Your flash chip is in an unknown state

[Matthew Chapman]

Hi,

I inherited an old PC and decided to try out linux. I've installed the latest version of Ubuntu and all updates. The BIOS on the machine is old so I decided to try and update it using flashrom. However, it said erase failed and to contact you. I should have probably started something easier on my first attempt to use Linux...

I did a backup of the current image.

Here's the output:

daddy@daddy-System-Name:~/Desktop/flashrom-0.9.2$ sudo flashrom -w 1018.004
flashrom v0.9.2-r1028 on Linux 2.6.35-22-generic (i686), built with libpci 3.0.0, GCC 4.4.4, little endian
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
No coreboot table found.
Found chipset "VIA VT8233A", enabling flash write... OK.
This chipset supports the following protocols: Non-SPI.
Found chip "SST SST49LF020" (256 KB, LPC) at physical address 0xfffc0000.
Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling checks.
Writing flash chip... Erasing flash chip... ERASE FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0xff, Read=0x00, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x00000fff: 0xb04
ERASE FAILED!
ERASE FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0xff, Read=0x00, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x00003fff: 0x3ad6
ERASE FAILED!
FAILED!
ERASE FAILED!
FAILED!
Your flash chip is in an unknown state.
Get help on IRC at irc.freenode.net (channel #flashrom) or
mail [e-mail]!

I think my machine is an ASUS A7V333

Help!

Thanks,

Matt

[Michael Karcher]

Am Sonntag, den 14.11.2010, 09:45 +0000 schrieb Matthew Chapman:
> is old so I decided to try and update it using flashrom. However, it
> said erase failed and to contact you. I should have probably started
> something easier on my first attempt to use Linux...

Your output looks like flashrom doesn't know how to disable write
protection on that ASUS board, and thus the erase attempt did nothing at
all.
> I did a backup of the current image.

Please run "flashrom -v backup.img" replacing backup.img by the file
name of the backup you created. If it outputs "VERIFIED", your BIOS is
really unmodified and you are safe.
> daddy@daddy-System-Name:~/Desktop/flashrom-0.9.2$ sudo flashrom -w 1018.004
> flashrom v0.9.2-r1028 on Linux 2.6.35-22-generic (i686), built with libpci 3.0.0, GCC 4.4.4, little endian

[...]
> I think my machine is an ASUS A7V333

I just checked the flashrom version history. You are using revision
1028. The A7V333 is claimed to be supported since 1167, so you might
want to upgrade flashrom to a newer version.

Regards,
  Michael Karcher