[flashrom] Re: Opinions on it87spi.c hack to support IT8686E?

[Edward O'Callaghan]

Hey Pete,

Send the patch to gerrit, some support seems better than no support imho.

Kind regards,
Edward.

On Sat, 9 Jan 2021 at 08:06, Pete Smith via flashrom
 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a a GIGABYTE GA-H270N-WIFI motherboard with DualBIOS feature.
> Flashrom 1.2 is unable to select between the two flash chips with
> dualbiosindex parameter, as the Super I/O chip (ITE IT8686E) is
> unsupported:
>
> "Super I/O ID 0x8686 is not on the list of flash-capable controllers."
>
> In a naive attempt, I just tried to add the chip ID to the list:
>
> --- a/it87spi.c
> +++ b/it87spi.c
> @@ -256,6 +256,7 @@ int init_superio_ite(void)
>                 case 0x8718:
>                 case 0x8720:
>                 case 0x8728:
>           case 0x8686:
>                   ret |= it87spi_probe(superios[i].port);
>                   break;
>           default:
>
> This modification made flashrom able to select between the flash chips:
>
> # flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=
> DualBIOS: Selected chip: 0
>
> # flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=1
> DualBIOS: Selected chip: 1
>
> # flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=
> DualBIOS: Selected chip: 1
>
> Reading the flash content also seems to work:
>
> # flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=0 -r M_BIOS.bin
> Enabling flash write... SPI Configuration is locked down.
> Enabling hardware sequencing because some important opcode is locked.
> OK.
> DualBIOS: Selected chip: 0
> Found Programmer flash chip "Opaque flash chip" (16384 kB,
> Programmer-specific) mapped at physical address 0x0000000000000000.
> Reading flash... done.
>
> # flashrom -p internal:dualbiosindex=1 -r B_BIOS.bin
> Enabling flash write... SPI Configuration is locked down.
> Enabling hardware sequencing because some important opcode is locked.
> OK.
> DualBIOS: Selected chip: 1
> Found Programmer flash chip "Opaque flash chip" (16384 kB,
> Programmer-specific) mapped at physical address 0x0000000000000000.
> Reading flash... done.
>
> Comparing the two firmware dumps, I find the only difference is that
> M_BIOS.bin contains my current BIOS settings which B_BIOS.bin does not,
> so I'm quite sure that these dumps are actually from two different
> flash chips.
>
> However, if enabling verbose (-VV) output while reading flash, I also
> see this message, which I don't know if normal or not:
>
> "No IT87* serial flash segment enabled."
>
> I have not yet tried writing to any of the flash chips, as I would
> really appreciate if someone with more experience than me could comment
> on this modification first, and maybe highlight problems I'm not
> currently aware of?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Best regards,
> Pete Smith
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