Flashrom

Flashrom is a utility which can be used to detect, read, or write BIOS chips (DIP, PLCC, SPI).

Supported devices

Note: There are probably some flash ROM chips which are compatible to the ones listed below.

Vendor Flash part Status   Probe Read Write Erase AMD Am29F040B ? ? ? ? AMD Am29LV040B ? ? ? ? AMD Am29F016D ? ? ? ? ASD AE49F2008 ? ? ? ? Atmel AT29C040A ? ? ? ? Atmel AT29C020 ? ? ? ? Atmel AT49F002(N) OK6 OK6 ? ? Atmel AT49F002(N)T OK6 OK6 ? ? EON EN29F002(A)(N)T ? ? ? ? EON EN29F002(A)(N)B ? ? ? ? EMST F49B002UA ? ? ? ? Fujitsu MBM29F400TC OK5 OK5 ? ? Intel® 82802AB ? ? ? ? Intel® 82802AC ? ? ? ? M-Systems MD-2802 WIP1 WIP1 WIP1 WIP1 Macronix MX29F002 ? ? ? ? Macronix MX29F002 ? ? ? ? Macronix MX25L4005 ? ? ? ? Macronix MX25L8005 ? ? ? ? Macronix MX25L3205 ? ? ? ? Spansion S25FL016A ? ? ? ? PMC Pm49FL002 ? ? ? ? PMC Pm49FL004 ? ? ? ? PMC Pm25LV512 ? ? ? ? PMC Pm25LV010 ? ? ? ? PMC Pm25LV020 ? ? ? ? PMC Pm25LV040 ? ? ? ? PMC Pm25LV080B ? ? ? ? PMC Pm25LV016B ? ? ? ? Sharp LHF00L04 ? ? ? ? SST SST25VF040B ? ? ? ? SST SST25VF016B ? ? ? ? SST SST29EE020A ? ? ? ? SST SST28SF040A ? ? ? ? SST SST39SF010A ? ? ? ? SST SST39SF020A ? ? ? ? SST SST39SF040 ? ? ? ? SST SST39VF020 ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF040B OK OK OK OK SST SST49LF040 ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF020A ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF080A OK OK OK OK SST SST49LF002A/B ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF003A/B ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF004A/B ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF008A ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF004C ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF008C ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF016C ? ? ? ? SST SST49LF160C ? ? ? ?

Vendor Flash part Status   Probe Read Write Erase ST M50FLW040A ? ? ? ? ST M50FLW040B ? ? ? ? ST M50FLW080A ? ? ? ? ST M50FLW080B ? ? ? ? ST M50FW040 ? ? ? ? ST M50FW080 OK OK OK OK ST M50FW016 ? ? ? ? ST M50LPW116 ? ? ? ? ST M29F002B ? ? ? ? ST M29F002T ? ? ? ? ST M29F002NT ? ? ? ? ST M29F400BT ? ? ? ? ST M29F040B ? ? ? ? ST M29W010B ? ? ? ? ST M29W040B ? ? ? ? SyncMOS S29C51001T/B ? ? ? ? SyncMOS S29C51002T/B ? ? ? ? SyncMOS S29C51004T/B ? ? ? ? SyncMOS S29C31004T ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W29C011 ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W29C020C ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W29C040P ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W29EE011 ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W49F002U ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W49V002A ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W49V002FA ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W39V040FA ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W39V040A ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W39V040B ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W39V080A ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W25x10 ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W25x20 ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W25x40 ? ? ? ? Winbond™ W25x80 ? ? ? ?

Supported chipsets

Vendor	Southbridge	Status
ALi	M1533	OK
AMD	Geode™ CS5530/CS5530A	OK
AMD	Geode™ SC1100	?
AMD	AMD-8111	OK
ATI	SB400	?
Broadcom	HT-1000	OK
Intel®	ICH	OK2
Intel®	PIIX4/PIIX4E/PIIX4M	OK
Intel®	440MX	OK
NVIDIA	CK804	OK
NVIDIA	MCP51	?
NVIDIA	MCP55	OK
SiS	630	?
SiS	5595	?
VIA	CX700	OK
VIA	VT8231	?
VIA	VT8235	?
VIA	VT8237	OK
VIA	VT82C686	?

