Searching for recent BIOS image for a Lenovo p43s

[Ian Slinger]

My p43s recently died - the classic "ESC, F1,F4, Capslock lights" issue so it won't even POST.

It's possible there was a glitch during a firmware upgrade so I'm looking for a recent BIOS image to reflash with. The Lenovo site provides plenty of EXE and ISO files to recover but of course it won't boot so they're useless.

A search on Badcaps doesn't seem to turn up anything specifically to do this, for example a .BIN file. Going by the designation on the Winbond chip it appears to be an 8mb image.

Am I missing something?

[SMDFlea]

8MB is too small. It will be a single 32MB chip, or split across 2 chips , maybe 8+16MB not sure. Post your serial number

[Ian Slinger]

Serial number is PF1CSTFM.

The chip designation is W25Q80DV which is why I assumed it was 8Mb. There is only the one Winbond chip other than one that appears to be 256Mb (25Q256JVEQ).

[SMDFlea]

Serial number is PF1CSTFM.

The chip designation is W25Q80DV which is why I assumed it was 8Mb. There is only the one Winbond chip other than one that appears to be 256Mb (25Q256JVEQ).

25Q256JVEQ is the right one

[Ian Slinger]

Makes sense in retrospect - 256M bits, so 32M bytes.

Doesn't look like I can flash that with my CH341A (the supplied clip is too small). I might have to solder some wire wrap wire to the pins.

The real trick is to get hold of the right BIN file to flash. Any pointers on finding that?

I have downloaded various EXEs and ISOs and pulled them apart with binwalk but it's hard to identify which file to flash.

[SMDFlea]

Makes sense in retrospect - 256M bits, so 32M bytes.

Doesn't look like I can flash that with my CH341A (the supplied clip is too small). I might have to solder some wire wrap wire to the pins.
The real trick is to get hold of the right BIN file to flash. Any pointers on finding that?
I have downloaded various EXEs and ISOs and pulled them apart with binwalk but it's hard to identify which file to flash.

Its essential that you make a good backup, then post it here. If the chip is a WSON8 you can get a pogo pin adapter, but if you can solder some wires to the traces/solder it will be more reliable.

[Ian Slinger]

Ok, I'll try to get a pogo pin adapter before I possibly make a mess trying to solder to tiny pins.

Is the backup so it can be analysed to see what the correct file might be? Because I'm assuming it is corrupted, so a backup might not reflect the actual binary, otherwise it would be working

Or does configuration information actually get written to it that could be corrected?

[Ian Slinger]

Sigh. I appear to have won the battle but lost the war.

I de soldered the flash chip, soldered it into the carrier for the CH341A and successfully flashed it with a BIOS I found on badcaps. No sign of life at all now. At least the fan and keyboard sprang to life for a second or so before.

Might be time to cut my losses.

[SMDFlea]

post your original backup(s)

[Ian Slinger]

Here you go...