HP Elitebook 8770w Ported To Coreboot, But Need To Disassemble The Laptop For Flashing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: HP Elitebook 8770w Ported To Coreboot, But Need To Disassemble The Laptop For Flashing

If you happen to have an HP Elitebook 8770w laying around from Intel's Ivy Bridge era, that Hewlett Packard laptop has now been freed by Coreboot...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=HP-Elitebook-8770W-Coreboot

[geegee]

tempting to get a used one for around 250,-

but does anyone know of complete how to on the flashing itself part?

i saw some howto's where they use a blue clamp that fits around the pins of the bios but i have no idea where to get it or what to search for?
what is that thing called?

[michaelb1]

tempting to get a used one for around 250,-

but does anyone know of complete how to on the flashing itself part?

i saw some howto's where they use a blue clamp that fits around the pins of the bios but i have no idea where to get it or what to search for?
what is that thing called?

Most likely you mean a SOIC8 test clip. You could find an example of the flashing instructions here,
with the pictures and descriptions of tools - http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/...ith_Bus_Pirate
(same could be achieved with a much cheaper $2-$3 CH341A USB programmer, also supported by flashrom software)

[bigbadsubaru]

You could probably also do it with a dediprog, they're kinda pricey ($150-$600 depending on model and options, the SF100 I believe can be had with a handful of test clips that will handle pretty much any bios chip, since a lot of them are 8 pin SOIC. http://www.dediprog.co.tw/ we use them at my work for flashing the NVRAM on network cards.

[geegee]

Most likely you mean a SOIC8 test clip. You could find an example of the flashing instructions here,
with the pictures and descriptions of tools - http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/...ith_Bus_Pirate
(same could be achieved with a much cheaper $2-$3 CH341A USB programmer, also supported by flashrom software)

ah thx for the tip.

but most laptops have the bios soldered on so i guess i would still need the clip, right?

[michaelb1]

You could probably also do it with a dediprog, they're kinda pricey ($150-$600 depending on model and options, the SF100 I believe can be had with a handful of test clips that will handle pretty much any bios chip, since a lot of them are 8 pin SOIC. http://www.dediprog.co.tw/ we use them at my work for flashing the NVRAM on network cards.

Yes, dediprog is much more expensive compared to CH341A and is a bit of an overkill if a user just wants to flash a couple of laptops. Also, it seems that dediprog has some closed-source firmware which could potentially have backdoors - or, even if no backdoors (although can't check) still its not free-as-in-freedom tool. Meanwhile, CH341A hardware design is known, could be reproduced, and it has just about 20 or 32 bytes of internal configuration memory - no "firmware", no problems

[michaelb1]

ah thx for the tip.
but most laptops have the bios soldered on so i guess i would still need the clip, right?

Yes, so will you need both CH341A ($2-$3) and SOIC8 test clip (maybe another $3-$4).
If you don't mind waiting for about 1 month you could get these tools with free shipping from china (e.g. aliexpress),
but if you don't want to wait you could get these tools locally, although would need to pay 2x - 3x more than they actually cost

Also, its a good idea to double check if your laptop's BIOS chip is indeed SOIC8 shape format.
The majority of laptops have SOIC8 format BIOS chip, but some have another shape - which could require a different test clip
or it could be that even no test clip is a available and you'll either need to make a custom fragile adapter or desolder a chip

[geegee]

Yes, so will you need both CH341A ($2-$3) and SOIC8 test clip (maybe another $3-$4).
If you don't mind waiting for about 1 month you could get these tools with free shipping from china (e.g. aliexpress),
but if you don't want to wait you could get these tools locally, although would need to pay 2x - 3x more than they actually cost

Also, its a good idea to double check if your laptop's BIOS chip is indeed SOIC8 shape format.
The majority of laptops have SOIC8 format BIOS chip, but some have another shape - which could require a different test clip
or it could be that even no test clip is a available and you'll either need to make a custom fragile adapter or desolder a chip

i think its a 16 pin.
i think ill just go for it

[michaelb1]

i think its a 16 pin.
i think ill just go for it

if "16 pin" then maybe its SOIC16 chip and you need a SOIC16 test clip, but please double check your chip's exact format (e.g. by finding a chip datasheet based on its' markings) before getting anything