Fwd: Trying to flash a Winbond W25Q64.W on CH341A with 1.8V adapter

[Marius Schrecker]

Hi,

I recently bought two VMAC V1 Mini PC's with Winbond W25Q64FWSIG EFI chips. Updating the EFI information on teh devices using the normal software route is extremely flakey and I managed to corrupt the EFI on both boards, making them unbootable.

I now have a Chinese CH341a ("Black Edition") usb programmer and a "piggy-back" 1.8v adapter and can connect to the Winbond chip using a test clip.

I installed flashrom from the debian package V0.99 and can do a:

Initially, I thought I had problems getting the clip properly seated, but no matter how much I clean the contacts and re-seat the clip, if I do a:
 #flashrom -p ch341a_spi -V

I get (randomly):
Found Winbond flash chip "unknown Winbond (ex Nexcom) SPI chip" (0 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
Found Generic flash chip "unknown SPI chip (RDID)" (0 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
Found Winbond flash chip "W25Q64.W" (8192 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.

Finding the correct chip or not seems to have little or nothing to do with the physical contact to the chip.
If I then try to erase the chip. I get:

# flashrom -p ch341a_spi -c W25Q64.W -E
flashrom v0.9.9-r1954 on Linux 4.10.1-towo.1-siduction-amd64 (x86_64)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at https://flashrom.org

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Found Winbond flash chip "W25Q64.W" (8192 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
Erasing and writing flash chip... FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0xff, Found=0x00, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x00000fff: 0x1000
ERASE FAILED!
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0xff, Found=0x00, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x00007fff: 0x53cb
ERASE FAILED!
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0xff, Found=0xd6, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x0000ffff: 0x9264
ERASE FAILED!
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0xff, Found=0x00, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x007fffff: 0x5e1391
ERASE FAILED!
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0xff, Found=0x00, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x007fffff: 0x5ce187
ERASE FAILED!
Looking for another erase function.
No usable erase functions left.
FAILED!
Your flash chip is in an unknown state.
Please report this on IRC at chat.freenode.net (channel #flashrom) or
mail [e-mail], thanks!

Again, the hex codes for the failures seem pretty random and are different each time I try the command.

I attach the log.

Can anyone say what's going on?

Best Regards

Marius

[Stefan Tauner]

On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:44 +0200
"Marius Schrecker"  wrote:
> I get (randomly):
> Found Winbond flash chip "unknown Winbond (ex Nexcom) SPI chip" (0 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
> Found Generic flash chip "unknown SPI chip (RDID)" (0 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
> Found Winbond flash chip "W25Q64.W" (8192 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
>
> Finding the correct chip or not seems to have little or nothing to do with the physical contact to the chip.
> […]
> Again, the hex codes for the failures seem pretty random and are different each time I try the command.

Hi Marius,

it is indeed random, because you apparently pick up lots of noise.
Please see https://flashrom.org/Common_problems and
https://www.flashrom.org/ISP
Which voltage translator/adapter are you using?

[Marius Schrecker]

Hi Stefan,

Thank you for the clarification.

I bought one of these:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1158312-1-8V-ADAPTER-FOR-IPHONE-OR-MOTHERBOARD-SPI-F...

Which is based on an AMS1117 regulator, coupled with a ALVC164245 16-bit dual supply translating transceiver
During the weekend, my new chips arrived, so I tried again, with the original setup:

CH341a programmer -> 1.8V adapter -> test clip with original ribbon cable clipped to one of the new chips.

The flash procedure worked and verified flawlessly, so there is either some interference from trying to flash the chip on board, or the original chip is damaged.

I'm sending the flashed chips to someone with better sioldering skills than me.

Best regards

Marius
On Monday, October 2, 2017 00:43 CEST, Stefan Tauner  wrote:
 On Fri, 22 Sep 2017 12:36:44 +0200
"Marius Schrecker"  wrote:
> I get (randomly):
> Found Winbond flash chip "unknown Winbond (ex Nexcom) SPI chip" (0 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
> Found Generic flash chip "unknown SPI chip (RDID)" (0 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
> Found Winbond flash chip "W25Q64.W" (8192 kB, SPI) on ch341a_spi.
>
> Finding the correct chip or not seems to have little or nothing to do with the physical contact to the chip.
> […]
> Again, the hex codes for the failures seem pretty random and are different each time I try the command.

Hi Marius,

it is indeed random, because you apparently pick up lots of noise.
Please see https://flashrom.org/Common_problems and
https://www.flashrom.org/ISP
Which voltage translator/adapter are you using?

[Stefan Tauner]

On Mon, 02 Oct 2017 08:50:00 +0200
"Marius Schrecker"  wrote:
> CH341a programmer -> 1.8V adapter -> test clip with original ribbon cable clipped to one of the new chips.
>
> The flash procedure worked and verified flawlessly, so there is either some interference from trying to flash the chip on board, or the original chip is damaged.

If by original ribbon cable you mean the one with a length of some dozen
centimeters... then you have broken the first rule of the flash club:
short cables!

[Marius Schrecker]

Thanks Stefan.

Will try with shorter cables.

BR.

--Marius--

On Monday, October 2, 2017 14:43 CEST, Stefan Tauner  wrote:
 On Mon, 02 Oct 2017 08:50:00 +0200
"Marius Schrecker"  wrote:
> CH341a programmer -> 1.8V adapter -> test clip with original ribbon cable clipped to one of the new chips.
>
> The flash procedure worked and verified flawlessly, so there is either some interference from trying to flash the chip on board, or the original chip is damaged.

If by original ribbon cable you mean the one with a length of some dozen
centimeters... then you have broken the first rule of the flash club:
short cables!