How to flash bios chips with

Arduino
In this post I will explain how to flash bios chips with an Arduino. We
will be using a Arduino Duemilnove (uno, mega or clones do also
work) and a ASUS P5B motherboard that no longer boots after a
failed bios update.

Here is an outline of the steps (some of these steps are not strictly
necessary but I figured they might help the uninitiated):

1. Identify board
2. Find documentation for the board
3. Locate and identify bios chip
4. Find documentation for the chip
5. Find pinout and operating voltages (important)
6. Prepare the Arduino and installing flashrom
7. Connecting the Arduino to the chip
8. Testing
9. Flashing and verify
10. Troubleshooting

Identify board and finding documentation

As mentioned in the introduction we are using an ASUS P5B
motherboard. The manual of this board can be found on the ASUS
website (a direct link can be found in the list of references).

Locate and identifying the bios chip

In the manual we find a board layout that shows the location of the
chip, to the right of pci slot 3.
In case the location is not documented we have to find it ourselves.
The following page provides instructions on how to locate the bios
chip: http://www.bios-chip24.com/Information/Bios-Chip-
localization
The next step is to identify what brand and type of chip we are dealing
with in order to find the datasheet. Usually the writing on the chip is
everything we need as it states the manufacturer and model number.
The motherboard manual mentions a “MXIC 25L8005” and if we look
at the board we see that the model is indeed a 25L8005 made by
Macronix.

MX25L8005
Typing the model number into google returns the datasheet as one of
the first results. The information we are looking for is the pinout and
operating voltage. The following image shows the pinout of the
25L8005:
The pin names do not make much sense if you are seeing them for the
first time so the datasheet also include a description of the pin names:

For more information on what exactly the pins do please refer to the
datasheet.

Preparing the Arduino

For the Arduino to be able to act as a serial programmer we need to

first prepare it using frser-duino. The following command(s) will
download and install the required packages, install flashrom, clone
frser-duino and flash the Arduino.
sudo apt install git flashrom gcc-avr binutils-
avr avr-libc avrdude && git clone --recursive
https://github.com/tomvanveen/frser-duino.git
&& cd frser-duino && make ftdi && sudo make
flash-ftdi

Connecting the Arduino to the SPI chip

The following image is an example schematic taken from the flashrom

GitHub and shows the pins on the Arduino and the pins on the chip
they should connect to (please note that PB0 does not have to be
connected):

Emergency edit here: I know understand why people use resistors

between the Arduino pins and the chip. The Arduino operates on 5V
meaning its logic levels are also at 5V. This need to be brought down
to 3.3v using a level shifter.

Flashing the SPI chip

To verify that everything is working correctly we first run flashrom
without any operations:

sudo flashrom -p
serprog:dev=/dev/ttyUSB0:2000000

The output should look like this:

flashrom v0.9.9-91-g0bfa819 on Linux 4.10.0-28-

generic (x86_64)

flashrom is free software, get the source code

at https://flashrom.org

Using clock_gettime for delay loops (clk_id: 1,

resolution: 1ns).

serprog: Programmer name is "frser-duino"

Found Macronix flash chip "MX25L8005" (1024 kB,

SPI) on serprog.

No operations were specified.

If the previous command worked as expected we are now ready for

our final step. To write the new BIOS to the chip we use the following
command:

sudo flashrom -p
serprog:dev=/dev/ttyUSB0:2000000 -w [NEWBIOS]
The output should look like this:
flashrom v0.9.9-91-g0bfa819 on Linux 4.10.0-28-
generic (x86_64) flashrom is free software, get
the source code at https://flashrom.org Using
clock_gettime for delay loops (clk_id: 1,
resolution: 1ns). serprog: Programmer name is
"frser-duino" Found Macronix flash chip
"MX25L8005" (1024 kB, SPI) on serprog. Reading
old flash chip contents... done. Erasing and
writing flash chip... Erase/write done.
Verifying flash... VERIFIED.

And that is it. We have successfully flashed a chip using the SPI
interface. If you have any questions or feedback about this post please
leave a comment below!

References
 The post that led me to start this project
 https://hackaday.com/2012/05/04/arduino-uno-
bios-flasher/
 The instructions I used for this project
 http://www.flashrom.org/Serprog/Arduino_flash
er
 25L8005 datasheet
 https://www.mct.net/download/macronix/mx25
l8005.pdf
 Good discussion on the HP forum about recovering
HP envy’s using this method
 https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-
Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/HP-Envy-23-AIO-
No-Beep-Screen-Blank-No-USB/m-
p/5715632/highlight/true#M133287
Wiring fail 1
Wiring fail 2
Wiring fixed

Fingers crossed!
It boots!

2018
Retry 1
2018 Retry 2