Some question about modding Giga h110-s2h into running coffee lake cpus PLEASE

So i’ve been using my gigabyte h110-s2h with an i5 7400 and i thought now since i can sell my cpu in exchange for an i3 9100f and get a money + performance profit only by modding my motherboard. I’ve seen some threads about modding skylake boards and i’m confused because after some digging i found some differences in each experience like some things needed to be done and afterwards some didnt need to do. (i’m really new into bios modding so please help)
my questions are like :
-Can someone guide me through modding my motherboard since i couldn’t find a constant reply for this
-Will my system be as stable after changing the cpu and modding the motherboard
-Can i still use my cpy even after modding the motherboard

I hope i can get a reply out of this thread and thanks for this great forum

@AthmaneAriouet The easiest thing for you to do would be to buy a 9100F with the S-Spec SRF7W, if you can walk into a computer shop to examine the retail box you can check the S-spec on the sticker before you pay for it.

There are two 9100F’s, if you buy the right (easy) one S-Spec SRF7W then you don’t need to do any pad modification to the CPU and can just flash a modified BIOS with added microcode for CPUID 906EB.

If you buy the (harder) 9100F with the S-spec SRF6N (CPUID 906EA) then you need to do some CPU pad isolation to avoid burning the motherboard socket pins (and potentially damaging the VRM).

To answer your questions;

Yes, you can either use Revlaay’s Tool or the CoffeeTime tool to modify your BIOS yourself or you can use this BIOS I have modified myself based on the latest F25;

H110MS2H_F25_MOD.zip

It supports Skylake (506E3), Kaby Lake (906E9), Coffee Lake (906EA U0 stepping, 906EB B0 stepping, 906ED R0 stepping), note that 906EC P0 stepping is not supported.

You should be able to flash this modified BIOS with Q-Flash but if it says “invalid image” you will need to use the modified version of EFIFlash.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible if you brick your motherboard, you need to decide if the benefits outweigh the risks!

Having said that, it is a good idea to have a plan in case the modified BIOS fails. It is therefore recommended to purchase a cheap SPI flash programmer like the ch134a and a SOIC test clip so you can recover a bricked board.

Yes, the 9100F is a 65W CPU just like your 7400, so there should be no issues.

Yes, as long the modified BIOS still contains the microcode for your 7400 (CPUID 906E9).

First of all thanks for your reply i really appreciate it.
I’ve read in some thread that i need to backup my bios before flashing anything, will i need to do that before flashing the bios you gave me?
And since i have the F22 stock version, Will i still be able to flash the one you gave me without any issues or am i supposed to flash the stock F25 first ?

And will i risk my i5 7400 after flashing the modded bios or is it supposed that only the motherboard is in risk

-Again thanks for your help

Hi, np.

Yes, it is always a good idea to make a BIOS backup.
You can backup your exisiting BIOS using EFiflash (running the command “efiflash bios.rom /s” from a DOS prompt) before you attempt to flash a modified BIOS.

However, as long as you don’t use Intel’s Flash Programming Tool (FPT) then you won’t be in any danger of erasing SMBIOS information such as motherboad serial number (Gigabyte does not use this anyway), UUID and MAC address (which only effects Intel ethernet adapters, yours is Realtek so would not be effected anyway) as Gigabyte’s BIOS tools (Q-Flash and EFIFlash) are safe to use and will not overwrite SMBIOS information.

A good question, I would flash the stock F25 just to be sure there are no issues with it, although you don’t have to, it’s also a good idea to be familiar with the BIOS flashing procedure if you’ve never done it before.

The CPU will not be effected, the motherboard may become bricked.

At worst the motherboard will fail POST (Power On Self Test) AKA ‘brick’ by which the following may happen;

1. It powers on and then just turns off (it may continue to do this in a boot loop)
2. It powers on to a black screen and does nothing
3. It powers on to a black screen and beeps to indicate a specific problem (partial POST)
4. It powers on and indicates that the BIOS is corrupt and prompts for recovery (depends on motherboard model)
5. It powers on and there is partial/complete POST but then freezes/locks up (can be due to incompatible EFI module/Option ROM and/or bad BIOS mod)

@Chinobino - Qflash fix, for your general knowledge (I did not look at above files) - [OFFER] Gigabyte GA-Z370-Aorus Gaming 7 BIOS mod (6)

@Lost_N_BIOS Yep, I have already modified that bit in the BIOS I uploaded but I have no way to test it to be 100% sure it will work with Q-flash, thanks for the link though.



But theoretically it should work right ? and supposing it doesn’t work with the qflash what’s the alternative for installing the modded bios ?

Speaking of qflash modification, the brick risky part may occur because of the mod in general or because of this specific bit in the bios (the qflash fix) ?

@AthmaneAriouet

As I said above - You should be able to flash the modified BIOS with Q-Flash but if it says “invalid image” you will need to use the modified version of EFIFlash.

The BIOS modifications for Coffee Lake are far more risky as many more changes have been made, the Q-Flash fix should only effect whether Q-Flash determines the BIOS to be ‘invalid’ due to modification.