Adventure: Running 8/9th gen Coffee Lake CPUs on Z170 motherboard (ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger)

[itsakjt]

Hello Itsakjt,

Would you try plugging in a mutant CPU into this socket or would it be too risky? It seems like the previous owner damaged some pins but since the Mutant CPUs come with so many pins blocked out I am trying to find out if it might still be okay. Everything else in the motherboard appears to be like new.
There is a missing pin that is not needed, a missing pin that may be required but I am not sure.
One pin is heavily bent but I could straighten it. Then there are multiple pins that look like they overheated, but may still work.

I marked each area A and B for easier location
Click link for a very high quality photo of the QTJ1: QTJ1 High Quality Image
View attachment 342121
Whole Socket
View attachment 342117
Area A damage:
View attachment 342124
View attachment 342122
My assessment: Neither of these pins are needed, but the bent pin must be straightened or cut to prevent short with the neighboring pin.

Area B damage:
View attachment 342125
View attachment 342123
My assessment: Unfortunately this missing pin is needed, and the area looks damaged, but two nearby pins would not be needed?
Any thoughts? xD

Hello @BobbyBoyGaming,

For area A, try bending the pins back to place with a tweezer or pin. Even if you end up breaking them, it won't matter as they are Vss (ground pins). One of those pins are bent to the point such that it can potentially short a DDR channel pin which might cause issues.

For area B, the broken pin does appear to be related to a memory channel/slot. As for the bent pins near it's vicinity, they are bent very little but just try to bend them back before putting the CPU in the socket so that they are not permanently bent to the point, it makes them difficult to bend them back.

After that, try putting in the CPU. Given the fact that there is a broken pin associated to a DDR data/bus line, it is likely that one channel or slot is not going to function. So try all the RAM slots one by one.
You can attempt to fix the broken pin by salvaging a spare pin from a broken motherboard and inserting it to where the broken pin is and orient it, such that it makes proper contact when the CPU is inserted. All the best.
As for the CPU, it looks perfect and the feeling you get thinking the contacts might have overheated is due to the traces and the design itself. If you look closely, the areas where it look perfect have a solid copper trace going around them and hence they appear "brighter" than the rest of the pins.

 

[crazyfrog]

I suggest you post some higher quality photos so that when he sees it he doesnt have to ask you for a better photo

Lol what a spoon. Taking photos of sub milimetre resistors and parts in low light isnt easy and whats here is perfectly usable.

Hello there. BIOS modification look fine.
Issue seems to be with SKT_OCC mod, both with respect to symptoms and photo of the board near the super IO.
The SKT_OCC mod seems to have been done by shorting the pull up resistor which would not work. Pin 102 of NCT 6793D needs to be grounded and the way it can be verified is - Remove CPU from board, take multimeter and switch to continuity mode, connect one probe to ground and another probe to pin 102 and it should give a beep. I am providing a photo which shows the correct SKT_OCC mod.

Hope this helps.

I've done the mod the way you said to assuming the point I soldered to could have just had low resistance to ground while off but no luck. My 'Asus z170 gaming pro' has its NCT6793D mounted opposite way up to yours so there’s obviously some difference in the circuit.
I've added footage this time using Amtech NC-559 flux and a Ts-100 iron to make the board tacky and easy to work with small components. That video goes through losing the copper wire and having to resolder a joint after it didn’t initially attach. Hopefully someone finds this useful even though it didn’t work for me.

Bad Soldering.mp4.mov

drive.google.com

 

[itsakjt]

Lol what a spoon. Taking photos of sub milimetre resistors and parts in low light isnt easy and whats here is perfectly usable.

I've done the mod the way you said to assuming the point I soldered to could have just had low resistance to ground while off but no luck. My 'Asus z170 gaming pro' has its NCT6793D mounted opposite way up to yours so there’s obviously some difference in the circuit.
I've added footage this time using Amtech NC-559 flux and a Ts-100 iron to make the board tacky and easy to work with small components. That video goes through losing the copper wire and having to resolder a joint after it didn’t initially attach. Hopefully someone finds this useful even though it didn’t work for me.

Bad Soldering.mp4.mov

drive.google.com

Hello,

Please join the wire to the point from the resistor end connected to pin 102 to ground side on the capacitor above it. It will be a diagonal wire.

 

[crazyfrog]

Hello,

Please join the wire to the point from the resistor end connected to pin 102 to ground side on the capacitor above it. It will be a diagonal wire.

