Bricked Motherboard | External BIOS flashing with CH341A programmer

[@alcateltolley4025]

Genuinley Thankyou so much. 3 days ago i did a bios update on the same board as you. Literally didnt even turn on... I knew what i done but never knew about the ch341a for £10 it was worth a go and with your guide on repeat for about 2 hours i felt confident enough to attempt it alot of fiddling with the clip later and i have one working PC!!! I had 3 long beeps at first and reseated the ram but after turning it on 5 or 6 times it fired up and has been running flawlessly for 6 hours. I cannot Thankyou enough youve earened a sub from me for sure.

[@nobeltnium]

Is it still going after a year?

[@sobianauman2168]

Imagine the seller who sold him watching this😅

[@bodnar10261]

Yeees this is very userful device, and rescue motherboard

[@Elfcheg]

Thank you! I have just fixed my b360m pro vdh! I was stupid enough to update bios for no apparent reason as a result I got a computer that even didn't power on. At first I thought that somehow ny power supply was damaged. Thanks to you it works again! And I have a neat programmer tool to play with :)

[@GloriousEggroll]

Thank you so much for this. I've been mucking around with a Huananzhi x99 chinese board, flashed a bios it didnt like and needed to do this. Of all the various videos I found this one was the only one that showed me exactly what I needed to do step by step.

[@ThisHandleIsTaken_]

I have asus 320 mk prime Motherboard. No signal, no keyboard, no mouse. What can i do ? Could you Please make another video on the same topic for ppl who dont have CODING as native language.

[@guillermo7133]

Good morning, sorry to bother you, but I have seen that you are an electronics specialist and I was wondering if you could give me some solution. I have a Sindoh 3D 3DWOX 3D printer and when I inserted a USB flash drive to update the firmware, there was a power outage. Now only the Sindoh presentation screen is displayed and the image is frozen there. I have disconnected the printer from the power and even removed the internal battery from the motherboard but it remains the same. There is no way it does anything. It has been left frozen. I'm afraid the firmware has become corrupt. I have observed that the motherboard has some jumpers, I don't know if any of them have any use. Can you help me please? Any suggestions to force flashing the firmware? How can I find out which chip on the printer's motherboard is the EEPROM? Thank you very much in advance.

[@niloydas1167]

Hay i have my hp silm desktop stuck in the specification page and the keybord do not respond. I tried different keyboard too. Help me please

[@MauroAlpha17]

hello, i see that you are programming with .bin file bios, but you've downloaded .2A0 bios file...how to convert to bin? i need to flash asus mobo with .203 or .whateverothernumber file and i'm stuck in extracting bios..any hints?thanks

[@chadwickcloister5143]

Extract the file (with 7zip) and it will be a bin

[@knightzf]

The bin was the result of reading the bios, he ran the read a few times which generated a few bin files. He then checked the hash of the files to ensure it reads the same thing every time, which means the connection from the device to bios is good.

[@vextorfx6243]

Although your bios chip is of some kind w25q128JV??

[@vextorfx6243]

I really dont understand why u didn't modify your piece where the 3.3v output comes from? Cuz some people do this in videos or is your piece new?

[@martinharmath1566]

once u plug chip into programmer the voltage is adjusting to 3.3V and no 5V

[@Paranoia-zo3vo]

Couldn't open device 1a86:5512.

[@Popi0l]

I just want to comment that you DON'T need clips to flash your BIOS ROM. Commonly those pins are exposed, eg in MSI mainboards you have JSPI1 connector, where you can directly access the pins in more reliable way than clips. Just keep in mind that those are 2mm pins, smaller than regular 2.5mm. All you need to do is to: - check the pin layout, eg with multimeter and chip documentation - get proper 2mm cables - connect them between connector on your board and CH341A - download bios ROM and flash it with CH341A compatible software Safer and cheaper than clips!

[@marcuscoolin]

bro pls help mee

[@Popi0l]

@@marcuscoolin what do you need?

[@marcuscoolin]

@@Popi0l well after a while i figured i needed the adjustable voltage version for my 3.3 volt chip probably the reason why i was not getting my chip to pop up in any program, i’m ordering it soon tho

[@steven.events]

What are you using to connect directly to the header pins?

[@Popi0l]

@@steven.events cables with 2mm connectors, female to the board and male to CH341A I have found those cables on electronic store

[@Pazuzu-rm5rc]

Hello, would you help me, I can't find the MX25L12872F micron chip in any program, my motherboard is asrock b450m steel legend.

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Flashrom should automatically detect the chip. If not you can specify it using the -c or --chip in flashrom. Sometimes it won't detect the chip and this could because it is Write Protected. Are you getting any errors in flashrom?

