Would you be so kind as  to take a look at the flashrom log file (backup1.log) that I have attached and let me know if there is something in it that I should hesitate before trying to write a new bios to the flash chip?
The output was produced using the command
       sudo flashrom   -p internal    -r backup1.bin     -o backup1.log

Would you need the actual backup1.bin file also?

Thanks,

Sheri




From: Stefan Tauner <stefan.tauner@student.tuwien.ac.at>
To: Sheri Soltz <sherimsoltz@yahoo.com>
Cc: flashrom@flashrom.org
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [flashrom] laptop bios

On Mon, 24 Feb 2014 20:23:25 -0800 (PST)
Sheri Soltz <sherimsoltz@yahoo.com> wrote:

> But when I check the md5sum for backup.bin it is different from each previous backup.bin.  Shouldn't the md5sum of the backup stay the same, as long as the bios has not been changed?

The firmware of x86 machines is stored on flash chips.
BIOS might (wrongly) refer to either of the firmware or the flash chip.
Your Chromebook uses coreboot as a firmware which is stored in the

Winbond flash chip (W25Q64).

The flash chip is not too much different to a usb key... so it can be
modified by software (else flashrom would not make much sense).
Modern firmware uses this fact to store e.g. log files to the flash
chip, and this can produce the mismatches you are seeing.
So this might just be normal (I am not sure in this specific case
though).

Google has forked flashrom for their chromebook development and I would
suggest that you take a look at it when working on the x131e.
It can be found here
https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/third_party/flashrom/
--
Kind regards/Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Stefan Tauner