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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<style type="text/css">
@import url('../css/main.css');
</style>
<title>ThinkPad X200: flashing tutorial (BeagleBone Black)</title>
</head>
<body>
<div class="section">
<h1 id="pagetop">Flashing the X200 with a BeagleBone Black</h1>
<p>Initial flashing instructions for X200.</p>
<p>
This guide is for those who want libreboot on their ThinkPad X200
while they still have the original Lenovo BIOS present. This guide
can also be followed (adapted) if you brick your X200, to know how
to recover.
</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="#flashchips">Flash chips</a></li>
<li><a href="#macaddress">MAC address</a></li>
<li><a href="#clip">Initial BBB configuration and installation procedure</a></li>
<li><a href="#boot">Boot it!</a></li>
<li><a href="#wifi">Wifi</a></li>
<li><a href="#wwan">wwan</a></li>
<li><a href="#memory">Memory</a></li>
<li><a href="#gpio33">X200S and X200 Tablet users: GPIO33 trick will not work.</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="index.html">Back to main index</a></p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1 id="flashchips">Flash chips</h1>
<p>
The X200 will use an 8MiB or 64Mb SOIC-16 chip (rare models
will use a 4MiB or 32Mb SOIC-8 chip), below the palm rest.
</p>
<p>
To easily identify which size chip is present, before fully disassemblying:<br>
# <b>dmidecode | grep ROM\ Size</b><br>
</p>
<pre>
# ROM Size: 8192 kB
</pre>
<p>
The X200S and X200 Tablet will use a WSON-8 flash chip, on the
bottom of the motherboard (this requires removal of the
motherboard). <b>Not all X200S/X200T are supported;
see <a href="../hcl/x200.html#x200s">../hcl/x200.html#x200s</a>.</b>
</p>
<p>
<a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a>
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1 id="macaddress">MAC address</h1>
<p>
On the X200/X200S/X200T, the MAC address for the onboard
gigabit ethernet chipset is stored inside the flash chip,
along with other configuration data.
</p>
<p>
Keep a note of the MAC address before disassembly; this is
very important, because you will need to insert this into
the libreboot ROM image before flashing it.
It will be written in one of these locations:
</p>
<p>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0002.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0001.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1 id="clip">Initial BBB configuration</h1>
<p>
Refer to <a href="bbb_setup.html">bbb_setup.html</a> for how to
set up the BBB for flashing.
</p>
<p>
The following shows how to connect the clip to the BBB (on the P9 header), for SOIC-16 (clip: Pomona 5252):
</p>
<pre>
POMONA 5252 (correlate with the BBB guide)
=== front (display) on your X200 ====
NC - - 21
1 - - 17
NC - - NC
NC - - NC
NC - - NC
NC - - NC
18 - - 3.3V (PSU)
22 - - NC - this is pin 1 on the flash chip
=== back (palmrest) on your X200 ===
<i>This is how you will connect. Numbers refer to pin numbers on the BBB, on the plugs near the DC jack.</i>
Here is a photo of the SOIC-16 flash chip. Pins are labelled:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/x200_pomona.jpg" alt="" />
</pre>
<p>
The following shows how to connect the clip to the BBB (on the P9 header), for SOIC-8 (clip: Pomona 5250):
</p>
<pre>
POMONA 5250 (correlate with the BBB guide)
=== left side of the X200 (where the VGA port is) ====
18 - - 1
22 - - NC
NC - - 21
3.3V (PSU) - - 17 - this is pin 1 on the flash chip. in front of it is the screen.
=== right side of the X200 (where the audio jacks are) ===
<i>This is how you will connect. Numbers refer to pin numbers on the BBB, on the plugs near the DC jack.</i>
Here is a photo of the SOIC-8 flash chip. The pins are labelled:<br/>
<img title="Copyright 2015 Patrick "P. J." McDermott <pj@pehjota.net>, CC BY-SA 3.0 or later" src="images/x200/soic8.jpg" alt="freenode IRC #libreboot 01:42 UK/London timezone February 8th 2015: pehjota: fchmmr: Here are two photos in the camera's configured resolution; resize them as you wish: http://www.pehjota.net/~pj/x200/soic-8/. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 or later. If you want other angles or anything, let me know." alt="" />
Look at the pads in that photo, on the left and right. Those are for SOIC-16. Would it be possible to remove the SOIC-8 and solder a SOIC-16
chip on those pins?
</pre>
<p>
<b>On the X200S the flash chip is underneath the board, in a WSON package.
