Lenovo M700/M900 BIOS mod to Coffee Lake CPUs

[bigfellasdad]

Hi there,

Thanks very much for all your hard work on this thread. Ive got an issue which doesnt seem to be mentioned, ive run coffeetime against my bios in an m910q (previously G4400T). The machine can now see an i3-8100T so great result The issue i have is that i have a blank screen up until the linux kernel is loading, so I dont see the BIOS menu, im also not seeing the sata port, but i cant check the bios to see if its enabled or not.. I think it is entering the screen as the machine isnt booting when i hit 'esc' and turns off immediately when i press the power button.
Any ideas at all please?

thanks

Andy

 

[RolloZ170]

The issue i have is that i have a blank screen up until the linux kernel is loading, so I dont see the BIOS menu

vbios not updated ?
maybe you have modded the skylake only BIOS instead on the one with Kabylake support ?

 

[Blubster]

Hi there,

Thanks very much for all your hard work on this thread. Ive got an issue which doesnt seem to be mentioned, ive run coffeetime against my bios in an m910q (previously G4400T). The machine can now see an i3-8100T so great result The issue i have is that i have a blank screen up until the linux kernel is loading, so I dont see the BIOS menu, im also not seeing the sata port, but i cant check the bios to see if its enabled or not.. I think it is entering the screen as the machine isnt booting when i hit 'esc' and turns off immediately when i press the power button.
Any ideas at all please?

thanks

Andy

You should probably use the latest version of coffetime, which is 0.99. You are currently using 0.92 it appears!
And yes you have to upgrade vbios/gop to 9.0.1107, you have 9.0.1061. Try that and you should have display before os loads...
On my side, i can report that i successfully modded 4 M710q with Core i3 8100t, they all run quite nicely!

On one of them unfortunately i tried to upgrade the TPM firmware as it was quite older that the other, i ended up frying it... I believe it is infineon based, SLB9670 i think. Flash stopped at 99% with an error and now the TPM is completely missing, from bios and os! Even fTPM is no longer working, if selected in bios it still says "Discreete TPM 1.2" and does not work.
Is there anyway to manually reflash the TPM?

 

[pocmalac]

hello guys, I have a question before I flash the bios: at the moment the 7th gen cpu is installed in the m700 and there is nothing coming out of the display port, only the fan runs. I just wanted to see a before/after condition of the system. Is it supposed to be this way until a supported cpu isnt installed? thank you

 

[home_company]

You should probably use the latest version of coffetime, which is 0.99. You are currently using 0.92 it appears!
And yes you have to upgrade vbios/gop to 9.0.1107, you have 9.0.1061. Try that and you should have display before os loads...
On my side, i can report that i successfully modded 4 M710q with Core i3 8100t, they all run quite nicely!

On one of them unfortunately i tried to upgrade the TPM firmware as it was quite older that the other, i ended up frying it... I believe it is infineon based, SLB9670 i think. Flash stopped at 99% with an error and now the TPM is completely missing, from bios and os! Even fTPM is no longer working, if selected in bios it still says "Discreete TPM 1.2" and does not work.
Is there anyway to manually reflash the TPM?

For M710q, if you disable ME using jumper (near LAN port next to clear CMOS) will force using the infineon chip. It seems the firmware update program is not for the infineon chip. I can only upgrade the firmware when using fTPM and result fTPM 2.0 working. The infineon chip always say 1.2. My M710q works with 8100T(B0) and 8500T (U0 with pin mod)
Hope it helps

 

[home_company]

hello guys, I have a question before I flash the bios: at the moment the 7th gen cpu is installed in the m700 and there is nothing coming out of the display port, only the fan runs. I just wanted to see a before/after condition of the system. Is it supposed to be this way until a supported cpu isnt installed? thank you

m700 BIOS do not have 7th gen microcode even in latest version. So it won't boot.

 

[home_company]

I have modified my M700 tiny to use coffeelake CPU. Thank you everyone in this thread

The following is my experience and hope can help some others to shorten the road.
1. i3 8100t (B0) works very well in M700 with modded BIOS. Do NOT put any 6 core CPU without any pin mod.
2. For M700 tiny, The M.2 NGFF SSD will boot after the "Load default Setting"
3. DP to HDMI converters may not work in bios or bootloader menu. It will work after driver load. Please use DP or VGA for bios editing
4. Front phone jack will work in Linux after using HDAJackRetask. See the attached configuration. (I don't use windows)
5. Do NOT upgrade ME (either through program or biosmod) when you are using M710 bios in M700. Please stick into ME 11.0. Otherwise Ethernet will not work even if you have disabled the ME.
6. There is a tool (credit dsnake) to Unlock Hidden menu in Bios for M710 /M910 Bios and also work in M700 modded bios.
7. Try not to use sync cores in coffeetime for M700 and M710 boards as higher temperature may kill the board
8. You may update the microcode to the latest version by replacing (not rename) the files in coffeetime. The latest microcode can dump from the latest lenovo bios using UEFITool
9. If you found screen error (such as 1.turn black and then resume after 1 second. 2. Screen flash in 2D screen minor tearing. etc) You may try add voltage on GPU. 50mw add to offset in Throttlestop in windows or intel-undervolt in Linux may help to resolve the issue.
10. ***From the internet, people do not recommend using a CH341a SPI programmer for read write the bios chip as the voltage of the data line send to the chip is 5V rather than 3.3v which is much higher than the chip standard. I had flash using the CH341A programmer for more than 20 times on M700 M710 or even thinkpad notebooks without any problems. My CH341A is 5v in dataline. Just a friendly reminder that if you are using a CH341A please disconnect the USB programmer once program is finished. Or preform the voltage mod on the CH341A. There are many resources on the internet. If your CH341A is black and gold colour, you probably need the mod.