[@JohnCalebWarren]

Great video man! I just bought a MSI mining motherboard off eBay that I suspect has a corrupted bios. It won't post past the setup screen. Won't acknowledge keys on keyboard to press F2 or Del Question: is there any way to flash that bios chip easier? The coding looks pretty complicated, but I love that little tool

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

You could try a PS/2 keyboard, if the BIOS is having problems initializing the USB controller sometimes it won't detect USB keyboards. Some motherboards have an EZ Flash system where you can press a button or boot with a special USB. I would suggest looking at the manual to the motherboard otherwise you will have flash the BIOS externally.

[@cali_cal]

how did that go for you? having same issue

[@Adaks]

@@cali_cal Well, for me - I bought a bios programmar for 12 pounds and came next day from amazon, and then I had to install the Bios Programmer drivers, and install AsProgrammer (as programmar is a free open sourced tool which lets you read and write to the chip using the programmer). I clipped the programmar to the bios chip, had to move it around like 10x before I got a connection. After, I went to MSI downloaded latest version, and flashed it onto the chip. After booting up, there was still no post, so I had to power off and take a stick off ram to post and the motherboard worked again.

[@cali_cal]

@@Adaks what motherboard?

[@Adaks]

@@cali_cal It doesn't really matter what motherboard, as long as you have a 8 pin bios chip, my motherboard was a z170a sli, like 5 years old

[@joserosario9794]

Hi All, any ideas where I can find the bios.bin file for a GA-7PESH2 server board, I am trying to extract the file using UEFI tools but the bin file seems to be incomplete. BTW I am fairly new at this... thanks.

[@GamerJable]

I have a Sabertooth Z87 with a compatible CPU, but it doesn't show video. What could it be? Is it fixable?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Not showing video can be a lot of different things. I can try an help I just need to know more about your situation. What CPU do you have? What kind of RAM is being used? Does the computer turn on? Does it beep or have any LEDs that flash? Did it work before? Are you using integrated graphics or a GPU?

[@GamerJable]

@@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast Thanks for the response, I just make someone that knows about voltages and that stuff, look at the motherboard that I mention. So he said that the problem is near the chipset of the motherboard or the chipset itself. Is it fixable? The motherboard doesn´t turn on so it doesn't show any beep. I was watching some videos where they reflow the motherboard, so I will attempt that.

[@BurnigLegionsBlade]

Hi, I bricked my Gigabyte B450 Motherboard by reseting the Security Keys in the Secure Boot menu to factory settings and now I'm stuck in a bootloop with a black screen. Can I flash the bios on the chip using this method to make it work again?

[@nunn676]

most likely, yep

[@putraadriansyah8082]

I'm curious.. when the PCH doesn't detect supported CPU in the bios, it doesn't initialize the CPU right? So what's activating the LED? I mean, there's motherboards that throw beep codes or led blink code when something goes wrong like CPU or memory not detected.. is there anything inside the board that runs code before CPU? Does the PCH runs some code before CPU? superio/kbc? There must be some code to check the system, right?

[@inityo]

Does any of the kubuntu commands involve where you put the file ?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

You will have to cd to where your BIOS file is located. Let me know if any other questions.

[@inityo]

@@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast is NEW1.bin where your file was located ?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

@@inityo new1.bin is the file being created when it reads the bios chip. All of my files where located in /home/owner. You can use any directory, just use the cd command to navigate there and then run the flashrom commands.

[@inityo]

@@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast did you show that you navigated there in the CD? I’m just planning before I do this tomorrow

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

@@inityo no i did not. you can use cd to change directories and then the ls command to show what files are in that directory.

[@stdorn]

When I get bios files from HP for my pavilion 17-ar050wm laptop it has two .bin files (08353.bin and 08355.bin they are both 8.00Mb) I was expecting one. Do you have any idea how to flash the bios when there is more than one bin file. I have been thinking about trying to fix my bricked laptop but this has been holding me back. Thanks, Steve

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

How big is your BIOS chip? If you read from it in flashrom it should output the size. Some laptops have two separate BIOS chips that show up to the system as one chip. You can see something similar in my Thinkpad T440p coreboot video. The difficult thing is I'm not sure what file goes to which chip. You could always try flashing in one order and see if that works. If it doesn't try flipping the order. Make sure to make a backup of the current BIOS just in case. Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions

[@stdorn]

@@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast looking at the actual board it appears to be a 25q64JVS chip made by winbond. There is only one. Datasheet comes up as a 64 megabyte serial Flash. I would assume that this is it. So apparently 64Mb which makes even less sense that there'd be two files when they're only 8mb. I have checked every 8 Pin chip on the motherboard. The rest all seem to be either n Channel mosfets or voltage regulators.

