Programming BIOS chip

[krivulak]

Hi,
a friend of mine got his hands on a brand new T60. The very first thing he did was that he tried to flash the BIOS. Well, after restarting it didn't turn back on, so obviously he screwed up the flash process. He sent it to me so I can give my best try on fixing it (I have fixed tons of laptops before). Well, I didn't expect that ThinkPads doesn't have blind flash option. So - I tried to disassemble the whole computer to do manual feed to the chip. That needs to have power supply connected since the programmer doesn't have enough umph to backfeed almost the whole board so without the adapter it threw my programmer into overcurrent protection. Sadly, the programming clamp had slipped while trying to read and shorted the chip out. Removal from the board and reading attempts had proven that the chip released the magic smoke and went to silicon heaven. Nothing is lost I thought - the chip is off the shelf, so I will buy another one, feed it and solder it back on the board.

Wrong.

I managed to convert the FL1 file through e_bcpvpw to WPH file which seems to be the binary code needed. But it has one fatal flaw. It has 2055kB, 7kB more than what can fit into the chip which is 2048kB in size. It even doesn't fit the programmers buffer. I can program it into the chip but everything in excess just doesn't get programmed and it is clipped of as expected. What should I do now? I truly don't have any clue what I should do to fix it. The laptop is brand new like I said and now it is totally worthless. Thanks for any help.

[RealBlackStuff]

See if these help:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads ... ds.326954/
http://www.endeer.cz/bios.tools/bios.html
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-L ... d-p/137225

[krivulak]

Sadly, it does not help me. I have the empty chip in my programmer and I need 2048kB binary file to feed it into the chip. But everything I came around is the WPH file which has 2055kB and cannot be fed into the chip.

[RealBlackStuff]

Here you go: https://www.laboneinside.com/ibm-thinkpad-t60-bios-bin/

[krivulak]

Oh cool, nice, that looks useful!
Will tell if it fixed the problem tomorrow. Thank you very much!

[krivulak]

Huh. Sadly it looks like something else's dead. After replacing the chip I assembled it back together to the state in which it should work, but nothing. It beeps when it has no ram, but with RAM installed nothing happens. It looks like it goes through the POST but the screen does not power on.

[RealBlackStuff]

What is the TYPE and PRODUCTID of that T60 (sticker on laptop bottom)?
And just for argument's sake, what exact BIOS (version) did your friend use for the flash?

[krivulak]

Type 1951-43G
Product ID is nowhere to be found

I have no idea what he flashed, but the Flash chip is replaced now with new BIOS, so it doesn't matter now I guess