Gotta start shorting early on MEC1663. Listen to the coils whining noise, as soon as you hear it, short pin 8 to GND for 1-2 sec. Before you see any image. I also used external screen with internal disconnected and external keyboard. And use ALT+CTRL+DEL to restart and try over and over. You'll get it eventually.
Also I used a tape to cover every other pin except for #8 to save myself a headache of accidentally shorting 2 pins next to each other....

I believe only v-Pro systems have 2 chips - the ones with i5-1145G7 and i7-1185G7...

Have you tried removing all power sources including CMOS battery and holding the reset switch for 60 sec?...

This random crap cracked me up. How did it even end up in the UEFI? I’d assume the original owner wasn’t completely transparent about what actually happened. But there’s not much we can do about that.

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SMDFlea, I appreciate your help. They most certainly are corrupted. I'm entirely missing one GUID (8C8CE578-8A3D-4F1C-9935-896185C32DD3) in 32MB chip. All reads are supposedly consistent, repeated them a couple times and CRCs and HEXes matched. Also who knows what else got corrupted in both chips. I was just trying to educate myself and not bother anyone. So assumed that maybe I'd get somewhere by comparing the dumps myself and seeking some assistance from AI, haha

Serial Number PF3X12TT
Machine Type Model 21CQ000GUS...

Guys, can anyone please share the dumps for both 32MB and 16MB SPIs from a known-working system that has no passwords. I don't feel like flashing EC ROM (the 16MB chip) with something password locked. Device in question allegedly failed the update but had no passwords and I can't find anything I can safely try.

There are 2 BIOS SPI chips on the board. And I don't believe they are supposed to have the same firmware. At least none of the ones I checked did.
And since your password in stored in EC, flashing any other dump won't do anything anything for you. As well as Maxpower3's method mentioned earlier. IIRC L13G2 uses eSPI, so you might end up shorting out the CPU. My best guess is that that reading and re-flashing EC ([URL="https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubleshooting-hardware-devices-and-electronics-theory/troubleshooting-laptops-tablets-and-mobile-devices/bios-requests-only/98089-t14s-mec-1663-jtag-pinout-bios-password-removal"]similar...

Unfortunately, same error - Invalid File Specified. Sadly, at least for me it doesn't work. Not sure what's going on here. But I'd really appreciate if you could share it one way or another....

I have a similar issue with mine and was looking for someone with a vPro CPU to share their backups. Mine (supposedly faulty, but not sure) are on the previous page. I'd be willing to flash yours and see if anything changes, but it looks like your upload hasn't been successful as I'm getting "Invalid File Specified" while trying to download....

WDYM by "no longer boots? Does it post and give any errors?


It is ALWAYS a rule of thumb to back up whatever you have before proceeding any further. Do this multiple times. In this case for both chips. Then verify that you have a consistent read either by comparing the files or by comparing CRCs that your software gives you at the end of the reading process.


I would recommend you taking one step at a time. For now it is unclear what the problem is. Cleaning BIOS for Intel systems usually means replacing initialized ME region with a clean (configured...

Well, y'all can disregard the request. Issue solved by flashing the 32MB dump from the first post in this thread. I hesitated due to it coming from a BIOS-locked device and the CPUs being different (Ryzen 5 Pro vs regular Ryzen 5), but apparently there was no trouble with that. Password obviously isn't stored in the main BIOS flash, and there are no CPU-specific versions of BIOS for these systems.
So the laptop is up and running. Just replaced the part with winkey using the data from my original dump and flashed it back with NeoProgrammer setting SPI ID to MX25U25635F as MX77U25650F was...