I've done that. Thats the content of the video and probing pin 102 checking for ground connection.
Theres no solder bridges to ground either I checked.

 

[itsakjt]

Hello,

Please join the wire to the point from the resistor end connected to pin 102 to ground side on the capacitor above it. It will be a diagonal wire.

Alright looked at your video. Pin 102 seems to be connected to the capacitor below that resistor if you follow the track. Just join that capacitor.

Alright looked at your video. Pin 102 seems to be connected to the capacitor below that resistor if you follow the track. Just join that capacitor.

Also, you can remove that wire you soldered. That point is connected to 103 actually if you follow the trace.

 

[crazyfrog]

Alright looked at your video. Pin 102 seems to be connected to the capacitor below that resistor if you follow the track. Just join that capacitor.

Also, you can remove that wire you soldered. That point is connected to 103 actually if you follow the trace.

It looks like it but when I've actually probed I get continuity to pin 101 RSMRST, as I'm asking for help I've made the modification here instead and it's worked.
I think its worth going back and probing your own board.

 

[itsakjt]

It looks like it but when I've actually probed I get continuity to pin 101 RSMRST, as I'm asking for help I've made the modification here instead and it's worked.
I think its worth going back and probing your own board.

Awesome. Also, if you check my marking in the post before yours, I have marked the same spot. So congratulations.

 

[BobbyBoyGaming]

Hello @BobbyBoyGaming,

For area A, try bending the pins back to place with a tweezer or pin. Even if you end up breaking them, it won't matter as they are Vss (ground pins). One of those pins are bent to the point such that it can potentially short a DDR channel pin which might cause issues.

For area B, the broken pin does appear to be related to a memory channel/slot. As for the bent pins near it's vicinity, they are bent very little but just try to bend them back before putting the CPU in the socket so that they are not permanently bent to the point, it makes them difficult to bend them back.

After that, try putting in the CPU. Given the fact that there is a broken pin associated to a DDR data/bus line, it is likely that one channel or slot is not going to function. So try all the RAM slots one by one.
You can attempt to fix the broken pin by salvaging a spare pin from a broken motherboard and inserting it to where the broken pin is and orient it, such that it makes proper contact when the CPU is inserted. All the best.
As for the CPU, it looks perfect and the feeling you get thinking the contacts might have overheated is due to the traces and the design itself. If you look closely, the areas where it look perfect have a solid copper trace going around them and hence they appear "brighter" than the rest of the pins.

I think I will attempt to replace the entire socket, I found some videos of it online. And I have a heat gun with a big nozzle on it. The sockets are sold on AliExpress with the solder balls already attached.
I already bought the socket replacements "Foxconn" brand.

I might still attempt this method (1 RAM DIMM at a time) but if I can repair the board completely that would be great too

 

[itsakjt]

I think I will attempt to replace the entire socket, I found some videos of it online. And I have a heat gun with a big nozzle on it. The sockets are sold on AliExpress with the solder balls already attached.
I already bought the socket replacements "Foxconn" brand.

I might still attempt this method (1 RAM DIMM at a time) but if I can repair the board completely that would be great too

That's great. I would suggest to try working around the existing socket first because replacing a CPU socket has some risks and I doubt if a heatgun alone will be enough to reflow the new socket and while making sure the solder balls are properly aligned to the pads.

 

[Solaris17]

I dont care about reddit mods, how many crayons you eat or whatever this rediculous argument was.

Be cordial or write in a diary instead of the forums.

 

[jxdking]

Anyone tried this cpu (CC150)?

Intel CC150: The Strange Case of the CPU With 8C/16T and no Turbo

A Chinese forum user has seemingly benchmarked this CPU that strangely lacks turbo boost.

www.tomshardware.com

It is pretty cheap on AliExpress right now. It will be fantastic if it can be overclocked to 5GHz.

 

[itsakjt]

Further enhancements to ASUS Maximus VIII Ranger (Z170) with Coffee Lake.
So far, I have been able to
1. Add TPM 2.0 via add on card.
2. Enable Resizable bar by further modding the BIOS and including the Resizable bar DXE driver

And now:

2nd NVMe slot:

Got a PCIe x4 to NVMe adapter.

Improvised on the thermal design by putting thermal pad for cooling NVMe controller

Installed on the bottom PCIe x16 slot (electrical x4)

How it looks overall. Hard to believe this board is now more than 8 years old.

In action. That LED is very annoying but functions as an activity LED.

Connected and operates in x4 mode

SSD rated speeds. It is an Intel 660p 512 GB NVMe that I had lying around.

