search

corna / me_cleaner

Tool for partial deblobbing of Intel ME/TXE firmware images
GNU General Public License v3.0
4.51k stars 279 forks source link

EVGA Z97 FTW #366

Open ghost opened 3 years ago

ghost commented 3 years ago

Pardon the questions, I'm not very knowledgeable about hardware.

I have an EVGA Z97 FTW. The specs claim dual bios support, and from what I can see on the board, there are what seems to be two bios chips, with a physical switch to change between either of them.

Would I be correct in assuming that this contains a full copy of the bios on each chip, and not just config/etc.? Meaning that I could use an internal flashing method, and if it fails, I can just boot from the second chip to recover?

This might seem like an obvious question, but I need to make sure before I tinker with this.

Additionally, it seems the BIOS1 chip may be socketed, and the BIOS2 chip is soldered. Correct?

Picture ![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/43770697/140666166-c5d0055d-b84f-4ee1-822e-6b00738fff04.png)

Meaning that if all else fails, the chip can be taken out for reflashing (or even, replacing it entirely) which would make things much easier/safer.

I don't see any reports about this particular board in #3 (unless I'm blind), I'll look more into this and report there if all goes well.

Side note: I can't use intelmetool, it complains that it can't open /dev/mem. I run linux-hardened, maybe that's why?

FrostKnight commented 3 years ago

I think I had an error like that on my nitropad computer, which is a modified coreboot with no intel me among other odd changes...

You can always load a usb with linux installed on it and try to change the stock bios from there. You probably know more than I do though regarding hardware easily, but yeah, its a good idea if you do it this way if you can't on your hard drive OS. That will tell you if you really have a bios problem or an operating system problem. Use a usb 3.0 or higher though or it will be slow. Although I am sure you knew that already. 90% sure to be precise.