T40 Embedded Controller Program update issue

[franky75]

Hello,
I recently bought second hand an IBM T40 and decided to upgrade BIOS as it was a very late version. Following instructions from the website I updated the BIOS first to the latest version (3.23) and then tried to update the embedded controller program with no luck. Then I tried to updade the ECP with older versions and I was able to update it to the 3.03 version without problems, but still have no luck in updating to 3.04. When doing the update it says that it doesn't recognize the system and abort update. The model number is 237382G.
Any ideas why this can happen? I was thinking to downgrade bios to 3.13 which is the first bios version which should work with ECP 3.04 and then retry to update ECP but first I wanted to ask here if anyone could help with this issue.
Thank you!

[richk]

Is the model number showing up correctly in the BIOS? (If you hir F1 at startup it shows BIOS screen and one entry is model/serial) It sounds to me like the previous owner changed the serial number incorrectly.

[franky75]

Is the model number showing up correctly in the BIOS? (If you hir F1 at startup it shows BIOS screen and one entry is model/serial) It sounds to me like the previous owner changed the serial number incorrectly.

Yes, it shows 237382G and that's what is reported on the label under the laptop.

[richk]

Is the serial in the bios right?

[franky75]

Is the serial in the bios right?

Yes, the serial is also the same of the label.

[GomJabbar]

The user in the following thread had the same issue. He was able to update the Embedded controller by burning an iso of the Embedded Controller diskette version floppy onto a CD.

OK, an update.

Tried booting from USB. Could not get a good floppy image onto the USB device that the T43 would recognize. No problem creating a bootable USB drive that worked. However, diskette image of embedded controller program update just couldn't be imaged onto the USB drive. The T43 at bootup would see it as a legacy floppy, but could not read it.

Created yet another CD ISO image of the embedded controller diskette update and burned it. Used a different tool to create the ISO this time. This time it worked. Now have EC ver 1.05.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=35372

[franky75]

Thank you!
You were very helpful!
I made it creating a bootable CD from diskette image with UltraISO.
I think the problem is that the update program has something wrong, as I've tried both the diskette e non diskette version (I have an usb fdd) with the same result ("the program does not recognize this system").
Now I have ECP 3.04 and BIOS 3.23.
Thank you all!