11. ***Always remove the Lithium Battery before reading and writing the BIOS

 

[JJE]

Hi, does this allow you to use e3 v5/v6 (C236, Skylake) Xeons?

 

[WildeRNS]

6. There is a tool (credit dsnake) to Unlock Hidden menu in Bios for M710 /M910 Bios

Can you share this tool? Or link? Thanks

 

[home_company]

Can you share this tool? Or link? Thanks

*** USE AS YOUR OWN RISK , I AM NOT THE AUTHOR OF THIS TOOL***

Credit: dsnake
source (in Chinese): 部分 Lenovo 联想 LGA1151 主机 支持 8 代 9 代 BIOS 修改工具 - 电脑讨论(新) - Chiphell - 分享与交流用户体验

Only for BIOS starting with M1A, i.e. ThinkCentre M610/M710q/M910q/M910s/M910t/M910x/M910z/ThinkStation P318/P320 Tiny
Drag the modified BIOS or the BIOS dump by the programmer to Lenovo-M1A-Unlock-CRB-Menu.exe
Wait for the program execution to end and the command box disappears
The modification will automatically overwrite the original file. After flashing back, find Hide CRB Items in the BIOS and set it to Disabled
to unlock hidden options in the BIOS

Lenovo-M1A-Unlock-CRB-Menu.zip

drive.google.com

 

[WildeRNS]

*** USE AS YOUR OWN RISK , I AM NOT THE AUTHOR OF THIS TOOL***

Credit: dsnake
source (in Chinese): 部分 Lenovo 联想 LGA1151 主机 支持 8 代 9 代 BIOS 修改工具 - 电脑讨论(新) - Chiphell - 分享与交流用户体验

Only for BIOS starting with M1A, i.e. ThinkCentre M610/M710q/M910q/M910s/M910t/M910x/M910z/ThinkStation P318/P320 Tiny
Drag the modified BIOS or the BIOS dump by the programmer to Lenovo-M1A-Unlock-CRB-Menu.exe
Wait for the program execution to end and the command box disappears
The modification will automatically overwrite the original file. After flashing back, find Hide CRB Items in the BIOS and set it to Disabled
to unlock hidden options in the BIOS

Lenovo-M1A-Unlock-CRB-Menu.zip

drive.google.com

Thanks friend, will try it. Can you say what items exactly it opens?

 

[home_company]

Thanks friend, will try it. Can you say what items exactly it opens?

Nearly everything including performance boost stuff may kill your board

 

[norman]

what about a M710s ( IB250MH mainboard)
would that bios mod work on this model ?
with at least xeon v5/v6 or even better better e-2286m

 

[examen1996]

Hope I'm not too of topic in here but this seems to be the best place to ask such question.
I had to pic between a m700 tiny and a fujitsu q957, I picked the q957 because of vpro and short term quick swap to a 7500t(mine came with a i3 6100t).
My problem is that even thou the bios doesn't have any password, amt /mebx has.... and the deprovisioning setting from the bios resets every setting without resetting the password(it is specified explicitly)

My question is , would i be able to reset the passwords(not bios, but mebx) if I would downgrade the intel me version using coffetime and the write it using a ch431a flasher ?
I have serios buyers remorse, the lenovo is far more elegant, and without the vpro , this device has nothing going for it.

 

[norman]

ok , by now i have a e3-1245v5 running on a M710s (was not running with stock bios )
I had to go back to an older bios and disable ME
did all coffeetime paches , but vbios did not show up properly , nether update of vbios worked. (stuck on 1001)
a e-2286m is on the way , lets see

 

[home_company]

ok , by now i have a e3-1245v5 running on a M710s (was not running with stock bios )
I had to go back to an older bios and disable ME
did all coffeetime paches , but vbios did not show up properly , nether update of vbios worked. (stuck on 1001)
a e-2286m is on the way , lets see

Try google translate the Chinese site link in #130

There is a tool for Xeon mod for M710q (M1A) to replace ME to a cleaned 11.8

 

[norman]

bios is m16 , so that tool does not work
for xeon me must be disabled anyway
with the xeon v5 everything is fine , but with the e-2286m there is no video ( boot and rdp connection ok )

 

[gandi69]

What did you guys do get coffee lake working on an m700? I’ve got skylake chips working on then but it won’t accept an 8100T

 

[gandi69]

As a further note I’ve followed the various guides on my two m700s and I whilst I can get them to support Kaby lake cpus I cannot get them to post/ show a display with an 8100T. I’ve got clean copies of all the bios via ch41a programmer thankfully.
I’ve also got an m910q which I’ve created my own coffee lake support for its bios for as per the guides in this thread as that also won’t post with coffee lake 8100T cpu. I’ve even tried the supplied modified bioses provided by the original creator of this thread - they don’t work either on my m910q nor the m700s I have.
The coffee lake cpu does work as I have a later Lenovo tiny which is factory 8th gen (where the 8100T came from).
So I’m wondering what I can be doing wrong?
I’ve successfully done the coffee mod on a full atx z270 motherboard which worked wonderfully and runs an i3 8350k

 

[gandi69]

Took the devices to work today with me and put an i3 8100 (non T in) and the both work! bizarre