[flashrom] HELP! "...flash chip is in an unknown state"

Tue Apr 12 17:44:09 CEST 2011

2011/4/12 Bernard Matthews <philoscience at gmail.com>:
> Thank you very, very much for getting in touch with me!
>
> I solved the problem before I got your email, but didn't have a chance
> to email an update yet.
>
> On my system, it appears flashrom cannot be run from an Xterm window.
> If that is in the documentation somewhere, I apologize for missing it.

No, it's not. This sounds weird.

>
> I first verified with "flashrom -v 88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST"  that
> the image currently in the rom matched my backup file, in case I had
> to reboot.
>
> I cannot recall if I did reboot first, or if I had just closed X windows.
>
> Using flashrom from a text terminal CLI worked perfectly!  I see the
> new file and date on my boot screen now, and so far no problems.
>
> Thank you folks very much for such a wonderful program.
>
> ----- bernard
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Idwer Vollering <vidwer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2011/4/12 Bernard Matthews <philoscience at gmail.com>:
>>> Hi Help,
>>>
>>> I thought I did what was right, but apparently I'm missing something.
>>>
>>> System details:
>>>
>>> BioStar TA785G3 v 6.1 according to the printing on the mainboard.
>>>
>>> Athlon II X3 435.
>>>
>>> Label on factory CMOS: 88GAP901BST.  But the date showing on boot is 3/31/2010.
>>>
>>> I'm trying to replace the CMOS info because of an intermittent board
>>> failure that I felt I had reduced to either a processor failure or a
>>> board failure.
>>>
>>> The mainboard comes with a built-in utility on F12 to flash the new
>>> file, but it rejects the file claiming that the BIOS ID does not
>>> match.
>>>
>>> The new file came from Biostar.  I actually downloaded two copies, one
>>> from Taiwan, and one from USA, and diff'd them to make sure they were
>>> the same.
>>>
>>> So below are the results of my attempt to flash the chip :-(.
>>>
>>>
>>> Here's my initial run to check for compatibility with my board (blank
>>> spaces/lines added for legibility)
>>> ==============================================================
>>> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % sudo flashrom
>>>
>>> flashrom v0.9.2-r1141 on Linux 2.6.36-grml (i686), built with libpci
>>> 3.1.7, GCC 4.4.5 20100728 (prerelease), little endian
>>> flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
>>>
>>> Calibrating delay loop... OK.
>>> No coreboot table found.
>>> Found ITE Super I/O, id 8718
>>> Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK.
>>> This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI.
>>> Found chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff00000.
>>> No operations were specified.
>>> ==============================================================
>>>
>>> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % sudo flashrom -r 88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST
>>
>> This is your backup file...
>>
>>>
>>> flashrom v0.9.2-r1141 on Linux 2.6.36-grml (i686), built with libpci
>>> 3.1.7, GCC 4.4.5 20100728 (prerelease), little endian
>>> flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
>>>
>>> Calibrating delay loop... OK.
>>> No coreboot table found.
>>> Found ITE Super I/O, id 8718
>>> Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK.
>>> This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI.
>>> Found chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff00000.
>>> Block protection could not be disabled!
>>> Reading flash... done.
>>>
>>> ==============================================================
>>>
>>> At this point, I did a Google search for "Block protection could not
>>> be disabled", but did not find anything that said THIS MEANS YOU WON'T
>>> BE ABLE TO ERASE!
>>>
>>> So, I forged ahead:
>>>
>>> ==============================================================
>>>
>>> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % ls -l *BST
>>>
>>> -r--r--r-- 1 root root 1048576 2011-04-12 05:57 88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST
>>> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista % cd Down*
>>>
>>>
>>> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista/Downloads % ls -l *BST
>>>
>>> -r--r--r-- 1 grml users 1048576 2011-04-10 07:43 88GAP804.BST
>>>
>>> ==============================================================
>>>
>>> The above lines show that the file that I'm going to write with
>>> (88GAP804.BST)  is the same size as the one that I saved from the chip
>>> (88GAP901_BST_20110411.BST).
>>>
>>> ==============================================================
>>>
>>> grml at grml /mnt/2011_home/netvista/Downloads % sudo flashrom -w 88GAP804.BST
>>
>> and this is the new file.
>>
>>> flashrom v0.9.2-r1141 on Linux 2.6.36-grml (i686), built with libpci
>>> 3.1.7, GCC 4.4.5 20100728 (prerelease), little endian
>>> flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
>>>
>>> Calibrating delay loop... OK.
>>> No coreboot table found.
>>> Found ITE Super I/O, id 8718
>>> Found chipset "AMD SB700/SB710/SB750", enabling flash write... OK.
>>> This chipset supports the following protocols: LPC,FWH,SPI.
>>> Found chip "Macronix MX25L8005" (1024 KB, SPI) at physical address 0xfff00000.
>>> Block protection could not be disabled!
>>> Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling checks.
>>> Writing flash chip... Erasing flash before programming... Erasing flash chip...
>>>
>>> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
>>> count from 0x00000000-0x00000fff: 0xf9d
>>> ERASE FAILED!
>>> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
>>> count from 0x00000000-0x0000ffff: 0xf8fa
>>> ERASE FAILED!
>>> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
>>> count from 0x00000000-0x0000ffff: 0xf8fa
>>> ERASE FAILED!
>>> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
>>> count from 0x00000000-0x000fffff: 0xdc5ed
>>> ERASE FAILED!
>>> ERASE FAILED at 0x0000000c! Expected=0xff, Read=0xec, failed byte
>>> count from 0x00000000-0x000fffff: 0xdc5ed
>>> 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 flashrom at flashrom.org!
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> DO NOT REBOOT OR POWEROFF!
>>
>> Can you re-run flashrom like above, but with the "-V" (--verbose) parameter ?
>> Like this: sudo flashrom -V -w 88GAP804.BST
>>
>>> sudo flashrom -w 88GAP804.BST  8.37s user 0.07s system 99% cpu 8.489 total
>>>
>>> ==============================================================
>>>
>>> So, since the erase failed, shouldn't I be okay?  Unless my cats press
>>> a button or pull a wire, I will leave the machine on for a response.
>>>
>>> Thank you very much for your help in advance!
>>>
>>> ----- bernard
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> flashrom mailing list
>>> flashrom at flashrom.org
>>> http://www.flashrom.org/mailman/listinfo/flashrom
>>>
>>
>