[flashrom] Flashrom 0.9.4-r1395 compiled, running, detected Flash modchip on Xbox running Linux

[Matt Falcon]

Here's a curiosity of the day... :)

I knew my Xbox used an LPC Flash ROM for its modchip, and that it could 
flash its own ROMs once a chip is installed. And I had restored a bad 
BIOS onto a PC*. Lack of an LPC-compatible board, and failure in my 
serprog+Arduino endeavors, I was kinda looking for anything. So, putting 
these things together, I thought I'd try getting Flashrom working inside 
XDSL. Most of the work was done through VNC, as jerking around with an 
on-screen keyboard and the Xbox controller was hardly rewarding...
* -Flashrom seems to have some "read" bugs - it's bricked 2 different 
PCs so far by restoring a backup it made - the file was mostly correct, 
but uniformly-but-lightly littered with "p____________" ("p" followed by 
about 24 0x00 bytes) garbage data - found out after-the-fact when 
looking back at the backup data!

As you can see in the photo (attached), it runs, but doesn't detect the 
chipset (though it somehow detects the flash - weird!). This is properly 
identified as well, and that's even going through an LPC adapter chip of 
some sort (Xilinx something-or-other on the modchip, a Duo X2). I hadn't 
tested read/write, since that wasn't the chip I needed to flash. Sadly, 
if I hot-swap the chip into the Xbox while it's booted, it craps out and 
freezes. I can only do it in a tiny 3-4 second window after powering it 
on, while the Xbox animation is playing (presumably it's already loaded 
the ROM into memory). That works, but I haven't been able to get it to 
detect the chip yet. I still get the same chipset error, but it doesn't 
detect the SST49LF020 chip I'm trying to test with (ultimately I have a 
SST49LF040B that I need to program).

But anywho, I figured this might be some useful, or at least 
entertaining, information. Yup, Flashrom runs on an Xbox. :)

- Matt

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