Help wanted for Intel ME downgrade on Z170M-Plus and flashing for bclk OC

Special Topics Intel Management Engine
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Hi there, I’m trying to figure out how to downgrade Intel ME on my Z170M-Plus in order to bclk overclock a non-K CPU above 103, but I’m very illiterate when it comes to firmware and I’m struggling to find a guide that is easy for me to follow. (The most I’ve ever done was use UEFItool and grub to enable undervolting on mobile Coffee Lake and that wasn’t without a ton of help from Youtube)

I’ve tried modding the latest BIOS with an older microcode supporting bclk OC but clearly that wasn’t enough as Intel ME 11.8 also prevents it.

From what understand, since the Intel ME region of the firmware is left untampered with each BIOS update, I must modify it in some way. And that way is very specific to each ME version as there are various parts of the ME that cannot be downgraded to some particular versions.

So far my BIOS version is 3805 with ME 11.8.50.3470 and Intel’s CSME version detection tool detects an error, saying that my MEI/TXEI driver isn’t installed. I’m also having an error with MEinfo which reports a “Communication error between application and Intel ME module”. (possibly from previous flashes of modded BIOS versions?)

Can someone please help me out, preferrably with a step-by-step guide? So far the guides I’ve found are very cluttered for my level of understanding, so some simplification would be nice.

Thanks in advance!

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All that expect…why the surprise here? You do know what mods/CoffeLake flashed previously i suppose, so after that mess, to lower even more the ME FW only with a programmer with the desired ME FW image version reconstructed on main SPI bios image, if MEi is “disable” then no driver or FPT tool will not work either for this, deploying it on the system.
Wait for other users POV

1 Like
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So the only way to downgrade is to flash the entire firmware with an SPI programmer? Is there a way to do it from the CPU/PCH rather than externally?