Fwd: ADVANTECH ASMB-825 SMM BIOS protection

[Nico Huber]

Hi Simone,

forwarding your message as it has been filtered due to the attachment.
The mailing list has a limit of 200KiB.

This is the most interesting line out of the picture:
> Warning: BIOS region SMM protection is enabled!

Well, this is unfortunate. You may not be completely out of luck,
though. Sometimes the BIOS setup provides options to toggle flash
protection. And sometimes a simple trick helps to get around it:
suspend (to RAM) and resume before you try to flash. Some BIOSes
simply forget to enables the protection during resume.

If you removed the SPI flash from the board anyway, you can also
use very simple / cheap SPI programmers without the need of hot
swapping. Many SBCs (Raspberry Pi and the like) can serve as
programmer, for instance. Or, if you have an old PC with a legacy
parallel port, that can be hooked up to a SPI flash with a few
resistors.

Let us know if you need more infos.

Nico

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: ADVANTECH ASMB-825 SMM BIOS protection
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 09:14:37 +0200
From: Simone Arinci 
To: [e-mail]

Good morning, see attached screenshot for the motherboard ASMB-825.
I tried flashrom as I have a bricked motherboard and a good one, and tried
to revive the bad one with the SPI flash hot swap trick, but no success.
Tried flashrom, AFUEFI, AFUDOS, Intel FPT...but none of these are able to
reprogram the damaged flash chip... I'm going to send it to the
manufacturer to have it repaired.

Thanks for your help, have a nice day.
Simone

[image: ADVANTECH ASMB-825.png]

[simone.arinci]

Thanks for the reply, really appreciate it.The idea to suspend to Ram seems good, it could work probably. I tried to follow a procedure I found on a forum, that explain how to search for a BIOS LOCK parameter in BIOS binary file and to use setup_var to change a specific location in memory to unlock BIOS Write...but unfortunately I was not able yo find that variable in BIOS...At the end just yesterday I decided to send the PC to the manufacturer for repair!Thanks again, have a nice day.SimoneInviato dal mio Galaxy
-------- Messaggio originale --------Da: Nico Huber  Data: 17/09/21  15:54  (GMT+01:00) A: flashrom , Simone Arinci  Oggetto: Fwd: ADVANTECH ASMB-825 SMM BIOS protection Hi Simone,forwarding your message as it has been filtered due to the attachment.The mailing list has a limit of 200KiB.This is the most interesting line out of the picture:> Warning: BIOS region SMM protection is enabled!Well, this is unfortunate. You may not be completely out of luck,though. Sometimes the BIOS setup provides options to toggle flashprotection. And sometimes a simple trick helps to get around it:suspend (to RAM) and resume before you try to flash. Some BIOSessimply forget to enables the protection during resume.If you removed the SPI flash from the board anyway, you can alsouse very simple / cheap SPI programmers without the need of hotswapping. Many SBCs (Raspberry Pi and the like) can serve asprogrammer, for instance. Or, if you have an old PC with a legacyparallel port, that can be hooked up to a SPI flash with a fewresistors.Let us know if you need more infos.Nico-------- Forwarded Message --------Subject: ADVANTECH ASMB-825 SMM BIOS protectionDate: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 09:14:37 +0200From: Simone Arinci To: [e-mail] morning, see attached screenshot for the motherboard ASMB-825.I tried flashrom as I have a bricked motherboard and a good one, and triedto revive the bad one with the SPI flash hot swap trick, but no success.Tried flashrom, AFUEFI, AFUDOS, Intel FPT...but none of these are able toreprogram the damaged flash chip... I'm going to send it to themanufacturer to have it repaired.Thanks for your help, have a nice day.Simone[image: ADVANTECH ASMB-825.png]