On 20 May 2010 11:50, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net> wrote:

Hi Julio,

it seems flashrom@flashrom.org was left out of the conversation by
accident. I've added it back, please use the "reply all" button in the
future.

On 20.05.2010 12:12, Julio Barrios wrote:
> Hi Carl-Daniel, Joseph and Michael,
>
> Many thanks for your replies. I very much appreciate it. I'm not sure if a
> flash chip is the same as the BIOS chip (I'm a complete newbie here and am
> just learning a bit, and destroying computers along the way it seems LOL!).
> Anyway, my BIOS is a Phoenix D686 and my PC is a Dell Inspiron 530.
>

"Phoenix D686" is probably written on a sticker. Can you peel off the
sticker and tell us what's written on the BIOS flash chip?

> By the look of things, I guess that I will need to buy a new motherboard. If
> that is the case, then I will need to buy one that is compatible with linux
> because I'm not prepared to give up Ubuntu and go back to Windows.
>
> If you need any more information so that you can help me, please let me
> know.
>

Some people/companies in the UK offer services to reflash mainboards.
That might be what you want, but I'm not sure if the shipping cost is
worth it.
Besides that, some vendors might offer top hat flash solutions for your
board, but I'm not 100% sure about this.

> Again, guys, thanks a lot.
>
> Julio
>

Good luck!

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

> On 20 May 2010 09:45, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <
> c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006@gmx.net> wrote:
>
>
>> Hi Julio,
>>
>> please note that the method in the link can destroy your mainboard if
>> your flash chip uses a different interface (very likely). See below for
>> details.
>>
>> On 20.05.2010 09:37, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger wrote:
>>
>>> On 20.05.2010 00:44, Joseph Smith wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 05/19/2010 06:38 PM, Michael Karcher wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> IIRC, we recently had a link showing two stacked flash chips (but I
>>>>> think they were parallel, not LPC/FWH) with some control signals only
>>>>> connected to the top one - the idea was to mount a working flash chip
>>>>>
>> on
>>
>>>>> top of the one with damaged/wrong contents without removing the lower
>>>>> one from the system. Anyone knows what I'm talking about and still has
>>>>> the link?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/linuxbios/2007-April/020384.html
>>>>
>>>>
>>> The back-to-back socket solution (sometimes also marketed as top hat
>>> flash) would be the one which does not require soldering on the board
>>> and thus has a lower risk.
>>>
>>>
>> The best way to figure this out is to find out which flash chip you have
>> and tell us. Then we can try to find out which pins need to be bent and
>> disconnected.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Carl-Daniel
>>
>> --
>> http://www.hailfinger.org/
>>
>>
>>
>
>

--
http://www.hailfinger.org/