BIOS Flashing on Windows or Linux using a CH341a MiniProgrammer
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 7 янв 2021
- This video covers flashing a BIOS or SPI chip on both Windows or Linux with a CH341a MiniProgrammer. I'll explain the steps to go through in terms of hardware and software and then I'll go, step by step, through the process on Windows 10, using AsProgrammer, and Debian Linux, using flashrom.
This was done since the BIOS on my Lenovo X1 Yoga got corrupt. In the video, I repeate the process using a Dell Precision T1700 MT
All info discussed and shown in the video can be found well-documented on my blog, jensd.be, as well. For this video: jensd.be/980/linux/bios-or-sp... 
Наука
This is the best video ive seen so far on this topic. Thank you very much!
This was SO useful and well explained! Tried to fire up my FM2 Gigabyte board and it would not even beep or start, checked the bios battery and was dead at 0%. Followed this and now i have my motherboard working again!
Great to hear that this helped :)
This is a really good quailty video, perfectly explained, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
@@jensdbe I have one question, I bought a computer and it came with the BIOS locked with password, I'm pretty sure that if I just flash a new bios it will not ask for any password because the password data is in the CMOS, but where can I find the image to flash in the CMOS device? Is the same for all the devices or I have to find one for my specific computer? Thank you.
Nice vid, I think I’ll use your guidance when I come to do this procedure. 👍🏻
Very useful bro. Nice video!
A very nice & thorough tutorial,, Thanks!
Thank you my friend, with the CH341a method I just restored ad saved my Y540 Laptop!!! Thank you very much !
Nice to hear. Glad to see this helped you :)
@@jensdbe The only thing now is that the serials numbers are eliminated from my bios screen, and in their place appears the word "INVALID". Have you any idea how could input them again? (I know the numbers) Thank you again!!!
Perfect explanation. Thank you.
It works great. Thank you. The most difficult is about the clip : it is very difficult to fix it correctly.
This helped me to flash a Dell Inspiron All in One 3477 that went FUBAR on me. I backed up the corrupted BIOS and then found one that someone posted online. Flashed that and everything started working. Prior to flashing a new BIOS, the DELL logo would just hang and the unit would not do anything. Thanks to you, I am back in business! Thanks!
Nice to hear this helped you :)
@@jensdbe The only hard part was getting a proper, aligned grip on the BIOS chip. Took me a few tries until it was able to read the chip type. Prior to that, it was just erroring out.
@@Music-yt7xo yes, can be tricky, depending a bit on the location of it. The most difficult is usually to find a (good) copy of a working BIOS online.
If you are have a hot air station and soldering iron it is best to desolder the bios chip and solder it on the adapter and program it externally then resolder it back
Good God! Thank you very much.
I cannot express the frustration i had trying to flash a BIOS chip without removing the solder.
Thanks for this guide.
Much Appreciated!
One edit > double click the chip model after the detection step. It will auto fill some fields.
Thanks a lot for the nice feedback, glad to hear it helped you :)
thanks very good work.
Thank you so much, I do not have to trash my PC now!
good sharing of knowledge God bless you (I am in India)
thanks for sharing .........
thanks bro
Thanks for this guide. I have ordered a CH341a to fix a bricked motherboard. Hoping I'll make even more use of the CH341a to fix other components with erroneous BIOSs.
You da man !!!!
For desktop you should also take the button cell battery out of the motherboard
Thanks Buddy 👌, I can see it in your eyes, You are Building beautiful lives, Beautiful world 🌎 ❤️, May God Almighty bless you Sir 🙏
I used it on Linux for 16MB chip. It took almost 8 minutes for all operations: read, write and verification.
just an FYI, ALWAYS remove the chip from the device and program with the socket.
a) By leaving the IC in circuit, you are unintentionally sending voltage and current through everything else attached connected to the IC, this can lead to corrupted reads/writes, or worse, corrupted data on other IC"s that may be connected to the bios
b) by essentially "back powering" the system through the clip, you can damage other sensitive components in circuit, such as ESD ic's, filters, and low voltage diodes.
Creating good habits now, will reduce damage, and lost time later.
Hello, thanks for your tutorial, i just want to ask but i have a few SOIC type chip on the motherboard, how did you identify the correct one ?
I've read the msi b550 have a level 3 protection on it. can it be flashed with this procedure ?
I have the same motherboard and programer , do you have a copy of the dumps from those two bios chips ? Can you upload them ?
