DISCLAIMER: This mod is NOT officially supported on the Clevo laptops mentioned below, and YOU assume all the risk and liability by attempting this mod on your own laptop. This thread was created merely to show that these mods are possible!
Also remember: The CPU mods only work on skylake, kabylake and coffee lake & cannon lake CPU's as of now, future next gen CPU's MAY be supported with updated BIOS mods.
ALL modified BIOSes have been included!
Things you
WILL need:
A USB stick, preferably formatted to fat32, to flash bios firmware
A SPI flasher with BIOS 8 pin clip (pomona clip) just in case BIOS cannot be flashed through firmware update due to 'fpt error message'
The BIOS of course,
YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE THE ONE COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR MODEL! You can check the model number on the back of the laptop or in dxdiag in windows.
A cannon lake CPU, preferably a tested one, such as an i5 9600k, i7 9700k OR the i9 9900K, although all cannon lake cpu's in hindsight
SHOULD work as all microcodes have been added, for pentium, i3, i5 and i7 cannon lake cpu's.
BEFORE YOU START
Make a backup of your bios, or have a backup ready just in case anything goes wrong.
Make sure you have a SPI flash programmer handy, you may not need it but it is always useful to have if you brick the laptop bios or end up with a black screen on boot.
Make sure you DO NOT UPDATE your Intel management engine firmware at all, this will block cannon lake CPU recognition, the BIOS flash will update the ME firmware accordingly!
THE PROCESS
Read this first, for laptops without the GTX 10xx series cards you can skip the below process!
For
ALL GTX 1000 series graphic card users:
You may need update GOP of your card .
Make sure your GOP version is 0x30006 or higher or this BIOS wont work with it!
Enter the nvflash_tool folder provided in the attached link and run "Check_GOP_Version.bat" as administrator.
Then check the UEFI Version. If the version is lower than 0x30006, for example it is "0x30002", you must flash
@dsanke provided vbios file to your graphics card.
Copy the proper vbios file for your graphic card (They were identified by Model, SLi and G-Sync) to the nvflash_tool folder.
Then run "Backup_vBIOS.bat" as administrator to backup your current vBIOS .
You will get "backup_master.rom" and "backup_slave.rom" (Last one only for dual graphic card laptops e.g. p870dm)
Then run "Flash_vBIOS.bat" as administrator to flash the vBIOS of your graphic card(s).
You may receive error message telling you "Invalid display adapter index specified", that is normal for single graphic card device because you don't have a second graphics card.
Then run "Check_GOP_Version.bat" as administrator and check the UEFI Version again.
Now you can continue to flash the cannon lake BIOS to your device .
You will first need to try and flash the bios through the
USB method as listed below:
0)
TAKE OUT THE BATTERY FROM YOUR LAPTOP!
1) Plug in your charger, enter the BIOS, change 2 values .
a) Setup->Boot->UEFI Settings->UEFI Boot->Enabled
b) Setup->Security->Secure Boot->Disabled (If you can not find this then you don't need to change it)
2) Unplug all your drives including any SSD's and HDD's
3) Put the EFI folder into your FAT32 formatted USB Flash Disk, now put the bios file into the EFI->Boot folder and boot your laptop through the USB.
4) Wait for startup.nsh to execute, and then type "meset", press enter.
5) Your laptop will auto reboot and the fan will run at high speed, THIS IS NORMAL, boot to the USB Flash Disk again.
6) Wait for startup.nsh to execute, and then type "fpt -d backup.bin", press enter to backup your bios.
7) Now type "fpt -f BIOS.bin -rewrite -y", press enter to flash new the cannon lake bios .
8) Wait for the flash to finish (you will see color text "(...) successful (...)" info printed on screen by fpt). Just unplug power cord, without battery it will hard shut off computer. Then insert battery again, plug in charger and turn computer on.
9) You should successfully have the bios firmware updated, skip the below process and go to the pin mod section!