Getting speeds as expected from the SSD.

 

[dumaster]

2. Enable Resizable bar by further modding the BIOS and including the Resizable bar DXE driver

Hello friend @itsakjt , how are you ??

I saw that you managed to activate the ResizeBar , would it be possible on my Z170 Maximus VIII Hero ??

I ended up being absent and I don't know if you made a tutorial to modify the BIOS and activate the Resizable Bar , if you could send the step by step or the link to the page if you have already published it I would be very happy !!!

1. Add TPM 2.0 via add on card.

I also had success in activating TPM 2.0 through a TPM module that I bought on AliExpress, I wanted to share the seller's link here as the price is very affordable, I don't know the seller and I had never bought from him, I chose by seeing the reviews and how I I was successful if anyone wanted to buy I will indicate it here so there is less risk of a problem!!!

You have to choose the module correctly because each motherboard can have a type of connector and each manufacturer also, you have to check both the manufacturer and the motherboard model!!!

Product Link: https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005005818923318.html

Below are photos of the installed module and the BIOS screen where only TPM was not present, after I installed the module it enabled TPM in version 2.0 correctly and with several configuration options, within Windows I ran TPM.MSC and Windows reported that Everything is correct with TPM version 2.0, I also used WhyNotWin11.exe which is a Free App created by a GitHub user to check if the hardware is compatible with the minimum requirements of Windows 11 and everything turned GREEN indicating full compatibility!! !

I hope to help anyone who is in doubt about activating TPM 2.0 after making the CoffeLake Mod!!!

Below are images:

 

[jxdking]

Question.
Do you guys set AC / DC Load Line and LLC manually or just leave them auto?

 

[itsakjt]

Hello friend @itsakjt , how are you ??

I saw that you managed to activate the ResizeBar , would it be possible on my Z170 Maximus VIII Hero ??

I ended up being absent and I don't know if you made a tutorial to modify the BIOS and activate the Resizable Bar , if you could send the step by step or the link to the page if you have already published it I would be very happy !!!





I also had success in activating TPM 2.0 through a TPM module that I bought on AliExpress, I wanted to share the seller's link here as the price is very affordable, I don't know the seller and I had never bought from him, I chose by seeing the reviews and how I I was successful if anyone wanted to buy I will indicate it here so there is less risk of a problem!!!

You have to choose the module correctly because each motherboard can have a type of connector and each manufacturer also, you have to check both the manufacturer and the motherboard model!!!

Product Link: https://pt.aliexpress.com/item/1005005818923318.html

Below are photos of the installed module and the BIOS screen where only TPM was not present, after I installed the module it enabled TPM in version 2.0 correctly and with several configuration options, within Windows I ran TPM.MSC and Windows reported that Everything is correct with TPM version 2.0, I also used WhyNotWin11.exe which is a Free App created by a GitHub user to check if the hardware is compatible with the minimum requirements of Windows 11 and everything turned GREEN indicating full compatibility!! !

I hope to help anyone who is in doubt about activating TPM 2.0 after making the CoffeLake Mod!!!

Below are images:

View attachment 346392View attachment 346393
View attachment 346395

Hello there @dumaster,

I did manage to enable ResizeBar. Only sleep S3 does not work properly when it is enabled. I am yet to post a tutorial but plan on doing it sometime soon.

Great work on the TPM module. The ASUS TPM M R2.0 card I have got also uses the same chip (Infineon SLB9665), so the one you got should work as good as the original one.

 

[Gyode]

Hi @itsakjt , I've been researching on this for the last 2 weeks and have found your youtube video and this forum to be really helpfull. I got my usb programmer yesterday and will be flashing my asus Z270F with the moded bios today. But before doing that just wanted to confirm if these coffeetime settings are right. Also the processor I'll be using is a used i5 9600k that i bought a couple weeks ago and only notticed that a capacitor is missing and one is damaged while doing the pin mod. Do you think that this will still work?

 

[itsakjt]

Hi @itsakjt , I've been researching on this for the last 2 weeks and have found your youtube video and this forum to be really helpfull. I got my usb programmer yesterday and will be flashing my asus Z270F with the moded bios today. But before doing that just wanted to confirm if these coffeetime settings are right. Also the processor I'll be using is a used i5 9600k that i bought a couple weeks ago and only notticed that a capacitor is missing and one is damaged while doing the pin mod. Do you think that this will still work?

Hello there,

Your settings look perfect.
As for the capacitors, they are filter caps for power delivery and your CPU should still be fine without them.
As for concern, try to make the connection tape a bit thinner because it seems like it is touching the pins below it. All the best and let us know how it goes.