My X1 Yoga has bricked can you help with how you built a working bios as this was missed out of the website and video
How would you be able to tell which chip to use. in your video the chip above is almost identical besides the print on it. Would you just have to look up the print on both to determine which is correct?
Hi I passed on order and received a CH341 and not 341A chip , is that OK ? i'm trying yo flash 25q128fv bios
Great job❤. Please, any idea of how to read and reset the BMS of laptop batteries using the CH341A? I noticed after replacing the bad cell of a weak Lenovo laptop battery and triggered it to work again. But it's still showing the old battery health. Hence, the need to reset the BMS. Charging and fully discharging didn't work. I'm hoping CH341A and AsProgrammer could do the trick. Any hint please?
thank you for this good guide, please how in can resett my bios with CH341A , it s blocked and in can't enter in the setup because i had change some thing in the bios by the setuo, thank you very much freindf
Hi I have a RM one mobile 310. since the battery died, I cannot source a genuine one, so I purchased a 14.8V 5200mAh battery from Amazon. However I get a "unable to see battery" or empty icon displayed. If I put original battery in it shows 1% and cannot charge. New battery shows 100% but I do not know if I can believe it. (i have tried two other non OEM batteries only 4400mAh though, and they just died after twenty minutes) I am told that some Sony Viaos have bios stopping third party batteries, and suspect RM is the same. Wher would I get a bios that allowed my W10 pro laptop to see battery?
can u do a video using the programmer, but making it with libreboot, coreboot or seabios? please!! i need to remove a lojack bootkit from my pc !
Please I would like to know where you got the backup bin? Thank you
it was his own copied bios flash.
Hi do you have link to .bin file for Dell Inspiron 15 3125 Touch for BIOS factory or updated original restore
Is it possible to use the CH341a with the mx25L25673G this is a 16 pin bios chip not 8 pin.
hi...i followed your steps but mine keep saying check setting in asprogrammer..please help me.
If I don't see my exact chip type (W25Q256JWEQ) would it be okay to use the most similar one like W25Q256JW or W25Q256JV?
Didn't look at this in detail but I would take W25Q256JW as that is the closes match. Probably the last two digits are to indicate like a minor version/revision.
Hi man i want ask about after step 6 in 5.11 of video ( new or modified contents to the BIOS chip ) when i reprogamet whats that file or from where i get it
The contents to program is specific for each type of BIOS and board you're working on so there is no real generic answer I can give.
Sir plz help me ,I have flesh ic GD25LQ64CVIG in a ilfe laptop I not able to find it's software anywhere plz add it's program into ch341 software.
Can these CH341A's be used with a Raspeberry Pi? Like plugged into or connected to with the wiring? Instead of having to use a desktop or laptop pc?
Sure, can just connect to USB on a rPi
@@jensdbe Someone else from another video said that I wouldn't even need the ch341a programmer and could just do it with the raspberry pi. So then what would I need? Just the SPI clip and what else?
yes you can, wolfgang did that in his "Installing Coreboot on my Thinkpad T430... In a forest" video
Ik zoek tervergeefs (tot nu toe ) een tutorial om de aansluiting met een SOP16 klem te maken op de CH341A ,enig idee ?
Is it possible to remove a UEFI password by flashind the BIOS chip?
I have an HP laptop with a UEFI password that I can not remove...
Hi. I have a stange question.
I'm trying to get it work but i failed to use it.
Every time i plug the programmer in, the windows and ubuntu recognise it as a serial device. I tried the .par drivers, but no luck.
Okay. I throwed it to the ground and now it is working as it should🤣
A good knock can fix everything
Does the programmer itself provide power to the chip? On other videos i saw people trying with turning on power to the whole board and some people saying it would fail because both the cpu and the programmer would try to talk to the SPI chip at the same time.
The programmer provides the necessary power to the chip. Trying to flash it with the PC on is not a good idea
Hi, and thanks for the video. It helped me a lot. Do you know if the Ezp2019 programmer work with flashrom?
As far as I can see online, I did not test it myself, it should work fine with flashrom.
@@jensdbe should I specify the type of programmer in the command line, or can I avoid that?
watched quite a few other videos about this ch345a,this is the clearest .thankyou.
but i have a problem.i can not get any read from this programmer,what am i doing wrong???
Hard to tell just like that unfortunately... It might be the connection with the chip you try to read, it might be the PC, Windows, Linux or a broken device...
