Lenovo Thinkpad L13 Gen 3 AMD BIOS

[chucklio]

Hi all,

Would like to ask some help to bring my L13 Gen 3 AMD laptop back to life after a BIOS update gone wrong. I was updating to BIOS 1.30, as always, laptop connected to AC, didn't touch anything. 1h later the screen was black and the laptop didn't respond. Waited 3 more hours until I decided to just turn it off and on again. Now it doesn't show anything on boot, keyboard light turns on a few seconds and then nothing, just the light on the power button. Left it all night, clicked the reset button, disconnected battery and cell coin battery for 2h... still nothing. Also tried creating a bootable BIOS USB with geteltorito, holding Fn+R with just the BIOS (.FL1 renamed to .bin), with no avail. I'm a bit desperate as you can see.

I bought a CH341A programmer with SOIC8 SOP8 connector, but I actually don't know which chips I should target. I have found a GigaDevice 25Q16ESIG chip (probably EC), and there's a ThinkShield chip right next to it which is an NPCX997KA... which doesn't seem to have the connectors easily accessible as the other one.

The programmer should arrive next week, already opened a ticket with Lenovo but the laptop is out of warranty for more than 1 year now...
Model is 21B9-002BUK
SN is PW02GT24

Any hints on which are the chips and if it's possible to flash the BIOS directly?

Much appreciated.

[chucklio]

This is the bios that messed all up... https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/p...ry=BIOS%2FUEFI

I know I shouldn't flash BIOS which are just a day old... I guess now I've learnt my lesson the hard way...

[SMDFlea]

Post the motherboard model number

[chucklio]

I think this is what you're looking for, right?

Lenovo BDPLANAR R7PR 5875U16GRZ616YDTL3WINyABYD
Part No 5B21E18335
Commodity SYSTEM BOARDS
Mfg Part SBB1B03017, SL11G55479

Thanks!

[chucklio]

Sorry, found it now, motherboard model is this one:213005-2

Thanks

[chucklio]

Lenovo pulled the BIOS update because of the brick, although they're still insisting that it's not covered by the warranty.
I've received the programmer and made a backup of BIOS2, attached.

How is the BIOS self-healing feature supposed to work? I guess I still need the raw data from the BIOS1 chip, which I guess will be on the other side of the board and will upload later today.

Thanks

[hoaca388]

Lenovo pulled the BIOS update because of the brick, although they're still insisting that it's not covered by the warranty.
I've received the programmer and made a backup of BIOS2, attached.

How is the BIOS self-healing feature supposed to work? I guess I still need the raw data from the BIOS1 chip, which I guess will be on the other side of the board and will upload later today.

Thanks

Backup fault , it is only 156.5 KB after compression.

[chucklio]

Backup fault , it is only 156.5 KB after compression.

Thanks for taking a look, what size is it supposed to have? I did more than 10 reads again, moving the clip and always got the same checksum, the size is 308KB now, hopefully that's correct now.

[SMDFlea]

Thanks for taking a look, what size is it supposed to have? I did more than 10 reads again, moving the clip and always got the same checksum, the size is 308KB now, hopefully that's correct now.

What part number is etched/written on top of that chip

[chucklio]

What part number is etched/written on top of that chip

GigaDevice 25Q16ESIG, I assume it's the EC.

Near the CPU there's a MX77U25650FZ4I42 labeled BIOS1 which I haven't been able to read.

Thanks

[hoaca388]

GigaDevice 25Q16ESIG, I assume it's the EC.

Near the CPU there's a MX77U25650FZ4I42 labeled BIOS1 which I haven't been able to read.

Thanks

Read this MX77U25650FZ4I42