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Introduction
A few days ago I managed to brick my Compaq Mini 311 netbook by mistakenly flashing the wrong BIOS image. The
computer only switched on the CPU fan for a moment when I pressed the Power on button, then it switched off, nothing
worked, no lights were on.
Since the netbook was working perfectly well before the BIOS update I immediately knew that the wrong BIOS image
was at fault. However, flashing the correct image required the netbook to start up correctly in some kind of an operating
system, which, without a proper BIOS, is not possible. Not even the Win+B combination worked.
Luckily, not all is lost, as all it needed was a correct BIOS, which I could easily download from the manufacturer's web
site.
Yes, it's a Compaq Mini 311 netbook. I prepared a replacement chip loaded with the correct BIOS. Later it turned out that the original chip was not
destroyed by the procedure I put it through.
Once I had to open the laptop to fix it I decided to take this opportunity to explore the options there are for fixing the
broken BIOS and compile my findings in this article. In the process I tried all of the methods described below, some on
the actual laptop I fixed eventually, some on (really-really) dead motherboards.
There are several ways of getting the right BIOS back in the computer - in the following I am going to present a number
of ways to get your laptop back on its feet. There are probably more ways to do it, but this should be a good starting point
for someone in the same shoes as I was.
General information
Most fairly recent laptops have their BIOS in a serial EEPROM with an SPI interface on the motherboard. Its location
varies, but since it is the only EEPROM on the motherboard, after a few minutes of visual inspection it is easy to reveal it.
In some laptops it's covered by a black sticky tape which needs to be removed temporarily to get access to the chip.
These EEPROMS are usually 1024kB (1MB) or 2048kB(2MB) in size. They come from various chip manufacturers, like
Winbond, STM, Microship, etc. Not to confuse with BIOS (firmware) manufacturers, i.e. Phoenix, AMI, Award, etc. The
product number is printed on the chip and is something like this: 25xx80 (1MB) or 25xx160 (2MB). There may be some
extra letters in the front or at the end that are all important when you select a replacement chip, but for the purpose of
finding the chip on the motherboard they are not relevant.
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On the Compaq Mini 311 motherboard the BIOS chip was hidden under a layer of black, sticky tape. I folded it back temporarily to get access to my
target.
Once we locate the BIOS chip on the motherboard first we need to establish connection to it with an EEPROM
programmer (explained later). This can be accomplished in several ways:
some motherboards are designed in such a way that the SOIC clip does not have enough room around the
chip to securely latch on.
some motherboards are designed in such a way that circuitry on the motherboard interferes with the
programmer and as a result even with good connection reading and writing the BIOS chip is not possible
without removing the chip from the motherboard first.
If you went with the "filing away" method don't forget to clean up the resulting metal dust and shavings from around the
motherboard. They can cause short circuits later, when power is re-applied.
Once all the pins are cut you can use your soldering iron to clean up the remains.
After the above procedure soldering the new chip in place will feel like a breeze. When soldering in the replacement chip
pay attention to the orientation - pin #1 is marked on both the old and the new chips, make sure they match.
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too strong airflow (it can easily blow away nearby tiny components such as resistors, capacitors, etc.).
I tend to put a lot of flux on the pins first, to aid working with the solder.
Then I put extra solder on the pins to the point where either side of the chip is one big blob of solder. This helps to
distribute heat evenly across the pins, fast.
Then I alternate with the soldering iron between the two sides fast enough so that one side doesn't cool down while I am
warming the other.
With this method I can remove the chip within a few few seconds using a pair of tweezers.
Once the chips is off the board, clean up the pads in preparation for the new chip. If you do it as fast as I did, you can
re-use the old chip after it has been re-programmed.
I have an old Willem EPROM Programmer for Parallel Port (yes, I said old...). It does support SPI EEPROMS of the
25xxx series: it has a DIP-8 socket to take EEPROMS so you have to come up with a way of connecting the SOIC BIOS
chip there. See ideas earlier.
The programmer comes with an application that is used to read/write/etc. the chips. Since each programmer has its own
application I am not going into the details on how to use them. Generally, you just select the chip to program, load the
new BIOS file and off you go.
The setup
Here is the setup I used:
Using a drop-in SOIC-DIP converter is probably the easiest way to program these tiny chips.The connections can be seen clearly here: The jumper cables
are easy to follow. Note the two tiny jumpers on pins #3 (Vcc) and #4 (Gnd).
Since I had a few of these chips on stock, I decided to solder one in for my experiments. This way I can also re-use it in
other projects.
My SOIC to DIP converter board takes chips of 20pins max, so I decided to put an I2C EEPROM (on the left) as well as
an SPI EEPROM (on the right) for experimentation.
For further experiments I used this more permanent rig. It includes both an I2C and an SPI EEPROM.
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2. Create a samba share so that I can copy files easily back and forth from my Windows computer
(optional)
4. Install Flashrom
Flashrom is a utility to do stuff with flash chips. Detailed installation and usage instructions are available on its web site. I
simply downloaded the sources and compiled my own binaries:
Download and extract the latest stable release to a directory called flashrom-0.9.7 on the RPi.
cd flashrom-0.9.7/
sudo make
sudo make install
6. Edit the backlist file so that the SPI module is always loaded every time the RPi starts:
# blacklist spi and i2c by default (many users don't need them)
#blacklist spi-bcm2708
#blacklist i2c-bcm2708
If everything went OK, the following command will test the hardware connection and detect the chip we connected:
To save an old BIOS (as a backup, if yours is still good) use the following command:
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To upload the new BIOS in the chip use the following command:
Summary
In the above article I have shown a few ways of getting access to and programming a BIOS chip in most modern
laptops/PCs. While this is not a comprehensive list of possible ways, it is a good starting point for people who feel they
care able to fix their messed up BOIS chips.
If you have better ways of dealing with a failed BIOS upgrade, please let us all know about it in the comments.
Labels: BIOS , BUS Pirate , computer , EEPROM , fix , laptop , linux , PC , soic , soldering
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