I'd like to update the BIOS of an MSI Z87-G43 board, and I'm wondering if there's anything in the output of flashrom (below) that I should be worried about. In particular, there's the "SPI Configuration Lockdown" message, and the fact that the flash chip is referred to as "Opaque".
Basically, would it be unwise to attempt to flash this BIOS with flashrom?
flashrom v0.9.7-r1711 on Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (x86_64)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Found chipset "Intel Z87".
This chipset is marked as untested. If you are using an up-to-date version
of flashrom *and* were (not) able to successfully update your firmware with it,
then please email a report to flashrom(a)flashrom.org including a verbose (-V) log.
Thank you!
Enabling flash write... Warning: SPI Configuration Lockdown activated.
Enabling hardware sequencing because some important opcode is locked.
OK.
Found Programmer flash chip "Opaque flash chip" (8192 kB, Programmer-specific) at physical address 0x0.
No operations were specified.
2013/8/16 Clayton Falzone <clayton.falzone(a)gmail.com>
> After a successful flash on the next boot the firmware resorts to default
> config. Is there some way around this? It would be a useful feature to
> preserve settings between boots.
>
First: flashrom does not touch CMOS settings (nvram).
However, there is an utility called nvramtool:
http://www.coreboot.org/Nvramtool
>
> For example, reading the FLASHROM to a file...
> $ sudo flashrom -r bios_backup.bin -p internal
> And then writing the bios to an identical but physically different machine
> $ sudo flashrom -w bios_backup.bin -p internal
>
> It would be quite a feature to preserve settings to this new machine. Is
> this possible?
>
What's the name/type of the machine(s) you're using?
>
> _______________________________________________
> flashrom mailing list
> flashrom(a)flashrom.org
> http://www.flashrom.org/mailman/listinfo/flashrom
>
flashrom v0.9.6.1-r1698 on Darwin 12.4.0 (x86_64)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
flashrom was built with libpci 3.2.0, LLVM Clang 4.2 (clang-425.0.28), little endian
Command line (5 args): /Volumes/SAS1 Fusion/Software/Apple/Asus P8Z77-V LX_2203/DPCIManager/DPCIManager.app/Contents/MacOS/flashrom -VV -r /var/folders/bh/9vpr73nd36l0qy0z6bdh3sdh0000gn/T/DPCIr0um3x.rom -p internal
Calibrating delay loop... OS timer resolution is 1 usecs, 377M loops per second, 10 myus = 12 us, 100 myus = 112 us, 1000 myus = 1018 us, 10000 myus = 10040 us, 4 myus = 4 us, OK.
Initializing internal programmer
Mapping low megabyte at 0x00000400, unaligned size 0xffc00.
Mapping low megabyte, 0xffc00 bytes at unaligned 0x00000400.
No coreboot table found.
DMI string system-manufacturer: "Supermicro"
DMI string system-product-name: "X7SB3"
DMI string system-version: "0123456789"
DMI string baseboard-manufacturer: "Supermicro"
DMI string baseboard-product-name: "X7SB3"
DMI string baseboard-version: "PCB Version"
DMI string chassis-type: "Other"
DMI chassis-type is not specific enough.
W836xx enter config mode worked or we were already in config mode. W836xx leave config mode had no effect.
Active config mode, unknown reg 0x20 ID: 1a.
Please send the output of "flashrom -V" to
flashrom(a)flashrom.org with W836xx: your board name: flashrom -V
as the subject to help us finish support for your Super I/O. Thanks.
========================================================================
WARNING! You may be running flashrom on an unsupported laptop. We could
not detect this for sure because your vendor has not setup the SMBIOS
tables correctly. You can enforce execution by adding
'-p internal:laptop=this_is_not_a_laptop' to the command line, but
please read the following warning if you are not sure.
Laptops, notebooks and netbooks are difficult to support and we
recommend to use the vendor flashing utility. The embedded controller
(EC) in these machines often interacts badly with flashing.
See the manpage and http://www.flashrom.org/Laptops for details.
If flash is shared with the EC, erase is guaranteed to brick your laptop
and write may brick your laptop.
Read and probe may irritate your EC and cause fan failure, backlight
failure and sudden poweroff.
You have been warned.
========================================================================
Aborting.
Error: Programmer initialization failed.