[LinuxBIOS] SPI flash-chips [Re: state of Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4]

[Anton]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:57:56 +0100
Stefan Reinauer <stepan at coresystems.de> wrote:

> * Uwe Hermann <uwe at hermann-uwe.de> [070312 14:46]:
> > On Mon, Mar 12, 2007 at 01:12:37PM +0100, ST wrote:
> > > Am Montag, 12. März 2007 12:23 schrieb Stefan Reinauer:
> > > > * ST <st at iss.tu-darmstadt.de> [070312 11:58]:
> > > > > Since i don't have an modern flash programmer (and this version of the
> > > > > gigabyte doesn't have a dual bios) i am afraid to "brick" this mainboard.
> > > >
> > > > Does it have a socketed bios chip?
> > > No, it doesn't but it seems to me as if the place for a dual bios chip is 
> > > printed but not used. It seems to be a serial chip since it has not so many 
> > > pins. At first i really thought this MB had a dual bios :-(. 
> > > > Yes. You can always use "flashrom" from the LinuxBIOS tree to flash back
> > > > the proprietary BIOS (given you can still boot Linux ;)
> > > Ok, that sounds good. 
> > 
> > Be careful. One you bricked the original BIOS you will _not_ be able to
> > boot Linux (or a DOS disk or whatever), so you will _not_ be able to
> > reflash the BIOS...
> 
> According to this picture, some of the boards obviously have a bios
> socket. How can we find out where to get those instead of the
> soldered-only boards?
> http://pclab.pl/zdjecia/artykuly/pila/am2/gigabyte-ga-m57sli-s4/plyta-gora.jpg

What are the means for recovering from faulty writes into SPI
flash-chip? Chip is not socketed ;) Moreover, it is soldered.