Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

[Themi]

Hi all

I’m new. Not a technician but dabble in soldering / repairs as a hobby.

I’ve got hold of a Razer Blade 14 RZ09-01953 which doesn’t appear to be able to produce a display. It will power on ok, fans spin up, cpu, gpu + chipset get warm but no display.

Has 19.78v across the board on all the fuses and 5v and 3.3v present at the two 2R2 resistors near the psu area of the board.

The previous owner said he was flashing the bios and it died so suspect (for now) it needs a new bios chip.

I ordered one from a company on eBay and installed it but machine won’t power on at all with it in place. Reinstalling old chip and board returns to powering on as above. I’m changing the chip at U51/U50 from the guidance of the notes received with the eBay chip.

The two chips are totally different. I’m no expert on ICs so wondering if anyone can shed any light on whether I’ve been sent the wrong chip.

I’ve got a chip reader coming in the post to see if I can resurrect the old chip but still waiting on it to arrive.




Any help thoroughly appreciated.

[Techtiger]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

Suppose your bios is corrupt when the previous owner started flashing bios that doesn’t mean the bios chip is Dead, you just need a good working bios bin And a special tool to do this job , You have two different manufacturers of the bios chip, The bios chip you bought from eBay winbond , you have to contact eBay seller to find out if it’s a empty chip or with a bios bin ? as for the pic you have solder the new bio chip pin 8 with pin1 , remove it clean it and upload a new photo

[Themi]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

Suppose your bios is corrupt when the previous owner started flashing bios that doesn't mean the bios chip is Dead, you just need a good working bios bin And a special tool to do this job , You have two different manufacturers of the bios chip, The bios chip you bought from eBay winbond , you have to contact eBay seller to find out if it's a empty chip or with a bios bin ? as for the pic you have solder the new bio chip pin 8 with pin1 , remove it clean it and upload a new photo

Thanks. I've flipped it around now lining up pin 1 to pad 1 but still no display. It did however manage to start once and the fans spun up but I couldn't power it on again.

I checked on the listing and the seller wrote this:

The chip will be programmed with the latest BIOS ID/version released from the motherboard manufacturer.

Looks like it should have a working bios installed on it.

I've ordered a CH341a reader which I'll check the original chip with and write the RZ09-01953 bios over to it which I found at:


The original chip is a:
Macronix
25L6406E

The eBay chip is a:
Winbond
25Q64JVSIQ

I was looking through the data sheets for each chip and they appear to have slightly different pin outs for pins 3 and 7.

Do you think the Winbond would be compatible in place of the original Macronix? Even with these differences?

Macronix datasheet:


Winbond datasheet:
https://cdn.badcaps-static.com/pdfs/...824c95df44.pdf

I've left both chips off for the moment as neither work, while I wait on the card reader.

[piernov]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

25L6406E doesn't seem to be compatible with quad SPI mode, but I don't know if this machine is supposed to work in quad SPI mode or not. In any case for proper operation the chip has to be in the VSCC table, so having a known good dump would help check that.

The cooked edge bonding on the large BGA just next door is worrying… don't use hot air when working so close to a BGA, or at the very least shield it well.

[Themi]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

25L6406E doesn't seem to be compatible with quad SPI mode, but I don't know if this machine is supposed to work in quad SPI mode or not. In any case for proper operation the chip has to be in the VSCC table, so having a known good dump would help check that.

The cooked edge bonding on the large BGA just next door is worrying… don't use hot air when working so close to a BGA, or at the very least shield it well.

I'm a little confused. The Macronix 25L6406E was the original chip installed at U50/U51 when I got the machine. Is it safe to assume the machine doesn't need quad SPI mode if 25L6406E was previously working ok?

Is the VSCC table contained within the bios update to show which chips are compatible?

EDIT: have I got that wrong about the VSCC table? Is this contained in the ME descriptor region? Sorry still trying to learn so this VSCC table will state which chips are compatible with the system?

When you say 'a known good dump' do you mean of the ME firmware or the bios itself?

Still waiting on the CH341a chip reader to arrive and hopefully give more answers.

Am I definitely replacing the correct chip at U50/U51? This is what the ebay seller noted as the bios chip.

EDIT EDIT: point taken about the hot air next to the BGA chip. That was a bad idea on my part. Should have just used the iron.

[SMDFlea]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

The bios chip you bought is ok,provided it does have the correct bios written to it. Both bios chips are in the VSCC table.

Winbond cross reference - https://www.winbond.com/hq/support/r...earch=25L6406E

[Themi]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

The bios chip you bought is ok,provided it does have the correct bios written to it. Both bios chips are in the VSCC table.

Winbond cross reference - https://www.winbond.com/hq/support/r...earch=25L6406E

Thanks very much - clears that up for me. I'll inspect both chips when the card reader comes through.

[Themi]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

To update.
I got the chip programmer through and attached the Winbond eBay chip to it. I took a dump of the bios and compared this to the known good RZ09-01953 bios on here in notepad++ viewing in hex. I could immediately see there was an difference on line 8 of the Winbond eBay bios dump.

I also soldered the original Micronix chip to the programmer and took a bios dump of that and found it to have a very different bios to that of the other two dumps.

I cleared the micronix and wrote + verified the known good rz09... bios from here then reinstalled it into the machine.

At this point nothing was connected to the mainboard other than display, fans and power adaptor. Initially there was no life from the board so I left it a while pressing the power button intermittently. Still no joy.

I disconnected the AC and installed the bios battery then reconnected the AC.

Tried the power again and the fans started then stopped after a few seconds. I've noticed the same auto restart process from pc's when resetting the bios so left it alone. A few resets later the display came on.

I reinstalled everything back into the casing and replaced a 10 pole ribbon cable and everything is back to working order.

EDIT: I contacted the ebay seller to state there was a mismatch on line 8 of his bios vs mine and that I wouldn't need his chip any longer. He refunded without any notification.

[mcplslg123]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

@themi, its not unsual to have some differences between two bios dump from same motherboard as the bios version may be different,me region may be different. To compare a bios dump notepad is not that suitable-use a hex editor instead eg HXD.

[Themi]

Re: Razer Blade RZ09-01953 suspect faulty bios, ordered chip but not the same

@themi, its not unsual to have some differences between two bios dump from same motherboard as the bios version may be different,me region may be different. To compare a bios dump notepad is not that suitable-use a hex editor instead eg HXD.

thanks that's good to know. I'll keep that in mind for any future repairs of the same nature.