Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

[elzorroazul777]

My X1EG2 has been bricked due to failed firmware update. I have searched all over the internet looking for a BIOS dump and cannot find it for the life of me. I plead to the old gods and new; is there anyone with the X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor willing to create a BIOS dump and share it with me? A tool can be found here: https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thre...Megatrends-Inc and I found that tool by searching reddit.

Thank you!

[SMDFlea]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

My X1EG2 has been bricked due to failed firmware update. I have searched all over the internet looking for a BIOS dump and cannot find it for the life of me. I plead to the old gods and new; is there anyone with the X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor willing to create a BIOS dump and share it with me? A tool can be found here: https://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thre...Megatrends-Inc and I found that tool by searching reddit.

Thank you!

Post the machine type, 20QV 20QW ? .You said in your other thread that the update failed updating the thunderbolt firmware,so maybe you should try flashing that first.Backup both chips and post them here
.

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Thank you, I didn't realize there were two sub-models. The laptop type is 20QV. Just to be clear, are you saying I should read each chip and post those details here?

Should I make a new post asking for the correct bits; Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 2 Type 20qv Need BIOS and Thunderbolt 3 EEPROM dump? Or something to that effect?

[SMDFlea]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Thank you, I didn't realize there were two sub-models. The laptop type is 20QV. Just to be clear, are you saying I should read each chip and post those details here?

Should I make a new post asking for the correct bits; Lenovo X1 Extreme Gen 2 Type 20qv Need BIOS and Thunderbolt 3 EEPROM dump? Or something to that effect?

Backup both chips and post them here

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

I'm sure you're familiar with the black board ch341a programmer that seems to be popular for beginners. The cheap test clip that came with my ch341a programmer is not getting a good connection plus I really need to solder in a jumper cable to make sure I get 3.3v. I put an order in for what I need and it should arrive in a weeks time.

I will post the backups from both chips once I get set up. "MXIC MX25l25673G" "MXIC 25V8035F" these are the two EEPROM chips on the board. Do you know how I can tell what is what?

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Backup both chips and post them here

Here are the two .bin files associated with the chips. MXIC MX25l25673G I believe is BIOS. MXIC MX25l25673G is another EEPROM chip on the board, not sure exactly what it is.

I am using EZP 2019+ Programmer with grounding mod.

[SMDFlea]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Here are the two .bin files associated with the chips. MXIC MX25l25673G I believe is BIOS. MXIC MX25l25673G is another EEPROM chip on the board, not sure exactly what it is.

I am using EZP 2019+ Programmer with grounding mod.

the main bios is a bit corrupt,try reading the chip again

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

the main bios is a bit corrupt,try reading the chip again

I am having trouble uploading so here are two reads of the BIOS chip. I compared them with software and they are identical. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LuF...ew?usp=sharing

[hoaca388]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

It is possible that this machine has two 32MB chips and the chip you have read is not its main bios chip.

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

It is possible that this machine has two 32MB chips and the chip you have read is not its main bios chip.

https://guide-images.cdn.ifixit.com/...2knAXOkL.large

This is an image of the motherboard from a repair website. As far as I can tell there is only one BIOS chip soldered to the board, you can see it in the image near the Wi-Fi board. Some Lenovos have 2 others have one.

ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 ThinkPad X1 Extreme
ThinkPad X1 Extreme 2nd (for mainland China only)
Machine Types: 20QT and 20QU Machine Types: 20QV and 20QW Machine Types: 20QV and 20QW

All of these machines are related to one another. Looking at their motherboards they look practically identical. Is it worth trying to write a BIOS dump from those machines? I see there's a dump available for the first gen model of this laptop on this website.

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

It is possible that this machine has two 32MB chips and the chip you have read is not its main bios chip.

You are right that there are more chips on the board than I realized. Hiding underneath the cooling fan was another EEPROM chip. So far I have found 2 MXIC chips and I just now found 1 Windbond chip.

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

the main bios is a bit corrupt,try reading the chip again

So far I have found 3 chips on the board that may be related to BIOS. I will post backups of all three and corresponding images. Thanks for the help!

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

I think I have it figured out. The schematic tells me the two 1mb spi chips are for the gpu (Winbond) and Thunderbolt controller (MXIC) and the 32mb is for the BIOS (MXIC) obviously.

My motherboard code is 18809-2

[hoaca388]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

I can conclude that your device has the original bios loss and the downloaded file from Lenovo is an incomplete file that cannot be recovered unless someone shares the bios file they have with you.

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

I can conclude that your device has the original bios loss and the downloaded file from Lenovo is an incomplete file that cannot be recovered unless someone shares the bios file they have with you.

I was given these files from a repair website. My motherboard code is 18809-2 and the .bin file here has code 18809-1.

I'm not sure that it will work but I will try it anyway. Is there anything I need to do to prepare the file before writing it to my BIOS chip? Any kind of unique identifiers specific to my board that needs to be included such as MAC address?

[hoaca388]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

I was given these files from a repair website. My motherboard code is 18809-2 and the .bin file here has code 18809-1.

I'm not sure that it will work but I will try it anyway. Is there anything I need to do to prepare the file before writing it to my BIOS chip? Any kind of unique identifiers specific to my board that needs to be included such as MAC address?

Just write the *.bin file to the chip, if there is no display then try to clean the ME area and then flash it again. The file you posted earlier I don't know from what device so nothing can be reused.

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Just write the *.bin file to the chip, if there is no display then try to clean the ME area and then flash it again. The file you posted earlier I don't know from what device so nothing can be reused.

Okay, thank you for your help. I am going to leave some information here for other people to benefit from. I found this process from another helpful person on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqHA...PHC9hPvqHfzM9L His video helps guide the process of writing to the chip.

Specifically this part is important: GJS Computer Stuff - "You'll need to replace the MAC ID in GbE region within the Intel Image with the MAC ID of your computer with the UEIFTool. Normally you can edit the old BIOS to get those numbers, but it also should be stamped or labelled somewhere on your motherboard or computer. If you can't find it on your computer hardware or in the original BIOS, you can also check in your computers hard drive in the registry to find it - but you'll have to do that by reading the hard drive from a different computer (as secondary harddrive). If you boot without changing, your OS will read the MAC ID from the BIOS and store that in your registry and you won't be able to get the old MAC ID from the original hard drive (you'll have to get it somehow from the hardware).
You can always trying leaving the old MAC ID, if one exists in the BIOS you purchased - but I don't know what problems (if any) may arise if you do."

[SMDFlea]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Okay, thank you for your help.

Here`s the bios with clean ME firmware

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Here`s the bios with clean ME firmware

Thank you for this. I think there may be a problem with the embedded controller on the laptop.

https://github.com/flashrom/flashrom

On flashrom's github page there is a warning "Do not use flashrom on laptops (yet)! The embedded controller (EC) present in many laptops might interact badly with any attempts to communicate with the flash chip and may brick your laptop."

The trouble is, after Erase/Write/Verify the laptop will not power on whatsoever. More dead than a door nail, as they say. I'm not sure what can be done about fixing the embedded controller. Perhaps it's time I throw in the towel and accept defeat.. It was a good fight!

[elzorroazul777]

Re: Owners of X1 Extreme Gen 2 w/ i9 Processor I Need BIOS Dump

Does anyone have a recommendation for a budget / decent quality JTAG programmer? Any thoughts on Bus Pirate or Bus Bluster?