@@jensdbe the pc and the chip are fine.i tried different pc and can read the chip with ar 32 programmer. how totell if the ch341a is defective ?
tried a few computers.the chips are good,red them on another reader.how can you tell if the ch341a is broken?
The clip shown in the video is pretty useless you really need to desolder to do it reliably that is why he does 2 reads of the chip to make sure the clip is making proper contact as it wont typically with SOP-8/SOIC-8 chips in particular! The ch341a has a design problem it needs modded to be totally functional!
I have legion Y540,
This is what I am facing. Reading the BIOS chip always finishes with a CRC32 error.
Also, when I click "Unprotect-erase-program-verify," it will erase and write successfully without an error but will show a verification error during verification. I have tried everything and am just tired and exhausted.
Thank you, but How can I find bios file for my laptop samsung np300e5v?
Samsung website drivers section / bios subsection
Did you insert this correctly at 2:58? Seems like Pin 1 is on the other corner, im not sure what you meant by Pin 1 at the back. Please clarify as I suspect to have a corrupt bios that im looking to restore
Pin 1 is the one where you can see the half circle on the back. There is room for 2 different types: 25 SPI BIOS (2x4 pins towards the USB connector) and 24 I2C EEPROM (2x4 pins away from the USB connector). For both, pin 1 is located the most left (away from the USB connector), so more or less in the middle for a BIOS chip.
Hi, where and how do you find the backup1 file to flash the bios?
wondering the same
I did exactly same but nothing work out!!! the chip is not detected at all
Current programmer: CH341
ID(9F): FFFFFF(Unknown)
ID(90): FFFF(Unknown)
ID(AB): FF(Unknown)
ID(15): FFFF(Unknown)
getting this error??
please help me
hey bro i have read data and saved to my pc for 3 times but first saved it as 1mb file after second and third time it saves as 4mb file size is this normal ?
Doesn't sound normal. You can check by the chip type how muxh data should be in it. Maybe it didn't got detected correctly?
my bios got corupted...stuck at cpu light on ez debug..now no display. no flash with usb...itvis stuck there....motherboard MSI B550M PRO VDH-WIFI.... can i uodate bios via this device update bios
So I can’t use this tool wihout a screen? I have a motherboard without a connection to the screen. Thought I could repair the motherboard with this tool?
You run the tool on another machine. You can't use this method to flash the BIOS of a system that is powered on.
I am trying to remove pw protection from bios. Isn't copying the chip and using that image to flash it just copying the same state back onto the chip? And wouldn't corruption be just copied back onto it as well? Please help? How do I get a fresh copy of the corrrect bios online and use that to flash to the chip? Thanks for any help.
To do a password remove, if a CMOS reset does not help, you would need to copy and modify the contents of the file with a hex editor. There are tools for some of the hardware but it is typically not an easy task. For some hardware you could reset/corrupt certain blocks and that would have the same result. Completely depends on the hardware/model on which you want to do this.
@@jensdbe Thanks for the reply, I didn't notice the reset bit, I've been rushing through as many of these ch341 vids as I can find, yours was by far the most intelligible and comprehensive, thank you.
What happens if I leave the clamp on the bios chip after programming and switch on the machine? (not connected to the programmer but just clamped on because it is really hard to get the clamp in place properly) in case I have to reprogram again?
As long as it isn't connected I don't see a problem in doing that.
Thank you
explain how to flash without that cable ?
My computer will NOT boot into windows, so what do I do?
hello could you please send me a link to the programmer you were using in this video? I dont want to buy a bad one
Just checked but the seller I bought it from is no longer offering it. Just look for someone on eBay with a lot of positive reviews and you should be fine.
@@jensdbe thanks
Ever heard of amazon
@@sageminentjunky5197 ever heard of having a brain?
I'm trying to save a motherboard, but AsProgrammer cannot detect the IC and only displays unknown. Dont know what to do anymore.
did you fix it? I am facing the same
@@joeurban2069 Sadly not. Had to buy a new mobo.
No need to disconnect the processor? Apart from the battery, what else needs to be disconnected?
Just make sure there is no external power going through the chip, so disconnect any power-source. Rest of the components should be fine.
@@jensdbe ❤❤❤
2:50 I seriously don't see tat pin 1 indicator on the back neither on your CH341a dongle or on mine.
The half round indicator near the middle shows the direction of the IC. This is the side where pin1 should be.
Hey, does the ch341a will reset the bios password ?
