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

[limited_imagination]

View attachment 282064
Here are the pin config details.
You won't need to connect pin 1, 2 and 9 for the operation. For the rest of the pins, you can find them all on the programmer.
For your board, the connector seems to be upside down so, the top right pin is pin 1 and the single pin on the other end is pin 9. It should go like this when viewed from your previous image.
9 7 5 3 1
. 8 6 4 2
Your idea seems amazing and to be honest, I was looking for something like that back in the day and that way, you can make a proper cable for use in the future as well.

Here is the link to the fixed ASProgrammer

AsProgrammer_V2.1.0.13_XiTongZhiJia.zip

drive.google.com

All the best.

Hello again @itsakjt . I never was able to flash my modified bios, but as the countdown to W10 support continues and I need to upgrade to W11, I am returning to this project again.

I just discovered that my Z270-A motherboard's bios header pins are completely different from the layout of the pins on my MT25QL128ABA bios chip.

And their order bears no relationship to the suggested layout above.

Knowing this problem now, I'm going to have another bash at this through the CH341 and molex connector on the header.

I tested for continuity on both the chip legs and the header pins with a multimeter, and on my Z270-A board at least, it's actually wired the way this photo shows.

I am amazed that I didn't fry the bios chip when I previously hooked up the CH341 as recommended above!

Moral of the story is to bust out your ohm meter before trying this with your header pins!

We shall see if I get any further in the project, with this new knowledge.

Please excuse the non-standard pinout numbering on the image attached, that was just done to show which chip legs match which pins on the header for this particular motherboard, after using an ohm meter.

Starting with from the image attached, I then used the ohm meter on the janky test clamp of my CH341 and traced its terminals to the pin numbers on its SOP8 card.

So I can translate the position of the header pins on the Z270-A motherboard to the corresponding SOP8 pin numbers in this way:

(blank) 3
5 2
6 1
4 3
3 (unused pin)

Where:
1=CS
2=MOIS
3=3.3v
4=GND
5=MOSI
6=CLK

So I may try to rig up connections to the header pins like @itsakjt did in the photo shown in post #176, so I can skip both the SOP8 card and test clamp altogether.

But if I could ever get the janky test clamp to work directly on the chip, then I believe the chip's legs would correspond to the following pin numbers on the CH341's SOP8 card:

1 3
2 3
3 6
4 5

So says my exploits with my ohm meter, anyway.

If this looks wrong to anyone, then I suspect it is because my test clamp wiring was wrong at the outset, so it's not leading back to the correct pins on the SOP8 card of the CH341.

Please holler out if I have the wrong translation between the terminals on the clamp and the terminals on the SOP8 board, as that would change everything.

 

[limited_imagination]

I cut the spring clamp from the 8 wire ribbon cable that came with the SOP8 card, and wired in two of these female connectors so that I could use the pin headers on the motherboard instead of the clamp:

JUMPER WIRE, JST, PH, 4PIN, 2.0MM PITCH (M/F)

JUMPER WIRE, JST, PH, 4PIN, 2MM PITCH (M/F)

leeselectronic.com

These were great since they fit the pin header spacing with just a little filing of the nylon guides, and each had four pre-tinned wires already in place to easily solder to the SOP8 ribbon cable.

After playing with my ohm meter for a while, I found the final correct wiring for the ribbon cable to the two 4-pin female connectors was as follows, corresponding to the photo attached to this post. The female connectors fit just fine although the header itself was obviously designed to be 2x5.

Upper 4-pin female connector, from left to right:

Yellow wire to Cable #4 [continuity to chip leg 7]
White wire to Cable #3 [continuity to chip leg 2]
Red wire to Cable #1 [continuity to chip leg 1]
Black wire to Cable #5 [continuity to chip leg 8]
Vacant Pin

Lower 4-pin female connector, from left to right:

Missing pin
Black wire to Cable #8 [continuity to chip leg 5]
Red wire to Cable #6 [continuity to chip leg 6]
White wire to Cable #7 [continuity to chip leg 4]
Yellow wire to Cable #2 [continuity to chip leg 3]

Wired that way and connected to the header, I got continuity and 0 resistance from all the chip legs going to all the corresponding SOP8 board numbers, such that the chip legs connected to the CH341 pins as expected:

Leg 1/Board 1 = CS
Leg 2/Board 2 = MIOS
Leg 3/Board 3 = 3.3 v
Leg 4/Board 4 = GND
Leg 5/Board 5 = MOSI
Leg 6/Board 6 = CLK
Leg 7/Board 7 = 3.3 v
Leg 8/Board 8 = 3.3 v

So with all that going for me, avoiding the possibility of a bad spring clamp connection, I fired up Asprogrammer v.2.1.2 and tried to read the chip.

Asprogrammer appeared to detect the chip just fine, and then appeared to read from it.

But it was a corrupted read, and failed on verify.

I tried multiple ways, CMOS battery in and out, CPU and memory sticks in and out, but have been unable to get a verified read so far.

Worse, I interrupted one read with the cancel button, which apparently has corrupted my bios. So now the PC won't even try to post.

The power button now does nothing, although the LEDs for the memory stick glow merrily.

After that I started trying to erase and program the chip, since I had nothing left to lose.

It always appeared to erase and program the chip properly, but always failed on verify.

It's weird that Asprogrammer and Neoprogrammer v.2.2.0.10 will both automatically detect the chip, but not reliably every time.

Often I have to hit the question mark a couple of times to get it to recognize the chip. That makes me think it's a bad connection, but the new female connectors seem tight on the pin header, and the ohm meter shows zero resistance between the chip legs and the relevant pins on the CH341.

Any ideas?

I have ordered a few blank chips of the same model number to see if I can flash the bios into them with the CH341 while they are loose.

Then I suppose I teach myself surface-mount soldering, which is doubtless going to get ugly.

Not much to lose at this point though, since this PC is now a paperweight without a working bios.

 

[link78]

Hello itsakjt and thank you very much for your guide. I'm trying to follow it step by step also with your youtube video but i'm having problem running aptio. I downloaded it on ami (because link on youtube is broken) but exe doesn't fire. I heve your same mobo (asus maximus VIII ranger with latest 3802 bios) and W10 enterprise 64bit. Thank for your help.

 

[davidm71]

About to run the coffeetime 0.99 mod tool on the latest bios release for the Asus Apex X (running on the Apex IX). The previous version was made by Dsanke who I have not been able to contact. Anyhow not sure if running Coffeetime on the Apex X latest 2701 bios release will accomplish the same thing as what he was able to accomplish. Furthermore not sure if I should turn on the 'PCIe Patch' feature? Or any other fixes? Advice please.

Thanks