Just wanted to leave a thanks here for the guide. Picked up an i7 8700 and it's been fun getting it to work in a z170 maximus hero.
One thing i wish i'd realized sooner is that the stock voltages for the non-k parts are waaaay too low. I've essentially had to 'OC' the 8700 up to stock speeds by adjusting voltages and power manually. SVID and Auto anything was a complete mess and it couldn't even reach the Windows login screen.
Methods/Tools used:
- kapton tape for the two isolated pins
- a very small strip of conductive tape for the SKTOCC pins
- a CH341A to flash the bios
- a cheap chip puller (almost destroyed the legs on the poor DIP chip without it)
- stock BIOS v2202 (as it came highly recommended)
- the russian coffeetime tool (v0.85) - picked the experimental 'inject all' option for Asus.
Lessons learned:
- The CoffeeTime tool ships with the 64-bit version of cecho. I ran the tool in an old Win7-32bit VM and had to replace it with the 32-bit version.
- The AIO Tool from Win-raid has no config menu. It also needs to be executed close to root folder - I ran into a bunch of MMTool crashes due to path length exceeding the maximum. Even when it worked I was stuck on POST code 31 with a skylake CPU installed. It's possible the AIO tool doesn't keep skylake support?
- CH341A windows software sucks. If you can run it on linux do that. I had problems flashing (read/verify would fail) until I tried v1.31 'Free' version.
- All of these tools trigger virus scanners and unpacking them will get a bunch of their files quarantined/nuked instantly. Likely false positives but if you like to be cautious just use a VM or a PC that's isolated from the net.
- If you care about your boar'd SN and MAC address, make a backup of your OG BIOS with the programmer before you start!
- Even after dialing up the vcore to 1.4v, couldn't obtain an all-core sync higher than 3.5GHz. Turns out the Auto CPU Core Cache Ratio is also garbage and I had to dial in 34 min and max. I could then drop the vcore down to 1.3v and achieve a stable system (Prime95 - Blend - 30mins). Cache Ratio of 36 or higher wasn't stable without putting in more vcore than i was comfy with running 24/7.
Just wanted to leave a thanks here for the guide. Picked up an i7 8700 and it's been fun getting it to work in a z170 maximus hero. One thing i wish i'd realized sooner is that the stock voltages for the non-k parts are waaaay too low. I've essentially had to 'OC' the 8700 up to stock speeds by adjusting voltages and power manually. SVID and Auto anything was a complete mess and it couldn't even reach the Windows login screen. Methods/Tools used: - kapton tape for the two isolated pins - a very small strip of conductive tape for the SKTOCC pins - a CH341A to flash the bios - a cheap chip puller (almost destroyed the legs on the poor DIP chip without it) - stock BIOS v2202 (as it came highly recommended) - the russian coffeetime tool (v0.85) - picked the experimental 'inject all' option for Asus. Lessons learned: - The CoffeeTime tool ships with the 64-bit version of cecho. I ran the tool in an old Win7-32bit VM and had to replace it with the 32-bit version. - The AIO Tool from Win-raid has no config menu. It also needs to be executed close to root folder - I ran into a bunch of MMTool crashes due to path length exceeding the maximum. Even when it worked I was stuck on POST code 31 with a skylake CPU installed. It's possible the AIO tool doesn't keep skylake support? - CH341A windows software sucks. If you can run it on linux do that. I had problems flashing (read/verify would fail) until I tried v1.31 'Free' version. - All of these tools trigger virus scanners and unpacking them will get a bunch of their files quarantined/nuked instantly. Likely false positives but if you like to be cautious just use a VM or a PC that's isolated from the net. - If you care about your boar'd SN and MAC address, make a backup of your OG BIOS with the programmer before you start! - Even after dialing up the vcore to 1.4v, couldn't obtain an all-core sync higher than 3.5GHz. Turns out the Auto CPU Core Cache Ratio is also garbage and I had to dial in 34 min and max. I could then drop the vcore down to 1.3v and achieve a stable system (Prime95 - Blend - 30mins). Cache Ratio of 36 or higher wasn't stable without putting in more vcore than i was comfy with running 24/7.
