This is a guide that I am writing for helping others to replace their MEC1503 EC chip if it breaks (or to get around an inconvenient prompt to the BIOS). This forum has been extremely helpful to me so I would like to contribute to help others. I will tell you right now that this task is very difficult to do. You MUST have experience and tools to do precision micro-soldering, BGA reballing, trace repair, and general laptop repair skills.
There are some specialty tools needed to do this task. The replacement MEC1503 chips can be acquired from Aliexpress. Do not buy the bare chips as...
Long story short:
- dad converted Asus Chromebox CN62 into Windows compatible, with mrchromebox BIOS, years and years ago
- gave the computer to his son a couple years later
- son now decided to revert it to Chrome OS, to sell it as original (re-writing BIOS with the backup one created by his dad)
- too lazy to remove the board from the case, thought a voltage regulator was the BIOS chip (you know... it has 8 legs)
(seems like the story was not that short)
He used alligator clips to read the chip. No luck reading it. Removed chip and placed on a SOC-8...
Thanks for any help. The board version is DAZAARMB6E0 REV: E. The bios chip is winbond 25Q64JVSIQ1736. W25Q64JV is not available in AsProgrammer -- only BV CV FV or FW_1.8c. The chip won't interface with asProgrammer and a CH341A. When I have this chip on the board, the laptop will not post but when I plug it in to power, the blue LED lights up, also the orange when the battery is connected. When I push the power on button, keyboard backlight turns on and the fan starts briefely then turns off. But I can't do anything to program this bios chip so I bought another one.
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