[Libreboot] Troubles flashing a T500

[Louis Delmas]

Hi,

I have been trying for numerous times to flash a T500 without success,
I describe here my setup and what I already tried, if some of you have
ideas I would be glad to try them because I am getting annoyed with
this chip that refuses to get flashed ...

My setup :
-I use the setup proposed in the Libreboot documentation (BBB + PSU)
-I tried flashrom included in libreboot_utils and also compiled it from
git.
-My cables are short (10cm) and coax+twisted (a link is proposed on
Libreboot documentation)
-this setup was able to flash on first try a Winbond "W25X64" on a x200
-this setup is able to get reproducible reads at spispeed=256, 512 and
1024 . For some reason that does not work with 128...

The system I want to flash
-T500 with a Macronix "MX25L6405D"
-The thinkpad bios was password locked but as flashing erases all the
chip I thought this would not be a problem.

What I've tried so far
-"Basic" flash as described in the Libreboot Doc (spispeed 256, 512,
1024) numerous times (close to 20 times for each speed)
-Connecting pin 1 and 9 of the chip to 3.3V (I found the libreboot doc
is not very clear on that subject) I looked at the MX24L6405D factsheet
to understand a little bit more. As I understand the need to connect WP
to 3.3V I don't understand the role of HOLD in that case.

All of this does not work and I get **always** the same error message :
"Erase/write done.
Verifying flash... FAILED at 0x00000000! Expected=0x08, Found=0x5a, ..."
failed byte count changes every time.

I feel I've exhausted all the possible ideas of improvements now and I'm
starting to get annoyed by this... If somebody can help that would be
great....

cheers

Louis

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