[@Gadgetman1989]

Can you use a 3.0 usb extension cable to connect it to your computer?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

A USB extension should be fine. I have heard of other people online using it. I personally have not used one yet for BIOS flashing

[@RMDK22]

brother. thank you so much. this was the easiest tutorial regarding this topic to follow. literally beep boop bap. and boom its over. also. i flashed an MSI B450i Gaming Plus AC without any troubles. using fedora linux jic anyone else is also dealing with the bios update thing with newer Cpu's

[@StAlKeRrEpAcK]

So when we take backup we can unbrick our spi flash why its listed on the internet that motherboard will be useless after bad flashing

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Normally a bricked BIOS is a corrupted image and prevents the motherboard from initializing. If you flash externally you can fix that you just have to make sure your BIOS chip and your programmer are connected properly or it could physically damage the chip.

[@RealShinpin]

Do you think this would be an effective way to remove a firmware virus occupying the bios/uefi?

[@deceptivegamr3438]

I agree with others, this has been the most helpful. I have watched several videos before this and I was still not confident enough to try. After watching your video I felt like a pro! :P I am a bit confused that the chip model printed on the bios chip is different then the one flashrom says it found. After much research and reading the manufacturer macronix info, still doesn't tell me anything.

[@Naddel81able]

is there a windows tool to use for flashing?

[@SNIPR-jz4fz]

i have a h110-d3a motherboard and it powers up for 2 seconds and shuts off, will this method fix it

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Was it working before? Did you recently update the BIOS? Is there any damage on the motherboard? A lot of things could have those same symptoms

[@alongkodpaste1976]

have a website or group Do you give away computer motherboard bios files?

[@cristianmorar5558]

Please someone help me: the latest bios EVEN IF IT'S BETA VERSION ???

[@bm7551]

How the hell u got to clip the clamp on the bios chip first try... like my bios chip is very tiny and it keeps slipping off rom the clamp I legit tried it 5 hours and still couldn't stay on

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Are you sure it is the right chip you are trying to connect to? If using the original clip it does take a couple of tries. If you think you clip is the problem try and make sure the gold pins didn't slide up. You will because if you look at the top of the clip where the wires come in you will see gold pins. You can try pushing it down the pins and re-clamping to the chip. These cheap clips aren't the best quality. If you are still suspecting your clip is the problem you could look into Pomona clips they are much better quality but they cost more.

[@djmystery7235]

Will it work for updating Z170 K6 chip? I just need to update it for 7th gen and don’t want to buy an overpriced celeron fo do it.

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

It should work! Every motherboard so make sure you locate your BIOS chip and find out the correct voltage for it.

[@AhmadAlghannam]

For MSI X99S SLI plus. Can i use the bios updates available for download on MSI's website? Or i need to extract bin or rom file to be able to flash?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

You should be able to use the file from MSI. It might have a different extension that isn't .bin or .rom. It should flash fine in the video I flashed with a .2A0 file.

[@SozjeCat.]

I did this and now my computer is bricked. Never updating BIOS again.

[@voodoovinyl709]

Question bro, do you know where I can find B2BM cause i going round in circles trying to find that file, and still stuck waiting to flash the bios

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

I'm not sure what you are asking? Can you please elaborate?

[@voodoovinyl709]

@@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast Sorry, the software named B2BM used to convert MSI exe to bin files so you can flash them on with the CH341A.

[@voodoovinyl709]

@Nisal Perera I did get it from someone a while back, but the bad news my machine has had it and i lost everything, and I'm not a social media nor cloud person, so I have to take that lost, it could have been worst... So while i'm a little bust with my daughter and trying to rebuild, I'd still appreciate any valid links to that software. Sorry I could not be of help.

[@sarangawalimuni4955]

Thanks for the video dude Did you keep the bios file in the flashrom root directory?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

The file can be anywhere you just have to navigate to the directory that it is in.

[@Retrosen]

I was updating my bios and power went down, I guess this is my last choice thanks

[@AJAY-ee8vx]

Hey Man I Have All the things including programmer and fro my motherboard i have file called bios.rom file can you please help me out with this from which tool you used it similars to be kali or ubuntu plz man urgent needa fix bro please reply

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

The tool I used in the video is called flashrom and can be used on any Linux distribution. You will have to get the BIOS file for your motherboard from the manufacturers website.