Hey, guys! Could someone pls take a look at this dump. Laptop powers on to a "Self-healing BIOS recovery processing". Runs through it VERY quickly, like 0 to 100% in 1-2 seconds, reboots and same procedure repeats over and over.
Obviously at this point I've tried all sorts of BIOS reset procedures, none of that helps.
I managed to find a couple of dumps belonging to the systems with Pro CPUs, mine is a non-pro (Ryzen 5 5625U). And I'm uncertain if I can safely flash those as non-pro systems have 2 BIOS chips (32M+2M), while pro systems have 32+16.
Here is [URL="https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-l-series-laptops/thinkpad-l14-gen-3-type-21c5-21c6/21c6/21c6x00100/pw03tlyr/downloads/ds555119-bios-update-utility-bootable-cd-for-windows-11-10-64-bit-thinkpad-l14-gen-3-l15-gen-3?category=BIOS%2FUEFI"]a...

Thanks, man! Unfortunately, the outcome is the same. Device powered on, there was some delay probably due to memory training, it then turned off and back on, screen backlight came on, but as with my original bios there are no beeps and no image. CPU is warm, but I guess we can conclude that it is either the CPU or the RAM to blame. Not sure if it is important to have main BIOS chip contents in sync with secondary 16MB chip. What is it responsible for? And there's also a chance that EC FW could be damaged, but I do not have the means to verify that. I appreciate your time and effort anyway!...

Can someone please check my BIOS dumps to see if they're okay?
The device powers on but doesn't beep, even after disconnecting all power, including the CMOS battery, overnight.
The keyboard lights up, the screen backlight turns on, but there's no image (LCD test passed, and an external monitor showed no output with the LCD cable disconnected).
The fan spins, the CPU gets warm, and the battery charges.

In the hex editor, I noticed Fedora and Ubuntu were installed, and the Windows key section looks suspicious.
The device allegedly runs UEFI 1.40 (R22ET70W), which...

Do not power it down. Just Ctrl+Alt+Del for restart.
What helped me with timing on one of the devices is that I based my actions on coil whine noise as you can hear it even before the logo shows up....

I was referring to those 3 boxes of T480s. Not the other devices he has.
When I was following Maxpower's instructions for the first time with MEC1663 device it took me like 30 min, the next one was probably 5 min or so. So yes, bypass method would be faster, but if he absolutely can't move anywhere, I don't see a reason for not using Autopatcher on 8th gen Kaby Lake R. Instead of just killing boards one by one like he reported. Do you?...

Why don't you just unlock them all with [URL="https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubleshooting-hardware-devices-and-electronics-theory/troubleshooting-laptops-tablets-and-mobile-devices/bios-requests-only/78215-lenovo-bios-auto-patcher-for-supervisor-password-removal"]Autopatcher[/URL] and 10EUR USB Programmer (CH341a + SOIC8 clip)? No soldering, no nothing. Just need another device and python installed.Why don't you just unlock them all with [URL="https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubleshooting-hardware-devices-and-electronics-theory/troubleshooting-laptops-tablets-and-mobile-devices/bios-requests-only/78215-lenovo-bios-auto-patcher-for-supervisor-password-removal"]Autopatcher[/URL]...

1) You're not using the correct version of CSME. It doesn't work in a way where you get the latest/highest number and it works for everything
2) Upload your dump if you want someone to help. Otherwise this post isn't gonna go anywhere
3) I'm not a bios wizard myself, but these older machines are relatively easy to clean ME on. And if I'm being correct FL1 and FL2 are not related to ME. That's BIOS and probably EC.

Thanks! Now it's not power cycling. Stays on. But still no picture. And that bios2 file has the same errors if opened with ME Analyzer. Not sure if that's ok or not. However there's still a chance that there might be hardware issues as well, I can't tell for sure. For now I'm gonna continue looking for a bios2 dump from another working system.
I'm also not sure why, but with both fixed bios1 files I got, my bios region is still 16MB, not 24. And in both cases the part with Windows key was removed....

Not sure if this changes anything. I tried some of the BIOSes linked above like in post #24 for example. With them laptop stays on, not power cycling. But still has no image. And none of the bios dumps that I was able to find came from a vPro machine. Non-vPros have only 1 BIOS chip. So at this point I still can't verify how different the contents of that other chip should be. Schematics say that it is used for NIST (see linked image). It can't be opened and fixed with FIT (mine has ME version that is unconfigured and in disagreement with the BIOS1 chip as shown in #29 screenshots).
Difference...