The pinout is very much the same as a SOIC-8, except you need to solder (there are no clips available).<br/>
The following image shows how this is done:</b><br/>
<img src="images/x200/wson_soldered.jpg" title="Copyright 2014 Steve Shenton <sgsit@libreboot.org> under CC-BY-SA 4.0" alt="" />
<br/>
In this image, a pin header was soldered onto the WSON. Another solution might be to de-solder the WSON-8 chip and put a SOIC-8 there instead.
Check the list of SOIC-8 flash chips at <a href="../hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#flashchips">../hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#flashchips</a> but
do note that these are only 4MiB (32Mb) chips. The only X200 SPI chips with 8MiB capacity are SOIC-16. For 8MiB capacity in this case,
the X201 SOIC-8 flash chip (Macronix 25L6445E) might work.
</p>
<h2>
The procedure
</h2>
<p>
This section is for the X200. This does not apply to the X200S or X200 Tablet
(for those machines, you have to remove the motherboard completely, since
the flash chip is on the other side of the board).
</p>
<p>
Remove these screws:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0003.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
Push the keyboard forward, gently, then lift it off and
disconnect it from the board:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0004.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0005.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
Pull the palm rest off, lifting from the left and right side at the back of the
palm rest:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0006.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
Lift back the tape that covers a part of the flash chip, and
then connect the clip:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0007.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0008.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
On pin 2 of the BBB, where you have the ground (GND), connect the
ground to your PSU:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0009.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0010.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
Connect the 3.3V supply from your PSU to the flash chip (via
the clip):<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0011.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0012.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
Of course, make sure that your PSU is also plugged in and
turn on:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0013.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
This tutorial tells you to use an ATX PSU, for the 3.3V DC
supply. The PSU used when taking these photos is actually
not an ATX PSU, but a PSU that is designed specifically
for providing 3.3V DC (an ATX PSU will also work):<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0014.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
Now, you should be ready to install libreboot.
</p>
<p>
Flashrom binaries for ARM (tested on a BBB) are distributed in libreboot_util. Alternatively,
libreboot also distributes flashrom source code which can be built.
</p>
<p>
Log in as root on your BBB, using the instructions in
<a href="bbb_setup.html#bbb_access">bbb_setup.html#bbb_access</a>.
</p>
<p>
Test that flashrom works:<br/>
# <b>./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev1.0,spispeed=512</b><br/>
In this case, the output was:
</p>
<pre>
flashrom v0.9.7-r1854 on Linux 3.8.13-bone47 (armv7l)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Found Macronix flash chip "MX25L6405(D)" (8192 kB, SPI) on linux_spi.
Found Macronix flash chip "MX25L6406E/MX25L6436E" (8192 kB, SPI) on linux_spi.
Found Macronix flash chip "MX25L6445E/MX25L6473E" (8192 kB, SPI) on linux_spi.
Multiple flash chip definitions match the detected chip(s): "MX25L6405(D)", "MX25L6406E/MX25L6436E", "MX25L6445E/MX25L6473E"
Please specify which chip definition to use with the -c <chipname> option.
</pre>
<p>
How to backup factory.rom (change the -c option as neeed, for your flash chip):<br/>
# <b>./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev1.0,spispeed=512 -r factory.rom</b><br/>
# <b>./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev1.0,spispeed=512 -r factory1.rom</b><br/>
# <b>./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev1.0,spispeed=512 -r factory2.rom</b><br/>
Note: the <b>-c</b> option is not required in libreboot's patched flashrom, because
the redundant flash chip definitions in <i>flashchips.c</i> have been removed.<br/>
Now compare the 3 images:<br/>
# <b>sha512sum factory*.rom</b><br/>
If the hashes match, then just copy one of them (the factory.rom) to a safe place (on a drive connected to another machine, not
the BBB). This is useful for reverse engineering work, if there is a desirable behaviour in the original firmware
that could be replicated in coreboot and libreboot.
</p>
<p>
Follow the instructions at <a href="../hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#ich9gen">../hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#ich9gen</a>
to change the MAC address inside the libreboot ROM image, before flashing it.
Although there is a default MAC address inside the ROM image, this is not what you want. <b>Make sure
to always change the MAC address to one that is correct for your system.</b>
</p>
<p>
Now flash it:<br/>
# <b>./flashrom -p linux_spi:dev=/dev/spidev1.0,spispeed=512 -w path/to/libreboot/rom/image.rom -V</b>
</p>
<p>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0015.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
You might see errors, but if it says <b>Verifying flash... VERIFIED</b> at the end, then it's flashed and should boot.
If you see errors, try again (and again, and again); the message <b>Chip content is identical to the requested image</b>
is also an indication of a successful installation.
</p>
<p>
Example output from running the command (see above):
</p>
<pre>
flashrom v0.9.7-r1854 on Linux 3.8.13-bone47 (armv7l)
flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org
Calibrating delay loop... OK.