¹ Unsupported, disabled by default.
² This includes the ICH, ICH0, ICH2, ICH2-M, ICH3-S, ICH3-M, ICH4/ICH4-L, ICH4-M, ICH5/ICH5R, ICH6/ICH6R, ICH6-M, ICH7DH, ICH7/ICH7R, ICH7M, ICH7MDH, ICH8/ICH8R, ICH8DH, and ICH8DO chipsets. ICH2: Identifying and reading chips seems to work, but there are reports that writing may not work on some mainboards.
⁴ Untested, but should work.
⁵ Only reading the chip, but not writing to it has been tested. Both is expected to work, though.
⁶ Should work, but only reading (not writing or erasing) the chip has been tested.

Supported mainboards

This is a list of mainboards where we have verified that they either do or do not need any special initialization to make flashrom work (given flashrom supports the respective southbridge and ROM chip), or that they do not yet work at all. If they do not work, support may or may not be added later.

Mainboards which don't appear in the list may or may not work (we don't know, someone has to give it a try). Please report any further verified mainboards on the mailinglist or add them here directly.

Known-good Vendor Mainboard Status Advantech PCM-5820 OK ASI MB-5BLMP1 OK ASUS A8N-E OK ASUS A8NE-FM/S OK ASUS A8N-SLI Premium OK ASUS A8V-E Deluxe OK ASUS M2A-VM OK5 ASUS P2B OK ASUS P2B-F OK BCOM WinNET1006 OK GIGABYTE GA-6BXC OK RCA RM4100 OK Tyan S1846 OK Tyan S2881 OK Tyan S2882 OK

Known-good (but special setup required) Vendor Mainboard Required option Status Acorp 6A815EPD -m acorp:6a815epd OK agámi Aruma/AIS6000 -m AGAMI:ARUMA OK Artec Group DBE61 -m artecgroup:dbe61 OK Artec Group DBE62 -m artecgroup:dbe62 OK ASUS A7V400-MX — OK ASUS A7V8X-MX — OK ASUS A8V-E SE — OK7 ASUS P5A -m asus:p5a OK EPoX EP-BX3 -m epox:ep-bx3 OK IBM x3455 -m ibm:x3455 OK GIGABYTE GA-M57SLI-S4 -m gigabyte:m57sli SEMI-SUPPORTED3 GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 -m gigabyte:m61p OK IWILL DK8-HTX -m iwill:dk8_htx OK MSI K8N Neo3 -m msi:k8n-neo3 OK Tyan S2498 (Tomcat K7M) — OK VIA EPIA-M — OK2 VIA EPIA-MII — OK2

Known-bad Vendor Mainboard Status ASUS MEW-AM No ASUS MEW-VM No Biostar M6TBA No MSI MS-7260 (K9N Neo) SEMI-SUPPORTED4

¹ Used in the IGEL WinNET III thin client.
² Might also work for other CLE266 based EPIAs.
³ Flashrom works great when booted with the proprietary BIOS. Once booted in coreboot, it does not work reliably. See bug #87.
⁴ Interestingly flashrom does not work when the vendor BIOS is booted, but it does work flawlessly when the machine is booted with coreboot.
⁵ See http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2007-September/025281.html.
⁶ Used in the IGEL-316 thin client.
⁷ See http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2007-October/026496.html.

Installation

Requirements

Flashrom requires the pciutils and zlib and the respective development packages in order to be built.

In Debian unstable these development packages are called pciutils-dev and zlib1g-dev. Most other distributions call them pciutils-devel and zlib-devel.

Manual Installation

$ svn co svn://coreboot.org/repos/trunk/util/flashrom
$ cd flashrom
$ make
$ sudo make install

Debian

$ sudo aptitude install flashrom

Fedora

$ sudo yum install flashrom

Mandriva

$ urpmi flashrom

openSUSE

$ yast -i coreboot-utils

For distributions older than openSUSE Factory (11.0) you find "backports" in the openSUSE Build Service.

Usage

Detect whether flashrom knows about your chipset/mainboard/BIOS chip:

$ flashrom

Read the current BIOS image into a file:

$ flashrom -r backup.bin

Write a BIOS image (proprietary or coreboot) on the ROM chip:

$ flashrom -wv newbios.bin

WARNING: This will overwrite your current BIOS! Make sure you know what you're doing!

For more documentation please see the flashrom README or the manpage.