Supposedly that burner has selectable 5-3.3V. Please see attachment.
Out of precaution: just in case, if you have a multimeter to measure the voltages of the CH341A's output pins, please measure them (VCC and each of data pins individually, versus a GND pin) before connecting to a real chip. Or, maybe just buy a spare chip to experiment on, maybe even of the same type as your board has (especially if these chips are removable) - so that they could be used as a spare.
But, since flashrom doesn't seem to support all BIOSes that are a thing, I'm looking to use it with FreeDOS so I can have the usual vendor DOS utilities all in one place if needed, together with flashrom. Having flashrom on Linux means I don't need to take any risks, which is nice.
vendor BIOS flashing utilities can be useful in two situations: 1) flashrom doesn't support the internal flashing mode on the hardware of a target motherboard 2) although flashrom works there, the vendor utility also updates something else (usually for more modern PCs, i.e. the firmware of EC controller) which is also important but is difficult to do with flashrom. For other cases, it should be possible to just extract a good binary of proper size from the vendor's BIOS update package for this motherboard, and feed it to flashrom.
Wish you a great success in your adventure, and pls let us know if there's anything else we could help you with
вс, 21 нояб. 2021 г. в 04:45, Betibeteka Beranduetxea artxitatel@gmail.com:
Dear friend, please make sure that you're getting a CH341A programmer ( "burner" ) with a green PCB. That's because some ch341a programmers with a black PCB - just like your link! - have a problem: they are giving 5V instead of 3.3V which could damage some chips.
Well, I hope they don't lie. Suposedly that burner has selectable 5-3.3V. Please see attachment.
Yes, from the attachment it seems your chip is really supported (and the messages about "unsupported" were old - sorry for that). As for the size of a chip: it is 4 Mbit = 4 Megabit = 512 KB, so the size is correct there.
Good. One less problem. I must have been out of caffeine at some moment. Thank you for making it clear.
Compared to a flashrom for Linux, the other platforms are less popular and therefore are more likely to have the platform-only bugs that aren't experienced by the majority of people. So, for a flawless flashrom experience I still recommend a Linux LiveCD or just a full Linux where you can easily install a flashrom. modern Linux is really user-friendly and there's no good reason to avoid it ;-)
Not avoiding it at all... it's my only OS since Woody. I like Debian almost as much as I like a girlfriend.
But, since flashrom doesn't seem to support all BIOSes that are a thing, I'm looking to use it with FreeDOS so I can have the usual vendor DOS utilities all in one place if needed, togheter with flashrom. Having flashrom on Linux means I don't need to take any risks, which is nice.
I like having a free DOS clone. I think it will be a nice little, somewhat simple toy to play with. So the FreeDOS flashrom version could be tested on other salvaged machines I have lying around here. No shortage of test candidates.
Thank you very much for your help and advice: it has made things easier.
Best wishes from Basque Country.