[@selahattinkoraybasturk6897]

bro i guess i have same problem, my bios is not opening same for windows and usb ports are not working too. is your usb ports working when ur bios is bricked ?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

When my BIOS didn't support my processor nothing worked. That is why I had to flash it externally.

[@chadwickcloister5143]

Nice. I have a Mac with suspect corrupt BIOS. I will flash tomorrow. People think Apple's have no BIOS, but those people are wrong

[@Adaks]

Every computer has a bios lol

[@himanshuchauhanmusic]

How do i do it for 16 pin bios chip

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

It is a similar process you just need a 16 pin clip

[@yukuzoona6604]

im trying to flash the MX25L12873F IC on my z97x ud5h since weeks and for fuck sake nothing works 🤷‍♂

[@DJZofPCB]

Great work and research.

[@JohnSheppard-yd2rx]

Hi, a very interesting video. I am new to computers and my son tells me he has ( bricked ) his motherboard. It has two bios chips, and because a switch was in the wrong position, they are both broken. The mother board is a Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming K7. Will the technique in your video work and how would I go about it as there are two bios chips please?

[@TruceDoesStuff]

It would work fine as you will be flashing data on one chip, just make sure you get right bios

[@ldee247]

Great video tutorial well represented.

[@inityo]

Nice video

[@panayiotispapakyriakou5258]

Thanks for the video. These flashers (and their accessories) are flimsy and occasionally of very low quality. The flashing software are also temperamental. It may take hours to do the job shown here due to poor connections and buggy software.

[@SNIPR-jz4fz]

Whats is the software your using.. im new here

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

The software I used in the video is called flashrom

[@joseaquino6986]

And via MSDOS???

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Flashrom the program is available for windows. You will have to do your own research but they have a wiki detailing most of it: www.flashrom.org/Windows

[@looterin8986]

Does it work on a laptop

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

It should you would just have to find where the BIOS chip is located on the motherboard and then look up the datasheet to find out what voltage it uses.

[@thelightings]

great vid. thank you very much

[@JackRabbit72380]

Can you flash mine dude?

[@CAXRAMEDIA]

Useful video🙏

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Glad we could help!

[@EstebanMurielMoreno]

Hi, nice video bro! Can you teach me please, which program did u use to flash the chip? Thanks a lot 🙏🏼

[@konmicks]

Liked, favorited, I want to be with the narrator

[@PsychoTsundere]

Did i just brick my mobo? Everytime I turn on my computer it throws me to BIOS Recovery usually I just press esc and then enter and then it will start windows normally this has been going on for weeks and i just ignored it but when I tried it today I saw a different option. Being stupid and curious, i tried to click that new option which says ">PROCEED WITH FLASH UPDATE" when it told me to press ENTER key, i did that but it never rebooted. My pc was still ON but my monitor isnt receiving or showing anything. so i decided to force shut down.. so far this is what i already tried >unplugged and pressed power button for 30 sec and tried to switch it on >removed the mobo battery for a few mins and then put it back again. both of those didn't work i didnt want to tinker with it further since i just got it back from the pc repair shop and im sure everything on the mobo is intact and plugged snuggly. so can anyone tell me what happened to my motherboard? did i break it? btw if it helps my motherboard is an emaxx a70fm2+icafe any advice will be appreciated

[@Adaks]

Let me help you out.

[@Adaks]

If you're not getting any lights from your keyboard or mouse and fans are still spinning, and there's no output to monitors, you have most likely bricked your motherboard. Before you go ahead and buy a bios programmar, try some troubleshooting options. 1) Take out the CMOS Battery, and unplug the pc from power, hold the power button to get all the juice out. There should be two jumpers, called JBAT1, put a screw driver between both of them, so you're shortening it. Check this video how to jump it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rH-7Z2CaoKuYr5Y 2) Take one stick of ram out, power on, take two sticks off ram out, power on and see if it posts. 3) Take out all USB Devices connected to your PC, literally everything except your output cables, take out ram, unplug sata cables. If no success, then YES it's bricked. - I would buy a Bios Programmer for 10< pounds, and that should work smoothly. - I would not advise you to NOT follow this tutorial, as this is not a very efficient way of flashing the chip, asprogrammer is a better software for flashing than some command prompt. Better video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqK7Y62fnadpi6c Please do not go to pc repair shops, it's not worth it - they will rob you for all your money, and then can steal your parts - my local pc repair shop stole parts of a customers phone, and celetaped parts on. If you need any help, if you decide to order a bios programmer, please contact me on Adaks#7039, and let me know if you've sent a request - I will be sure to help you. - This is how my experience went with my bricked motherboard: This has happened to me 2 weeks ago, when I updated my bios and after 100% completed download, it restarted and returned with no post, I believe that the USB Flash Drive that I was using was not very efficient in storing this type of data, and was mainly made for pictures and or video and not to store code in. I had to buy a bios programmar for 12 pounds and came next day from amazon, and then I had to install the Bios Programmer drivers, and install AsProgrammer (AsProgrammar is a free open sourced tool which lets you read and write to the chip using the programmer). I clipped the programmar to the bios chip, had to move it around like 10x before I got a connection. After, I went to MSI downloaded latest version, and flashed it onto the chip. After booting up, there was still no post, so I had to power off and take a stick off ram to post and the motherboard worked again.

