Every how-to on the site, collected in one place and sorted by what you are trying to do rather than by socket. Most of them came out of work on Chinese X99 boards, since that is what this site covers most, and each entry says which platform it applies to.
Table of Contents
Flashing the BIOS: tools and common failures
- Intel FPT error 103FPT refuses to write and reports error 103. What the error means on a Chinese board, and how to get the flash through anyway.
- CH341A voltage problemThe cheap CH341A programmer drives its data lines at a voltage many BIOS chips were never meant to see. What goes wrong, and the fixes people have worked out, from the quick one to the permanent one.
BIOS mods: unlocking CPUs, memory and hidden features
- Coffee ModRun 8th and 9th generation Core CPUs on 100- and 200-series boards that were never meant to take them.
- Unlock CPU and memory overclockingPatch the firmware on an X79 board to get overclocking options the vendor left switched off.
- Add Resizable BAR to the BIOSBring Resizable BAR to a board whose manufacturer never shipped support for it.
- Unlock memory timings on X79Reach the full timing set instead of the handful the stock BIOS exposes.
- Unlock memory timings on X99The same job one generation later, where the procedure and the tools differ.
Overclocking and tuning
- Set the base clock to exactly 100 MHzBoards rarely sit precisely on 100, and every other frequency in the system inherits the error. How to pin it down.
- S3TurboToolThe most convenient way to unlock the turbo boost (TBU) on Haswell-EP CPUs.
- Overclocking through Intel XTUThe short answer on getting XTU to work with an X99 board.
- How to disable CPU coresCut the active core count, either from Windows or through the BIOS.
Windows 11 on Chinese X99: TPM, Secure Boot and UEFI
- TPM 2.0 on Chinese X99 boardsWhat your board can and cannot do about TPM, and how to turn on what is there.
- Secure Boot on Chinese X99 boardsHow to set Secure Boot up, switch it on and check that it is actually working.
- UEFI fix for 5-series X99 boardsThe boot-mode problem specific to these boards, and the fix for it.
Where to go next
Most of these guides lean on the same handful of programs, and all of them are collected with download links and notes in the BIOS tools and tuning software section.