It depends a bit on how advanced this is implemented. In a lot of cases, a CMOS reset or removing the CMOS battery for some time will remove the password. Some boards also have a specific dedicated password reset jumper. In other cases it is saved in the BIOS chip itself, typically when there is a more advanced protection. I did see that sometimes it helps to backup/reflash to remove the password or by re-flashing data from somebody that provided a dump.
What fixes,tasks the ch341a is capables doing?
Can i flash keyboard firmware using this?
No idea honestly, depends on which flash-chip you have on that keyboard.
Is there no supported method using a tool on the OS or is the keyboard no longer working?
you can do all of this without having to remove the GPU & CPU?
Normally yes. Just make sure the board is no longer powered
@@jensdbe thank you, should I reset the CMOS after or remove the CMOS battery at all during this or does it not matter?
@@clj4805 in theory I believe it's better to remove the CMOS battery. But I've never experienced issues when I forgot to do that
My son shutdown my hp all in one pc due to bios update. Now i have blank screen with no display on my computer. While buying hp motherboard, it's too expensive and also our stock. Now is it helpful to me, or what should I do next?
How can I find hp bios from web?
Hello man i cant manage to properly connect the clamp... i always have the "chip isnt found" error... can you please help me
In some cases it will be needed to remove the chip from the board as some connected components could prevent it from working correctly with the reader. Also make sure there is no more power on the chip as well and in some cases, the chip might just be faulty as well.
@@jensdbe thanks for the reply👍
Hi bro, can I use this method to remove whitelist of a wifi card in bios?!
In theory yes but you would need to know exactly which parts in the BIOS dump you would need to change.
Without previous experience, I would try to find a guide, specifically for your model and follow step by step what to edit.
Also make sure to first take a proper backup of the working contents of the BIOS before making changes :) Good luck!
@@jensdbe Mine is a nec laptop which is a Japanese brand created by Lenovo, hence no bios update. I found that it is the exact copy of Lenovo g70. Except the motherboard name, everything including the chipset is the same. In this case, can I use the modified bios of the Lenovo version? Do you think there is a possibility? Thanks for your reply.
ive tried 1million times and for some reason it wont detect my chip and just displays FF, do u know any fix?
Have you fixed it yet?
Its all in getting a proper grip. Keep trying. All the pins have to line up perfectly for this to work. Once you get a proper connection, then it will read the chip type. Took me about 10 tries.
Aubowan
i ordered one! I bricked my RTX2070 😱😱 by flashing wrong bios
Hope you manage to recover the RTX. The hardest part will probably be to find a dump of the correct BIOS. Good luck!
ruclips.net/video/HwnzzF645hA/видео.html shows how to mod the programmers for correct voltage.
These mini programmers has faulty manufacture, it outputs 5 volts instead of 3.3 volts, which in bad scenarios destroys or burn your chip, in better scenario it won't detect your chip or program it properly.
The new version has a voltage switch.
@@Salman-sc8gr Wow, it seems you're right. The old versions did use 3.3V but only for the supply line and its own internals. The data line was still 5V which was the error. But it does seem like the newer ones have fixed this. Just make sure you get version 1.6/1.7!
i dont think it burns your chip, its just almost impossible for you to flash your chip with that voltage
No it doesn’t it drops to 3.3 when writing stop regurgitating bad information
this was debunked in another video already. Stop the viral rumor please. There is a voltage drop 3.3v when writing occurs so no problem. Use a multimeter to see for yourself.
I dont know why but AS programmer wan't to detect IC I buy new SST25VF080B chip form aliexpres for my HP NX7400 laptop but nothing work just got this FFF Unknown thing.
No matter what I do i just get same error Unkown with FFFF ?
Any sugestion ot reason why i get this same shit ?
Hi, would this programmer work with Winbond bios chips - data sheet says it's 1.8v - ch341 programmer has the option of 3.3 /5v as i see in the picture.
It's easy to misunderstand the jumper that is 1-2 or 2-3. It does not switch the programmer from 3.3v to 5v. You always want to have it jumped from 1-2 for programming chips.
Due to a design flaw, these devices always output 5v on the signal lines, even if they send 3.3v to the supply pin. Maybe you will be lucky and get a device without this problem, but it seems most of them are flawed.
If you search around, you can find lots of explanations of a relatively simple hardware mod to fix the problem and output 3.3v on the signal lines. But it will not do 1.8v in either case. Instead, it's fairly easy to find 1.8v adapter boards. In fact, if you shop around, you will likely find the 1.8v adapter board included with the programmer for pretty much the same price.