[GUIDE] Flash BIOS with CH341A programmer

Hi, i’m new of this forum!
I’m trying to program my laptop’s bios chip, and i’m unable to delete it.
The chip is soldered on the programmer board and when i press detect the programmer see it currectly.
With pin 8 not isulated the delete process is istant but when i try to check is the chip is blank…the program say that isn’t empy.
With pin 8 isulated, the delete process take time but fail at 30% and the programmer no longer sees the chip…
I have to remove the usb programmer and take in another time for see the chip currectly…

Is my chip broken?
The chip is a MX25L1005A (MX25L1005 from MXIC i think).

Thanks for the help…

thank you so much for the help, I will need this info to unbrick my laptop :smiley:

(Problem solved. It was a bad contact, badly soldered chip…)

Good morning and happy new year!
I would need your help, I’m trying to flash the bios of an HP 840 G1, but if I use the adapter the bios is not detected by the program, if instead I don’t use the adapter but I attach it directly to the programmer while writing the lights computer LEDs flash and during the check it gives me an error, now if I try to turn on the laptop first the LED lights flash and then those of the keyboard light up and it turns off.
What can I do?
Thanks so much for your help

Hello everyone, first time poster, will try and keep it as short as possible. Been working on trying to flash a bios on my motherboard for about 8+ hrs now and feel like I am going around in circles. Nothing that Gigabyte troubleshooting recommends has helped me recover my motherboard (GA-Z77P-D3 rev1.0), its stuck on boot loop no matter what I do.

Purchased the CH341A mini programmer black PCB, with ribbon cable and all accessories. The clip is really cheap and barely makes contact, I have to play with it a lot before it catches. Anyways it has come down to me wanting to re-flash bios on both the M_BIOS and B_BIOS chips to try and recover it, this is what i have found:

bios chip: possible MXIC 25L6465E/6406E cant physically read it but it seems its detecting that, and searching around on the web it points toward the 25L6406E

symptoms: boot loop

last known good config: board was working fine with F7 bios until I flashed F8e in order to support a Pentium G2020 according to their CPU support list

current issues with programmer: Unable erase or blank chips keep getting “CHIPS ARE NOT NULL”, able to read and write but only with the following message “Chip with the contents are in disagreement” if i try and write, does get to 100% but always get same message.


Have tried Windows 7 laptop first and just tried my Windows 10 and same issues
-on the programmer my pins are in 1-2, should be serial converter mode
-set up for bios chips not EEPROM, pin one on ribbon is halfway down in line with lever if your looking from top down.
-tried motherboard with power supply plugged in and in the ON position
-tried with Power supply out
-CMOS battery IN and OUT
nothing helped


Software used:

Windows 7 laptop, i believe regular 2.0 usb ports, old 2nd gen intel i3 hp probook
-AsProgrammer 1.4.0 and 1.4.1
-installed CH341Parallel_driver, and recognized in device manager
-CH341A program V1.13, 1.18, 1.29, 1.30, 1.34
-on windows 10 used the flasher off a type C usb to USB 3.0 hub connector, that should of been more than enough power.

I am at a lost, and just tired, need to reset and start fresh tomorrow. I have no experience using this programmer, using youtube videos and a lot of reading is all ive done

Q1. New Bios is Z77PD3.F7 when downloaded from gigabyte, i renamed it to Z77PD3.F7.bin and the software is able to read it. is that ok?

Q2. installed drivers “DRVSETUP64” 6/05/2009 and driver—24CXX2XX in that order following youtube videos. saw some people on here post links to people only installing the 24CXX2XX drivers? does it matter which one first? do you need both?

Q3. for drivers should i use Parallel_driver or Serial_Driver?

Q4. User macnb on this forum, had a similar issue with a similar Gigabyte board and it ended being power, but he could not even get the chip to recognize, I can, so I don’t know if it could be that?

It think its driver related, If someone could sanity check me I would appreciate it, saw that there is a new AsProgrammer v2.1.0.13, could that be it?

@Lost_N_BIOS

Hello
I have a Chinese tablet that the manufacturer does not provide any support services
I deleted the BIOS password once and after restarting, it asked me for the BIOS password again! But in disbelief, the old BIOS password does not work
I do not have any BIOS backup files at this time
Can I use BIOS backups of other tablets that support the same CPU and RAM?
I have Z8350 CPU and 4 GB of RAM
The only difference is the screen size

Is this possible?

Hello, great thread going on here, very helpful but I find myself in a dilemma, hoping I can get a hand, @Lost_N_Bios :slight_smile:

Asus laptop (Tuf A17 - FA607II), likely corrupt BIOS (long story short my brother forced shut down during a bios repair).

Read from BIOS chip using cha341a + clip.
Can’t be sure if the resulting read is intact or corrupt. It’s 2,048kb and contains FF from the start of file, all the way to line 000C1020. From there its like garbage text.
Tried multiple clip positions and two different programs but the result was always the same so i figured this is the best i will get.
(Didn’t understand the verify feature as I hadn’t read this forum up to this point. I did click verify and it just said ‘Verify Complete’)

So now I grab the BIOS file from Asus site… convert to ROM, open with UEFI tool and extract body. The result is 16,384kb (too large for the BIOS chip)
Can you help me pull out the needed data from this file? Is there some generic BIOS image that I can merge with, if my original bios is not readable?

