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

Tue Apr 12 18:26:06 CEST 2011

2011/4/12 Bernard Matthews <philoscience at gmail.com>:
> Since I know it will work now, I will be happy to try and reflash it
> per your instructions so we can see what is happening.
>
> Give me several minutes, and I will email the output to you.
>
> Thank you again!

Please use "reply to all", thanks.

Idwer

>
> ----- bernard
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 5:44 PM, Idwer Vollering <vidwer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2011/4/12 Bernard Matthews <philoscience at gmail.com>:
>>> Thank you very, very much for getting in touch with me!
>>>
>>> I solved the problem before I got your email, but didn't have a chance
>>> to email an update yet.
>>>
>>> On my system, it appears flashrom cannot be run from an Xterm window.
>>> If that is in the documentation somewhere, I apologize for missing it.
>>
>> No, it's not. This sounds weird.
>>
>>>
>>> I first verified with "flashrom -v 88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST"  that
>>> the image currently in the rom matched my backup file, in case I had
>>> to reboot.
>>>
>>> I cannot recall if I did reboot first, or if I had just closed X windows.
>>>
>>> Using flashrom from a text terminal CLI worked perfectly!  I see the
>>> new file and date on my boot screen now, and so far no problems.
>>>
>>> Thank you folks very much for such a wonderful program.
>>>
>>> ----- bernard
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Idwer Vollering <vidwer at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 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
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> flashrom mailing list
>>>>> flashrom at flashrom.org
>>>>> http://www.flashrom.org/mailman/listinfo/flashrom
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>