so the board would be unable to update the firmware in these modules and if this would not work I would try replacing the GUIDs from the Z170 board into the donor Z370 bios region. In any case, flashing the wrong contents into these modules seems like a bad idea.

107

who can help me to mod bios z270-a motherboard asus to cofee lake ?

108

hi guys where i can get tools?

109



Did anyone ever answer this question? Planning to attempt my BIOS mod soon and I would rather sacrifice Skylake as well.

110



Did anyone ever answer this question? Planning to attempt my BIOS mod soon and I would rather sacrifice Skylake as well.



No one answered, but I tried rewriting the sel1151.bat file to insert the Coffee Lake microcode to support hex-core chips (906EA instead of 906E9). I didnā€™t want to make two changes at once, so when that failed (apparently, I was also supposed to short two pins on the cpu, see the HWBOT link higher up), the BIOS still supported Skylake, and I just reverted to the original BIOS to get back to Kaby Lake. But probably you could replace Skylake with Kaby Lake using the tools provided in this guide; just edit the .bat file to offer a Kaby Lake microcode in the second step (the one where the guide currently says "Choose BE").

I say "just edit the file," but of course that is slightly complicated.

Also, in the "Offers: Already Modded BIOSes" section, @elisw offered a BIOS for the H110M-HDS that had Skylake, Kaby Lake, and Coffee Lake at the same time. So it is possible. I presume that was done by using the UEFITool to manually insert the third microcode. But to use that tool without the handy-dandy guide and batch file, you need to know which OROMs and EFI modules and DEXes to swap out, and how to find them. I donā€™t know which GUIDs to look for and replace and so on, so I havenā€™t tried any of that yet. Iā€™m still waiting for my replacement board from ASRock, and if I can get the hex-core to work by shorting the pins, I will try more daring changes and report back on what worked or not.

111

hi who could help me to mode bios asus z270-a please for cofeee lake pls ?

112

There is a few ways to add/change microcodes and usually you donā€™t need to sacrifice any microcode. The exception is BIOS like for H110M-STX because this BIOS is only 8MB and there is no enough space for more than two microcodes.
In my opinion the best way is manual microcodes update.


>>Asus Z270-A<<

113

Found this on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBDGf9wQvYk
TL;DR: Intel docs list Z370 as a 200-series chipset (lol), Z370 not to support Cannon Lake - could be a typo / omission since the H310 etc boards are listed as supporting Cannon Lake, then again they were launched a lot later then Z370.

114



Or Intel figures the enthusiasts will buy the Z boards and they will always want the fastest CPU, so they can just make changes and get people to upgrade both; but people who buy H boards are cheap and wonā€™t buy a new CPU if it means they have to buy a board, too.

115

Iā€™ve decided to take the risk and finish prepping the bios to be flashed, but prior to doing so it Iā€™ve been curious to know other than shorting two pin is there a necessity to isolate a certain pin ? Iā€™ve been trying to figure out from socket land map and reading 3 various source which pin to isolate. Do I have to look at both the land map of both gen 6, gen 8 and also the motherboard in order to determine which one should be isolated? Better yet if anyone could tell me do I need to isolate any pin if Iā€™m trying to run a CFL on Asus M8F ? Thanks in advance !

116

I had updated my ASRock H100M-STX to the latest version (and ME) before finding out about this method, but I found I could temporarily lift the Intel ME security lock via EFI shell utilizing setup_var thanks to a post by some Chinese fellow on github. Iā€™ve transcribed his instructions below. This is my source: https://github.com/damnnfo/DeskMini-110-ā€¦%99%8D%E7%BA%A7


Format a flash drive MBR/FAT and put the attached in a folder named ā€œEFIā€, or some boards require it to be just at the root of the flash drive. (so just USB/BOOT)

Boot from it via UEFI. At the prompt type: setup_var 0x28 0x01

Ignore the error at the end, and you can run it again if you like to confirm that 0x28 is indeed 0x01 (ME unlocked) instead of 0x00 (ME locked). This will last through one restart, then be locked again.

Restart and immediately enter the BIOS and look at your ME version. It should now read 0.0.0.0. Update your BIOS to an older version that contains the ME version you want.



If you board has the variable at a different location then you can find it with UEFI Tool & IRFExtractor

1. Use UEFITool to open the BIOS ROM, search for ā€œre-flashā€, and right-click to Extract the body. Save as Section_PE32_image_Setup_Setup_body.efi

2. Open Section_PE32_image_Setup_Setup_body.efi with IRFExtractor and extract the text Section_PE32_image_Setup_Setup_body IFR.txt

3. Open Section_PE32_image_Setup_Setup_body IFR.txt with any text editor and search for ā€œre-flashā€ again. It returns ā€œOne Of: Me FW Image Re-Flash, VarStoreInfo (VarOffset/VarName): 0x28, VarStore: 0x1, QuestionId: 0x11D, Size: 1, Min: 0x0, Max 0x1, Step: 0x0 {05 91 E3 03 E4 03 1D 01 01 00 28 00 10 10 00 01 00}ā€

Here, 0x28 is the address of the variable we want to modify. The default value 0x00 is disabled and 0x01 is enabled.

EFI-shell.zip (780 KB)

117

Question on Gigabyte DualBIOS: since flashing the BIOS on a Gigabyte board flashes both main and backup, can I short the /WP pin to the neighboring GND of the backup flash chip in order to prevent it being flashed? Or could that damage/overload whatever circuit normally pulls it low?

Iā€™d like to flash just the main BIOS chip with the customized firmware, but if I do something wrong, Iā€™d like to be able to boot into a stock backup BIOS.

118




Tried that, tried a different computer, but still doesnā€™t work. I donā€™t know why.

[Edit May 1, 2018]

I finally found a way to download the file successfully. I had to use a computer with Windows 7. I donā€™t know how or why, but every attempt to download it on Windows 10 failed. None of the RAR decoder programs could recognize the file. Unfortunately, all my computers at home have Windows 10.



Is there anyway to overcome this ? Iā€™m running into same problem trying to extract microcode for hexacore.

[Edit]: Manage to solve this running MCExtractor through python, can be found through github as mention earlier. I have attached a bios for Asus M8F with microcode for 6 core insert, although I have not flash and test since Iā€™m waiting for CPU and other equipment. Please bare in mind that this might not work so flash this at your own risk!
Here (please disregard this)

119

Iā€™ve checked your BIOS file. You inserted only two microcodes, you didnā€™t change the SKU, but most of all you didnā€™t use the patcher. So I am sure that your external graphics card will not work.

120

@MOB , there is no attachment.