 

[Gyode]

Hello there,

Your settings look perfect.
As for the capacitors, they are filter caps for power delivery and your CPU should still be fine without them.
As for concern, try to make the connection tape a bit thinner because it seems like it is touching the pins below it. All the best and let us know how it goes.

Its working! the only problem i'm facing now it that the core speed isn't stable under load it fluctuates from 800-4500mhz, but it isn't affecting my normal use and gaming. Your youtube video and this forum really helped me a lot in this! thanks a lot.

 

[itsakjt]

Its working! the only problem i'm facing now it that the core speed isn't stable under load it fluctuates from 800-4500mhz, but it isn't affecting my normal use and gaming. Your youtube video and this forum really helped me a lot in this! thanks a lot.

Amazing. And congratulations.
And the frequency fluctuating, that is normal behaviour to save power and is Intel SpeedStep and C states in action. You can fix it at full clock speed by selecting the High Performance preset from Windows Power options.

 

[Gyode]

Amazing. And congratulations.
And the frequency fluctuating, that is normal behaviour to save power and is Intel SpeedStep and C states in action. You can fix it at full clock speed by selecting the High Performance preset from Windows Power options.

you're right, that changed it. Thanks a lot again bro, its amazing to see that your still active in this forum even after 3 years to help us!

 

[BobbyBoyGaming]

Hello again,

@itsakjt I was able to add Intel Speed Shift to my Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 using AMIBCPx64, but it shows up in the program as "CPU Hardware P-State Support" (not "Intel Speed Shift Technology"), which I set to "USER" and then "enable", "enable" for both 'Failsafe' and 'Optimal'.

I preferred having 'Intel SST' turned 'on' because otherwise the system was just running at 5Ghz boost clock as if it were a fixed clock.

The column shown as 'Optimal' is actually the "BIOS Defaults" after resetting the CMOS. The 'failsafe' column appears to be sort of useless, but it is better to just change both columns.
As for other AMIBCP 'enhancements' for the Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7, I found the following very interesting settings:

*Above 4G decoding
*Maximum TOLUD
*Above 4G MMIO BIOS assignment
*GTT Size
*Aperture Size
*DVMT Total Gfx Mem
*Gfx Low Power Mode (Turning this to 'disabled' will cause the BIOS to not post on the QTJ1 ES from what I can tell. Probably because it was originally a Laptop Engineering Sample CPU).

However I do not currently have a GPU that supports Nvidia Resizable BAR or AMD Smart Access Memory, so I can't test these settings.
However, according to the xCurio re-BAR guides, he does mention that Skylake motherboards (z170) often come with broken implementations of the '4G Decoding DSDT'. Which probably means that those hidden AMIBCP setting don't actually do anything, or at least not very successfully.

Here is a picture of what it says on the xCurio reBarUEFI GitHub:

I already completed the 1st and 2nd steps for my QTJ1 ES on my z170 motherboard (there was no padding file bug to correct for me from what I could tell):
I added the ReBarDXE FFS module using UEFITool, and I also ran the UEFIPatch.exe with the text file and the Command Prompt returned: "replaced 11 bytes at offset... Image patched". So I know something got patched in there.
I am only missing the 3rd step: "DSDT Patching".
So my question for you is, did you do the DSDT patch for your z170 board? I cant check to see if I need it because I don't have a dedicated GPU that actually uses the reBAR but I do want to have the system ready for that so I can just drop in a GPU later without issue. I assume the third step is most likely necessary.

How did the ReBAR part go for you? You have an ASUS z170 correct? Did you get that padding bug? Luckily I didn't.

For other settings It does not seem like Setting them to 'USER' does anything. It just makes the UEFI BIOS menu entry show up, but the entry does not actually do anything for the QTJ1 ES CPU.

 

[itsakjt]

Hello again,

@itsakjt I was able to add Intel Speed Shift to my Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 using AMIBCPx64, but it shows up in the program as "CPU Hardware P-State Support" (not "Intel Speed Shift Technology"), which I set to "USER" and then "enable", "enable" for both 'Failsafe' and 'Optimal'.

I preferred having 'Intel SST' turned 'on' because otherwise the system was just running at 5Ghz boost clock as if it were a fixed clock.