[@PsychoTsundere]

@@Adaks thanks for the help, I'll try it later and update you.

[@PsychoTsundere]

@@Adaks hello, I've tried all the things you said none of them worked for me, so i assume my mobo's brick . Thanks for the help tho.

[@Adaks]

@@PsychoTsundere yeah, no problem.

[@8peterp]

i see 25q128 is 3.3V ,is there problem still with 5V going into the chip or new CH341A has 5V/3.3V switch?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

Unfortunately there is no switch on the CH341A but if you are comfortable soldering there is an easy 3.3v mod that can be done to ensure the proper voltage.

[@forsfullcommunications1561]

Greetings, the BIOS flasher w/ Test clip to flash BIOS and EEPROM chips is an interesting resolve I being clueless such a fix existed. Considering I've been spending endless hours attempting to normalize my corrupt BIOS that invaded my gravity standing sideways. I have a dysfunctional Lenovo YOGA 730-15IKB Laptop, question; Are the flasher Test clip Devices universal for all computers or device specific for specific model computers? Thank you very much for posting a vital answer for this educational post for all of us, remain well in peaceful balance to take good care of it all...

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

There are many different types of chip but this flasher should be able to handle it. First identify what kind of chip it is like you can either Google this or open your system up. Once you identify it as being a SOIC8, SOIC16, WSON8, etc. You can figure out if the clip will work or if you will have to solder. Also be sure to look up the datasheet and determine what voltage the chip is expecting

[@forsfullcommunications1561]

@@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast Will do, thanks...

[@bm7551]

@@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast do you have discord I desperately need help

[@jeanyves5380]

Thank's very much for the video. I ordered a CH341 programmer some days ago. I understand perfectly well the procedure as an electronic technician. But sorry i did not understand well what happens when you boot for the first time after you have the bios flashed. Does your computer behave like if nothing ever happened at this step and you may press del or F2 key to got to the BIOS or you still have another operation to do? Could you list all the steps from here please? English is not my native language , i'm sorry. Thank you very much.

[@navossoc]

Not sure, but, he removed the battery, so the bios configuration is lost. I believe when he got the first boot, it says "all defaults are loaded" and it may boot normally if you have a disk with a OS (if its the first disk on the boot order, etc).

[@jeanyves5380]

@@navossoc Ok thank you. I flashed the 8 pins memory chip with the latest BIOS and all went back like if nothing ever happened with all settings set to "Default" settings.

[@navossoc]

@@jeanyves5380 Nice! Glad it worked... I tried something similar today, but with another board, I think there is a connection issue, but can't get a stable read/write. Didn't work :'(

[@TheGangster]

@@navossoc did you ever manage to do it?

[@navossoc]

@@TheGangster No, we gave up on it... Seems there are some motherboards that have some electrical components nearby that prevent a good read/write, so you need to remove the chip (unsolder) from the board, but we never tried that... Now the motherboard is a nice keychain hahah...

[@rianrassetiadi9629]

YOU SAVED MY LIVE BROO.... IT WOORKED....

[@lezyhun]

How to know if the bios is 24 or 25?

[@DeviceCastingCouchTechPodcast]

On the bottom of the CH341A it say 25 is for SPI BIOS. If you are unsure you can always look up the chip you are trying to connect to and see what its datasheet says

[@RobertJohnson-lb3qz]

LOL. I forget the “legal” like wording we often hear when we buy products, but it makes sense… 🤓

[@haxxorsheep]

I bet $100 Shiba inu. He does not have the stock heatsync fully seated down. Aka half ass installed.

[@garyg3916]

Pretty nifty . Lol .. very well spoken ... 👏 👌 👍

[@nexxusty]

LOL. YOU DO NOT say "SHAW512". You say: S.H.A.512. Don't be this guy.

[@SHUTENSEPC]

Nice video, up till the Linux point. It comes with Windows original software, why dont you use it? Are you really think that most of the users will install Linux for the bios update? Well ok you did it for Linux too, no problem, but you havent done the same for Windows. This is just a big bruh moment.