What exactly is incompatible in this PCIe patch ?
Because it (seems to) works fine on mine.
Lenovo M700/M900 BIOS mod to Coffee Lake CPUs
- Thread starter mobilenvidia
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Because it (seems to) works fine on mine.
I see, thanks for your answer.
So for M710Q/M910Q, there is no downside for using CoffeeTime, isn't it ?
mod-jimmyl.zip
drive.google.com
Thanks a lot dsanke.
For some reason my CoffeeTime mod did not work.
The ME-Version was always staying the same even after I hit "replace".
With your modded BIOS here and cycling the BIOS battery my "new" i3-9100t works well.
Spent 25€ on the CPU and 13€ on the CH341a programmer.
Now my JellyFin 4k 10 Bit videos are transcoding without any issues on the iGPU.
I've successfully modded two M710Q the same way than the M910Q, and installed the same CPU (i5-9500).
They're almost exactly the same, the cooler are a bit different, they seems better built on the M710Q.
Here is a photo of the pinmod.
To make the bridge, I used copper tape, bought on Aliexpress. For insulation, I used Kapton tape (real one, not the fake sold on Aliexpress...).
I adjusted the copper tape a little after taking the photo, and it's fine now, both CPU are working perfectly.
Could you upload your bios?
What CPU cooler in M710q do you have (could you make photo of them)?
I'm sorry, I don't have it anymore, but it's easy to do it again in CoffeeTime, and you will preserve the unique info so it's better this way.
M710Q:
M720Q:
For M710Q, yes, for M720Q, see my post here: https://forums.servethehome.com/ind...yminimicro-reference-thread.34925/post-487482
Does anyone have a modded bios for a M700s? My bios chips are 8mb, and i cant seem to get them to boot with a 9100T at all. I tried various methods of modifying the bios, and i even tried custom coreboot. Nothing seems to get these puppies to work with the 9th gen processor. At best i get the desktops to spin up and the monitor to come on, but no post. Hoping someone has had more luck.
EDIT: 2025-11-03
I finally got my m700s to boot. Between Coffeetime and DSANKEs modding and a little bit of editing, i got my desktops to boot and play nice. Currently running 9100t in one with a 9500T on order. Goodluck out there fellas.
EDIT: 2025-11-03
I finally got my m700s to boot. Between Coffeetime and DSANKEs modding and a little bit of editing, i got my desktops to boot and play nice. Currently running 9100t in one with a 9500T on order. Goodluck out there fellas.
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Hi
Thanks everyone for all the great input. It's been a great read sofar.
I have a Lenovo ThinkCenter M900 Tower ordered and I'll be putting a i5 9600k in it.
I would like to keep the PCI-e slot x16 and avoid any additional issues.
Should I use coffee time on the dumped bios with any specific settings enabled/disabled? Any specific versions of settings?
Or should I try coreboot instead?
Cheers
Thanks everyone for all the great input. It's been a great read sofar.
I have a Lenovo ThinkCenter M900 Tower ordered and I'll be putting a i5 9600k in it.
I would like to keep the PCI-e slot x16 and avoid any additional issues.
Should I use coffee time on the dumped bios with any specific settings enabled/disabled? Any specific versions of settings?
Or should I try coreboot instead?
Cheers
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I would try coffeetime and see what works for you, I had to use dsankes tools to upgrade the ME version for my m700s machines to boot my 9100ts. Coreboot was too finicky but my machines were 8mb bios chips not 16mb. While i got coreboot to load after compiling it was unstable.
Hopefully you make out better than I did.
Unsure, I never had luck flashing BIOS from other people onto my machines...
Ended up having to use my own .bin and mod them. You are welcome to try, just DM me.
Hey quick question - does anyone have experience with the stepping R0 Xeon CPUs on a m(9/7)10q? Specifically the 8c/16t 35W version (E-2278GEL).
I was able to do the bios and pin-mods, and it DOES boot/work, but not reliably. When cold booting if you press the power button it turns on for a second or so then turns back off and will not boot. However if you unplug and plug in the power cable again in it usually boots properly (??). Needing to repower the unit just to get it to boot is sadly not a usable workaround.
A 2-core (Pentium Gold G5500T) CPU seemed to boot reliably (and no pinmod required), but that's not attractive when I have the 8 core Xeon just sitting there...
Has anyone else seen similar behaviour on a coffee lake CPU in one of these? I did have a look in the advanced power menus available after patching the BIOS, but there are a huge number of settings in there and nothing that was obvious to try.
I was able to do the bios and pin-mods, and it DOES boot/work, but not reliably. When cold booting if you press the power button it turns on for a second or so then turns back off and will not boot. However if you unplug and plug in the power cable again in it usually boots properly (??). Needing to repower the unit just to get it to boot is sadly not a usable workaround.
A 2-core (Pentium Gold G5500T) CPU seemed to boot reliably (and no pinmod required), but that's not attractive when I have the 8 core Xeon just sitting there...
Has anyone else seen similar behaviour on a coffee lake CPU in one of these? I did have a look in the advanced power menus available after patching the BIOS, but there are a huge number of settings in there and nothing that was obvious to try.
The problem is most likely due to a poorly done BIOS. I had the same issue, but I don’t remember why anymore. My R0 E-2286m (mutant bga1440) works fine in m910x, except for some minor video issues. I did the mod using a script by dsanke and then CoffeeTime0.99 only for "BIOS lock OFF".
dsanke Thank you very much for working on the script.