The column shown as 'Optimal' is actually the "BIOS Defaults" after resetting the CMOS. The 'failsafe' column appears to be sort of useless, but it is better to just change both columns.
As for other AMIBCP 'enhancements' for the Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7, I found the following very interesting settings:

*Above 4G decoding
*Maximum TOLUD
*Above 4G MMIO BIOS assignment
*GTT Size
*Aperture Size
*DVMT Total Gfx Mem
*Gfx Low Power Mode (Turning this to 'disabled' will cause the BIOS to not post on the QTJ1 ES from what I can tell. Probably because it was originally a Laptop Engineering Sample CPU).

However I do not currently have a GPU that supports Nvidia Resizable BAR or AMD Smart Access Memory, so I can't test these settings.
However, according to the xCurio re-BAR guides, he does mention that Skylake motherboards (z170) often come with broken implementations of the '4G Decoding DSDT'. Which probably means that those hidden AMIBCP setting don't actually do anything, or at least not very successfully.

Here is a picture of what it says on the xCurio reBarUEFI GitHub:
View attachment 357436

I already completed the 1st and 2nd steps for my QTJ1 ES on my z170 motherboard (there was no padding file bug to correct for me from what I could tell):
I added the ReBarDXE FFS module using UEFITool, and I also ran the UEFIPatch.exe with the text file and the Command Prompt returned: "replaced 11 bytes at offset... Image patched". So I know something got patched in there.
I am only missing the 3rd step: "DSDT Patching".
So my question for you is, did you do the DSDT patch for your z170 board? I cant check to see if I need it because I don't have a dedicated GPU that actually uses the reBAR but I do want to have the system ready for that so I can just drop in a GPU later without issue. I assume the third step is most likely necessary.

How did the ReBAR part go for you? You have an ASUS z170 correct? Did you get that padding bug? Luckily I didn't.

For other settings It does not seem like Setting them to 'USER' does anything. It just makes the UEFI BIOS menu entry show up, but the entry does not actually do anything for the QTJ1 ES CPU.

Hello @BobbyBoyGaming

Long time. Congrats on enabling SST.
I did not have to do the DSDT patch as my motherboard (2nd system specs) as far as I remember and I also did not face the padding issue. I did have to use UEFIPatch for something else though since I saw a post with someone having to do the same on a Z170 Pro Gaming (very similar board).
Resizebar works perfect (tested with my RTX 3070 from 1st system). The only thing that does not work is sleep. As in it goes to sleep perfectly but gets stuck trying to wake up at which point, the only option is to reset. Not a big deal and possibly could be fixed but I didn't dig much deeper.

 

[BobbyBoyGaming]

Hello @BobbyBoyGaming

Long time. Congrats on enabling SST.
I did not have to do the DSDT patch as my motherboard (2nd system specs) as far as I remember and I also did not face the padding issue. I did have to use UEFIPatch for something else though since I saw a post with someone having to do the same on a Z170 Pro Gaming (very similar board).
Resizebar works perfect (tested with my RTX 3070 from 1st system). The only thing that does not work is sleep. As in it goes to sleep perfectly but gets stuck trying to wake up at which point, the only option is to reset. Not a big deal and possibly could be fixed but I didn't dig much deeper.

Oh yeah I remember I was having that exact same issue with another board. Make sure you have the C-States enabled, that fixed it for me when I had that issue. That might fix it for you as well. There is also another option in the motherboard "Enable Deep Sleep". Maybe you can try that one as a work around.

That is great news. I was dreading the padding-file bug step as well as the DSDT patching step. They seem too long and complicated lol. But it is possible that I do not need to do it either. I will have to swap in my AMD Radeon 5700XT just to check that the mod works.

 

[itsakjt]

Oh yeah I remember I was having that exact same issue with another board. Make sure you have the C-States enabled, that fixed it for me when I had that issue. That might fix it for you as well. There is also another option in the motherboard "Enable Deep Sleep". Maybe you can try that one as a work around.

That is great news. I was dreading the padding-file bug step as well as the DSDT patching step. They seem too long and complicated lol. But it is possible that I do not need to do it either. I will have to swap in my AMD Radeon 5700XT just to check that the mod works.

Yeah but I don't have much options with regards to sleep S3. C states are enabled and this issue only happens when resizebar is enabled and greater than 2 GB.

 

[90Ninety]

Ive used this guide now several times to upgrade old machines

THough every time I struggle with selecting the correct microcodes

According to your video, 'CPU-World.com' shows microcodes for cpus.. For example cpu i5 9400 has id SR3X5, when I search SR3X5 , I am not finding the microcodes

Isnt there a table that can be added to the guide to show which CPU's belong to each microcode?