BIOS chip is GigaDevice 25LB128BDSIG

I actually have since resolved this. For anyone experiencing similar…

Turns out, the reason it wasn’t reading / writing on chip properly was that i wasn’t using 1.8v adapter with the ch341a.
This time when i read from chip, it took a lot longer (5 mins) to read and came back with all FF’s (empty). This is because i managed to erase the chip in my last attempt.
Nevertheless, i proceeded with the file in the following way…

(1) downloaded file from Asus support (not the windows type, the exflash type).
(2) it had a funny naming convention like FA706II Asus.313. I simply renamed this to BiosNew.cap
(3) Downloaded a program called UEFI tool opened the BiosNew.cat in the program, right click AMI Aptio capsule → extract body → save as BiosNew.rom. This file was around 16,000kb also.
(4) Programmed the chip once again using AsProgrammer with the file BiosNew.rom. To my surprise this worked and PC booted up.

The only thing is i’m unsure of the consequences of not having the system serial number, MAC address etc inside the BIOS. Nevertheless, it’s running without issue!

I also wondering what may happen if running a Bios without your serials, tag asset…etc
And most important how these can be extracted from corrupted Bios and changed/replaced on the file that follows to be written … maybe someone could make a tutorial for this as is quite a big deal

Hello all,
I’m trying to flash a IC Macronix MX25L6406E with a USB CH341A mini programmer black,
The chip is new but has program on it and is detected fine with the CH341A
but I can’t erase it?

Verify memory…
Verification error on address: 00000000
Execution time: 00:00:00.148
Current programmer: CH341
11:46:18
Possible protection is enabled. Press “Unprotect” and check datasheet

How could I Unprotect so I can erase, make it blank and flash again?
Thanks a lot.
Pascal

Hello Pasmod1,

maybe this website can help you. https://khandishnetwork.com/2021/01/28/c…error-solution/

https://khandishnetwork.com/2021/01/28/ch341a-flash-erasing-error-solution/

Hi guys, first-time poster newbie here I hope everyone is good.

I’ve been following the thread from the beginning referencing some important tutorial links on youtube and other great extensive shared ideas on here which are really helpful. Thanks to the creator of this forum and all contributors bringing really good stuff to share and learn.

HELP needed I’ve got a Lenovo T460s 20FA model CHIP WINBOND 25Q128JVSQ and want to unlock the BIOS password. I recently bought the Dealikee SOIC8 SOP8 Test Clip EEPROM Flash BIOS USB +1.8V Adapter + Soic8 Adapter Programmer Module Kit Set for EEPROM 93CXX / 25CXX / 24CXX + CH341A 24 25 Series

I have already moded the CH341A downgrading voltage from 5v to 3v.

Is it possible to use that croc clip on a chip and save the original BIOS, Flash and replace the current BIOS with the generated patch file and send it back to the chip again without desoldering the chip from the motherboard?

Do I need to remove or unplug the CMOS battery during the process or it’s just the 2 main batteries?

Of the 3 programming software, NeoProgrammer, Colibri, and AsProgrammer which would you recommend using?

Also, do I need to plug in a 1.8v adapter into the CH321A together with the clip or 3.3v from CH321A is good enough for the process without needing the 1.8v adapter?

Thanks in advance.

Hello,

I am trying to recover the BIOS of a Lenovo IdeaPad 320-17IKB. But the size of the BIOS.FD file (9.457kB, 9,2MB), the BIOS ROM, is larger than my 8MB (64MBits) GIGADEVICE GD25Q64 BIOS chip. I think it also contains things like the EC ROM. Could someone please help me? I can just write and erase the chip. Now the device just turns on and off repeatedly.
BIOS.zip (5.1 MB)

AsProgrammer v2.0.4 (26-07-2023)

Release Version 2.0.4 · nofeletru/UsbAsp-flash (github.com)

Has anyone had problems with the 1.8 V adapter? I cannot get it to work. I’m measuring the input 3.3 V clock with an oscilloscope and can see that it’s toggling, but the 1.8 V output clock is not.

However, having a closer look at the level shifter IC I wouldn’t expect the adapter to work either. The IC is a TI SN74ALVC164245 and the datasheet describes the IC as a “16-Bit 2.5-V to 3.3-V or 3.3-V to 5-V Level-Shifting Transceiver”. It doesn’t support 1.8 V!!

I’m confused. I suppose it’s working for most people? I’ve seen pictures of the adapter populated with an NXP version of the ALVC164245 IC. This version seems to support a wider voltage range, all the way down to 1.5 V.

So, I’m guessing that someone put the TI version as a second source, but never checked that it was fully compatible.

/F

Hello, am trying to flash a winbond W39L040P-90B is the external flasher compatible with this chip bios?
Thanks

This is a 32 PLCC package, needs the right adapter or pcb holder and a compatible app with the IC model on his database.

1 Like

Hello MeatWar, the bios chip is soldered on motherboard.
Am searching compatible external bios flasher to reflash the bios.
Thanks

…whats the surprise here, that the IC is soldered???
You now have the info of the package and specs, do your job and start looking for something that fit your needs using your time not others task on their spare time, this is NOT a “regular” IC that usually you see users asking help on how to work with it.