[flashrom] HELP! "...flash chip is in an unknown state"

Idwer Vollering vidwer at gmail.com
Tue Apr 12 14:16:34 CEST 2011


2011/4/12 Bernard Matthews <philoscience at gmail.com>:
> Hi Help,
>
> I thought I did what was right, but apparently I'm missing something.
>
> System details:
>
> BioStar TA785G3 v 6.1 according to the printing on the mainboard.
>
> Athlon II X3 435.
>
> Label on factory CMOS: 88GAP901BST.  But the date showing on boot is 3/31/2010.
>
> I'm trying to replace the CMOS info because of an intermittent board
> failure that I felt I had reduced to either a processor failure or a
> board failure.
>
> The mainboard comes with a built-in utility on F12 to flash the new
> file, but it rejects the file claiming that the BIOS ID does not
> match.
>
> The new file came from Biostar.  I actually downloaded two copies, one
> from Taiwan, and one from USA, and diff'd them to make sure they were
> the same.
>
> So below are the results of my attempt to flash the chip :-(.
>
>
> Here's my initial run to check for compatibility with my board (blank
> spaces/lines added for legibility)
> ==============================================================
> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % sudo flashrom
>
> flashrom v0.9.2-r1141 on Linux 2.6.36-grml (i686), built with libpci
> 3.1.7, GCC 4.4.5 20100728 (prerelease), little endian
> flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
>
> Calibrating delay loop... OK.
> No coreboot table found.
> Found ITE Super I/O, id 8718
> Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK.
> This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI.
> Found chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff00000.
> No operations were specified.
> ==============================================================
>
> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % sudo flashrom -r 88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST

This is your backup file...

>
> flashrom v0.9.2-r1141 on Linux 2.6.36-grml (i686), built with libpci
> 3.1.7, GCC 4.4.5 20100728 (prerelease), little endian
> flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
>
> Calibrating delay loop... OK.
> No coreboot table found.
> Found ITE Super I/O, id 8718
> Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK.
> This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI.
> Found chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff00000.
> Block protection could not be disabled!
> Reading flash... done.
>
> ==============================================================
>
> At this point, I did a Google search for "Block protection could not
> be disabled", but did not find anything that said THIS MEANS YOU WON'T
> BE ABLE TO ERASE!
>
> So, I forged ahead:
>
> ==============================================================
>
> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % ls -l *BST
>
> -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1048576 2011-04-12 05:57 88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST
> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % cd Down*
>
>
> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista/Downloads % ls -l *BST
>
> -r--r--r-- 1 grml users 1048576 2011-04-10 07:43 88GAP804.BST
>
> ==============================================================
>
> The above lines show that the file that I'm going to write with
> (88GAP804.BST)  is the same size as the one that I saved from the chip
> (88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST).
>
> ==============================================================
>
> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista/Downloads % sudo flashrom -w 88GAP804.BST

and this is the new file.

> flashrom v0.9.2-r1141 on Linux 2.6.36-grml (i686), built with libpci
> 3.1.7, GCC 4.4.5 20100728 (prerelease), little endian
> flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
>
> Calibrating delay loop... OK.
> No coreboot table found.
> Found ITE Super I/O, id 8718
> Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK.
> This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI.
> Found chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff00000.
> Block protection could not be disabled!
> Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling checks.
> Writing flash chip... Erasing flash before programming... Erasing flash chip...
>
> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
> count from 0x00000000-0x00000fff: 0xf9d
> ERASE FAILED!
> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
> count from 0x00000000-0x0000ffff: 0xf8fa
> ERASE FAILED!
> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
> count from 0x00000000-0x0000ffff: 0xf8fa
> ERASE FAILED!
> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
> count from 0x00000000-0x000fffff: 0xdc5ed
> ERASE FAILED!
> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
> count from 0x00000000-0x000fffff: 0xdc5ed
> ERASE FAILED!
> FAILED!
> ERASE FAILED!
> FAILED!
> Your flash chip is in an unknown state.
> Get help on IRC at irc.freenode.net (channel #flashrom) or
> mail flashrom at flashrom.org!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> DO NOT REBOOT OR POWEROFF!

Can you re-run flashrom like above, but with the "-V" (--verbose) parameter ?
Like this: sudo flashrom -V -w 88GAP804.BST

> sudo flashrom -w 88GAP804.BST  8.37s user 0.07s system 99% cpu 8.489 total
>
> ==============================================================
>
> So, since the erase failed, shouldn't I be okay?  Unless my cats press
> a button or pull a wire, I will leave the machine on for a response.
>
> Thank you very much for your help in advance!
>
> ----- bernard
>
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