I still have some minor issues with the video. The display output on the monitor sometimes disappears for a while, completely unpredictably. I have two M910x units, one with QNCT, the other with e-2286m. Both have the same video problems. I use one as a Proxmox server and it doesn’t matter (everything is fine over RDP), but I want to use the other as a desktop PC, and this display dropout is annoying.
What could be causing this? ME version, VBIOS, GOP? I have tried different versions of ME COR_H (11.8.77.3664, 11.8.94.4494, 11.8.95.4551, 11.8.97.4739). Version 11.8.77.3664 has the fewest video problems. VBIOS + GOP are always 1062 and 9.0.1107. The BIOS version is not the newest, but it’s the last one that has the Overclocking Menu (51A).
What could be my mistake?
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Check the NVME speed. After CoffeeTime, the speed of NVME drives drops to 700Mb, like SATA.
OK so I think I have it going now - bumping the ME version from 11.6 to 11.7.something (before I saw your update, would have gone later otherwise!) did the job. Thanks for letting me know that R0 is indeed possible. Still getting good NVMe speeds btw, read is >3GB/s.
I have the VBIOS + GOP at 1062/9.0.1092, I think only one display output is working but I'm going to run it headless anyway (same as you - proxmox) so not going to worry about messing with it anymore.
A quick side note - testing with a 45W adapter leads to resets unless you fiddle with the power limit settings; it will ignore the adapter power rating and try and pull it's full boost TDP (in this case peak of 43.75W + overheads = >45W adapter rating). I do have higher power adapters available too, which do not have issues.
Pretty happy with the outcome - I now have a tiny low-power 8-core box with 2 NMVe disks (added the second slot), a 2.5" SATA SSD and 32GB of RAM mostly built out of spare parts (all up cost just 50 quid for the base M910q system).
Now the job is to try and mess with my M720q, which is feeling left out of the Xeon party (apparently possible, but I haven't figured out how to get the corporate ME onto it, I can build an image but it's too large for the BIOS chip).
Finally do you have a link to the specific script you used? Didn't see that one, just CoffeeTime and a bunch of stuff over on the winraid forums.
I have the VBIOS + GOP at 1062/9.0.1092, I think only one display output is working but I'm going to run it headless anyway (same as you - proxmox) so not going to worry about messing with it anymore.
A quick side note - testing with a 45W adapter leads to resets unless you fiddle with the power limit settings; it will ignore the adapter power rating and try and pull it's full boost TDP (in this case peak of 43.75W + overheads = >45W adapter rating). I do have higher power adapters available too, which do not have issues.
Pretty happy with the outcome - I now have a tiny low-power 8-core box with 2 NMVe disks (added the second slot), a 2.5" SATA SSD and 32GB of RAM mostly built out of spare parts (all up cost just 50 quid for the base M910q system).
Now the job is to try and mess with my M720q, which is feeling left out of the Xeon party (apparently possible, but I haven't figured out how to get the corporate ME onto it, I can build an image but it's too large for the BIOS chip).
Finally do you have a link to the specific script you used? Didn't see that one, just CoffeeTime and a bunch of stuff over on the winraid forums.
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The m720q has a B360 chipset and cannot be modified. The m720q has one BIOS chip and CON_ME, the m920q has two BIOS chips and COR_ME. On both ME version 12, and it won't allow installing a Xeon. It might be possible to try flashing the BIOS from an m910, but I haven't tried experimenting with that.
Original post by dsanke on a Chinese forum (translate it)
You can get the files here if you have trouble downloading from Baidu
Appreciate the link, I wish I'd had this a few days ago!
If I get time (soon I have to permanently setup the M910q) I'll try the same component versions as you, and report back on what video output I get.
Getting a Xeon to run on the M720q is probably a long shot, but I have seen hints that it is possible (sounds like you need COR ME, but disabled). I have not managed to shrink the COR ME image down using the available tools so as a quick hack I have a larger SPI ROM chip on order (I don't want to mess with two separate chips if I can avoid it).
To be honest it's not critical to get the Xeon going in the M720q - I do already have an i7-8700(non-T) for it and have unlocked the power control bios menus, so I can always just limit the power to 35W TDP and live with 6C/12T. I do need the PCIe slot in it too, which is why I chose the Mx20q generation for this machine.
If I get time (soon I have to permanently setup the M910q) I'll try the same component versions as you, and report back on what video output I get.
Getting a Xeon to run on the M720q is probably a long shot, but I have seen hints that it is possible (sounds like you need COR ME, but disabled). I have not managed to shrink the COR ME image down using the available tools so as a quick hack I have a larger SPI ROM chip on order (I don't want to mess with two separate chips if I can avoid it).
To be honest it's not critical to get the Xeon going in the M720q - I do already have an i7-8700(non-T) for it and have unlocked the power control bios menus, so I can always just limit the power to 35W TDP and live with 6C/12T. I do need the PCIe slot in it too, which is why I chose the Mx20q generation for this machine.
The m910x has a PCIe slot and no issues with modifications. The m720q has a weak cooling system, weak VR, and a 65W power supply. I sold my m720q and replaced it with the m910x. The e2286m CPU does not heat above 80 degrees.
