Because...
Found chipset "Intel NM10" with PCI ID 8086:27bc. Enabling flash write... … GCS = 0x5d0c60: BIOS Interface Lock-Down: disabled, Boot BIOS Straps: 0x3 (LPC)
The chipset is configured to boot via LPC, hence we do only probe for LPC chips. But your chip is SPI, how does that fit together? The solution of this apparent contradiction is that the superio is translating between LPC on the host side and SPI on the flash side. This is (or was) a common scheme in laptops and one of the reasons why adding support for them is so hard (the superio datasheets are often hard to come by). There is nobody working on adding support for your superio ATM, but Carl-Daniel might have a further developed patch on his harddisk or be able to give you more details about it.
This stuff is so fun! I kid you not, I spent only 1 evening with your tools and I am already seeing dmesg output much differently then yesterday :-)
I will be working on my superio if necessary. Hopefully, I'll be able to get some assistance from you.
That being said, I am a little bit surprised by your diagnostic because I have gathered information as suggested on
http://www.coreboot.org/Laptop
and superiotool has reported:
Found ITE IT8502E/TE/G (id=0x8502, rev=0x1) at 0x4e
Since the first entry in the Laptop survey table on the same page is reporting a successful installation with the same superio, I was hoping that my quest would be trivial. Apparently things aren't that simple
So the same superio chip can be configured to work with LPC or SPI flash?
For my flash chip, god I think I'll need a magnifying glass. On the chip, it is written:
25Q168VSIC 1120 or maybe it is 25Q16BVSIG 1120
I have downloaded the W25Q16BV chip datasheet. Does someone know if it is the same than the W25Q16 supported by flashrom?
Carl-Daniel: You are welcome to directly communicate with me if you have information to share concerning the superio chip.
Greetings, Olivier