[coreboot] Possibility to tear electrically out the Bios chip

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hello Vincenzo,

On 13.10.2017 08:37, ingegneriaforense at alice.it wrote:
> please, has some of you ripped out the BIOS chip from the motherboard when the pc is power on ? 
> Has someone of you done this experiment ?
> Could be damages to the motherboard ?

Many times. It always worked if the chip was in a socket. I have not
tried desoldering a chip in a running machine.
Modern Intel systems may cause problems if the Management Engine tries
to access the flash chip while it is removed, but IO'm not an expert on
that.


> Or maybe Coreboot should be programmed to switch electrically off the chip before tear out it from its case ?

You can't switch off the power for the flash chip because there is no
switch in the hardware.


> I pose this question because, if really the Bios chip is only necessary for the boot process of a machine, has not sense that it is on board during the usual activity of the O.S.
>
> So, is it possible tear out it from its case after the boot process, when the pc is working and the O.S. has taken into account the whole control of the pc ?

I had some older PCs work fine without a flash chip for more than 4
weeks. Obviously, they needed the flash chip for booting, but after that
I had removed it.
For modern systems, it depends on various components and where their
firmware and/or configuration data is stored. A generic answer is not
really possible anymore.


> Tips are welcome. Thanks very much in advance !
>
> I hope to hear you soon.
>
> Best Regards.
>
> Vincenzo.


Regards,
Carl-Daniel