If the bios flash was unsuccessful read below:
If you cannot do this (keep receiving FPT Error message) you will need to use the SPI programmer, make sure backup before you flash!
OR
If you cannot get the screen to work, the screen stays blank, then you will need use the SPI programmer to reflash your BIOS chip
You will now need to use the SPI flash programmer because the usb flash failed, I used a SkyPro specifically but any bios programmer should work, just remember to note down the details of your bios chip (this will require disassembling your laptop) so they can be entered into the flashing software as shown below:
Please note: Your BIOS chip details will be different to the ones shown below!
![[IMG]](images/storyImages/HwRsEY3.jpg)
How would I find the bios chip?
You can locate the bios chip on your motherboard, it may have a coloured 'dot' on it, this makes it easier to find it.
Otherwise you will need to look at a schematic or look for 8 pin lookalike chips on your motherboard to find the bios chip, it shouldn't be hard. Remember, if you find the bios chip you can identify it by reading what is written on top of it. You can also attach the 8 pin clip to the chip with the 'red' wire facing the 'embedded' circle on the chip as shown below:
Please note: The 'embedded' circle is NOT the 'coloured' dot, if there is one.
![[IMG]](images/storyImages/Hx1rsFi.jpg)
Also note: The bios chip will be 8MB in size NOT 1MB, DO NOT ACCIDENTALLY FLASH THE EC CHIP!
If you still can't find the bios chip upload some high quality pictures of the motherboard and I'll let you know!
Now all you have to do is open the bios file from the EXTRACTED .7z folder and flash it in the program with the programmer connected, click on 'auto' as it does the whole process manually including erasing, writing and verifying.
And that's it for the software!
Time for the pin mod:
This is practically very simple to do and I will show a diagram of it here, you need to isolate two pins as shown below:
![[IMG]](images/storyImages/HwRwRXP.jpg)
You can isolate these 2 contact pins using kapton tape, or any tape for that matter, just
DO NOT COVER ANY OTHER PINS. I accidentally did that and got many bsods on load!
The reason we do not need to SHORT the two pins at the top is because we have already injected the bios and microcode into the motherboard, therefore the cannon lake cpu should be recognised just fine!
And that is it! You can now carefully put the processor into the socket, put the heatsink back on and watch as the computer boots with it's beastly new cannon lake cpu installed.
Here are some known bugs and potential fixes:
- G-Sync may no longer work ( depending on CPU and display panel ) .
P7xxDM and DM1 series
Sound only works with the Microsoft provided driver, optical jack now works as the headphone jack.
P870DM and DM1 series
Optical jack now works as the headphone jack.
Potential sound fix for P775TM/TM1 laptops that sound muffled or flat after bios flash
Big thanks to
@Kunal Shrivastava for finding this fix, much appreciated
Just an update:
Got the old sound quality back by installing a custom driver and soundblaster x720 app.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B-gGCrMdQwFTFNm7N7px3fRkNPXZSLUW/view
Had to disable enforce driver certificate in advanced restart options.
Also have to completely uninstall the soundblaster xifi mb5 app and the old realtek drivers (and anything realtek sound related) via device manager, then let windows auto install a second realtek/Microsoft audio driver upon restart.
Install the custom driver via the have disk option in device manager and then the x720 app to get the old audio quality.
Profiles are back too!
LINK & CREDIT GIVEN
Coffee Lake Refresh Bioses are available here, RTX CARDS ARE NOW SUPPORTED
:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Tr275Yl65ejq6E_aV8aYqk-v7_hSJJwF
Credit is due to
@dsanke for providing the BIOSes, donate to him via PayPal, he worked hard to make fully functioning bioses for us:
[email protected]
You can also donate to me here:
http://paypal.me/ZeeshanAkhlaq
It's crazy how I'm the first one to post this AGAIN! I hope you all enjoy your cannon lake upgraded laptops!
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
