Flashrom: Difference between revisions
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Modern mainboards store the BIOS in a reprogrammable flash chip. There are hundreds of different flash (EEPROM) chips, with variables such as memory size, speed, communication bus (LPC vs. ISA/PCI) and packaging to name just a few. The three most common packages are called DIP, PLCC and TSOP. The BIOS copyright holders often place a fancy sticker on the BIOS chip showing a name or logotype, BIOS version, serial number and copyright notice. | Modern mainboards store the BIOS in a reprogrammable flash chip. There are hundreds of different flash (EEPROM) chips, with variables such as memory size, speed, communication bus (LPC vs. ISA/PCI) and packaging to name just a few. The three most common packages are called DIP, PLCC and TSOP. The BIOS copyright holders often place a fancy sticker on the BIOS chip showing a name or logotype, BIOS version, serial number and copyright notice. | ||
'''DIP32: Dual In-line Package, 32 pins''' | |||
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A rectangular black plastic block with lots of pins along the two longer sides of the package. DIP chips can be socketed which means they are detachable from the mainboard using physical force. Since they haven't been moved in and out of the socket very much (yet, hehe) they can appear to be quite difficult to release from the socket. One way to remove a DIP from a socket is by prying a thin screwdriver in between the plastic package and the socket, along the shorter sides where there are no pins, and then gently bending the screwdriver to push the DIP upwards, away from the mainboard. Alternate between the two sides to avoid bending the pins, and don't touch any of the pins with the screwdriver, see FAQ about ESD, electro-static discharge. If the DIP is soldered directly to the mainboard, it has to be desoldered in order to be reprogrammed outside the mainboard. If you do this, it's a good idea to solder a socket to the mainboard instead, to ease any future experiments. | A rectangular black plastic block with lots of pins along the two longer sides of the package. DIP chips can be socketed which means they are detachable from the mainboard using physical force. Since they haven't been moved in and out of the socket very much (yet, hehe) they can appear to be quite difficult to release from the socket. One way to remove a DIP from a socket is by prying a thin screwdriver in between the plastic package and the socket, along the shorter sides where there are no pins, and then gently bending the screwdriver to push the DIP upwards, away from the mainboard. Alternate between the two sides to avoid bending the pins, and don't touch any of the pins with the screwdriver, see FAQ about ESD, electro-static discharge. If the DIP is soldered directly to the mainboard, it has to be desoldered in order to be reprogrammed outside the mainboard. If you do this, it's a good idea to solder a socket to the mainboard instead, to ease any future experiments. | ||
'''PLCC32: Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier, 32 pins''' | |||
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Black plastic block again, but this one is much more square. PLCC is becoming the standard for mainboards because of it's smaller physical size. PLCC can also be socketed or soldered directly to the mainboard. Socketed PLCC chips can be removed using a special PLCC removal tool, or using a piece of nylon line tied in a loop around the chip and pulled swiftly straight up, or bending/prying using small screwdrivers if one is careful. PLCC sockets are often fragile so the screwdriver approach is not recommended. While the nylon line method sounds onorthodox it works well. Desoldering PLCC can be painful without specialized desoldering equipment particularly because PLCC chips have leads on all four sides of the package. | Black plastic block again, but this one is much more square. PLCC is becoming the standard for mainboards because of it's smaller physical size. PLCC can also be socketed or soldered directly to the mainboard. Socketed PLCC chips can be removed using a special PLCC removal tool, or using a piece of nylon line tied in a loop around the chip and pulled swiftly straight up, or bending/prying using small screwdrivers if one is careful. PLCC sockets are often fragile so the screwdriver approach is not recommended. While the nylon line method sounds onorthodox it works well. Desoldering PLCC can be painful without specialized desoldering equipment particularly because PLCC chips have leads on all four sides of the package. | ||
'''DIP8: Dual In-line Package, 8 pins''' | |||
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'''SO8/SOIC8: Small-Outline Integrated Circuit, 8 pins''' | |||
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'''TSOP: Thin Small-Outline Package''' | |||
TSOPs are often used in embedded systems where size is important and there is no need for replacement in the field. It is possible to (de)solder TSOPs by hand, but it comes close to wizardry. | TSOPs are often used in embedded systems where size is important and there is no need for replacement in the field. It is possible to (de)solder TSOPs by hand, but it comes close to wizardry. | ||
Revision as of 01:49, 23 May 2009
flashrom is a utility for identifying, reading, writing, verifying and erasing flash chips. It's often used to flash BIOS/EFI/coreboot/firmware images.
Highlights of flashrom include:
- Supports parallel, LPC, FWH and SPI flash interfaces.
- Supports more than 150 flash chip families and half a dozen variants of each family.
- Flash chip package agnostic. DIP32, PLCC32, DIP8, SO8/SOIC8, TSOP32, TSOP40 and more have all been verified to work.
- Supports more than 75 different chipsets, some with multiple flash controllers.
- Features special mainboard enabling code for dozens of nonstandard mainboards.
- No physical access needed, root access is sufficient.
- No bootable floppy disk, bootable CD-ROM or other media needed.
- No keyboard or monitor needed. Simply reflash remotely via SSH.
- No instant reboot needed. Reflash your chip in a running system, verify it, be happy. The new firmware will be present next time you boot.
- Crossflashing and hotflashing is possible as long as the flash chips are electrically and logically compatible (same protocol). Great for recovery.
- Scriptability. Reflash a whole pool of identical machines at the same time from the command line. It is recommended to check flashrom output and error codes.
- Speed. flashrom is often much faster than most vendor flash tools.
- Supports Linux, FreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and other Unix-like OSes.
Supported devices
Supported chips
Total amount of supported chips: 167
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Supported chipsets
Total amount of supported chipsets: 75
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Supported mainboards
In general, it is very likely that flashrom works out of the box even if your mainboard is not listed below.
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 chipset and flash 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 mailing list.
Known good (worked out of the box)
Total amount of boards: 69
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Known good (with write-enable code in flashrom)
Total amount of boards: 33
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Not supported (yet)
Total amount of boards: 17
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Supported programmers
This is a list of supported PCI devices flashrom can use as programmer:
Board notes
Supported laptops/notebooksIn general, flashing laptops is more difficult because
At this point we recommend to not use flashrom on untested laptops unless you have a means to recover from a flashing that goes wrong (a working backup flash chip and/or good soldering skills).
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