Found Macronix flash chip "MX25L6405(D)" (8192 kB, SPI) on linux_spi.
Reading old flash chip contents... done.
Erasing and writing flash chip... FAILED at 0x00001000! Expected=0xff, Found=0x00, failed byte count from 0x00000000-0x0000ffff: 0xd716
ERASE FAILED!
Reading current flash chip contents... done. Looking for another erase function.
Erase/write done.
Verifying flash... VERIFIED.
</pre>
<p>
<a href="#pagetop">Back to top of page.</a>
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1 id="wifi">Wifi</h1>
<p>
The X200 typically comes with an Intel wifi chipset, which does not
work without proprietary software. For a list of wifi chipsets that
work without proprietary software, see
<a href="../hcl/index.html#recommended_wifi">../hcl/index.html#recommended_wifi</a>.
</p>
<p>
Some X200 laptops come with an Atheros chipset, but this is 802.11g only.
</p>
<p>
It is recommended that you install a new wifi chipset. This can only
be done after installing libreboot, because the original firmware has
a whitelist of approved chips, and it will refuse to boot if you
use an 'unauthorized' wifi card.
</p>
<p>
The following photos show an Atheros AR5B95 being installed, to
replace the Intel chip that this X200 came with:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0016.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0017.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1 id="wwan">WWAN</h1>
<p>
If you have a WWAN/3G card and/or sim card reader, remove them permanently.
The WWAN-3G card has DMA, and proprietary firmware inside; the technology is
identical to what is used in mobile phones, so it can also track your movements.
</p>
<p>
Not to be confused with wifi (wifi is fine).
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h1 id="memory">Memory</h1>
<p>
You need DDR3 SODIMM PC3-8500 RAM installed, in matching pairs
(speed/size). Non-matching pairs won't work. You can also install a
single module (meaning, one of the slots will be empty) in slot 0.
</p>
<p>
Make sure that the RAM you buy is the 2Rx8 density.
</p>
<p>
In this photo, 8GiB of RAM (2x4GiB) is installed:<br/>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0018.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="boot">
Boot it!
</h2>
<p>
You should see something like this:
</p>
<p>
<img src="images/x200/disassembly/0019.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
Now <a href="../gnulinux/index.html">install GNU/Linux</a>.
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<h2 id="gpio33">
X200S and X200 Tablet users: GPIO33 trick will not work.
</h2>
<p>
sgsit found out about a pin called GPIO33, which can be grounded to disable the flashing protections
by the descriptor and stop the ME from starting (which itself interferes with flashing attempts).
The theory was proven correct; however, it is still useless in practise.
</p>
<p>
Look just above the 7 in TP37 (that's GPIO33):<br/>
<img src="../hcl/images/x200/gpio33_location.jpg" alt="" />
</p>
<p>
By default we would see this in lenovobios, when trying flashrom -p internal -w rom.rom:
</p>
<pre>
FREG0: Warning: Flash Descriptor region (0x00000000-0x00000fff) is read-only.
FREG2: Warning: Management Engine region (0x00001000-0x005f5fff) is locked.
</pre>
<p>
With GPIO33 grounded during boot, this disabled the flash protections as set
by descriptor, and stopped the ME from starting. The output changed to:
</p>
<pre>
The Flash Descriptor Override Strap-Pin is set. Restrictions implied by
the Master Section of the flash descriptor are NOT in effect. Please note
that <b>Protected Range (PR) restrictions still apply.</b>
</pre>
<p>
The part in bold is what got us. This was still observed:
</p>
<pre>
PR0: Warning: 0x007e0000-0x01ffffff is read-only.
PR4: Warning: 0x005f8000-0x005fffff is locked.
</pre>
<p>
It is actually possible to disable these protections. Lenovobios does,
when updating the BIOS (proprietary one). One possible way to go about this
would be to debug the BIOS update utility from Lenovo, to find out
how it's disabling these protections. Some more research is available here:
<a href="http://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x200/internal_flashing_research">http://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x200/internal_flashing_research</a>
</p>
<p>
On a related note, libreboot has a utility that could help with investigating this:
<a href="../hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#demefactory">../hcl/gm45_remove_me.html#demefactory</a>
</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<p>
Copyright © 2014, 2015 Francis Rowe <info@gluglug.org.uk><br/>
This document is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License and all future versions.
A copy of the license can be found at <a href="../cc-by-sa-4.txt">../cc-by-sa-4.txt</a>.
</p>
<p>
This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See <a href="../cc-by-sa-4.txt">../cc-by-sa-4.txt</a> for more information.
</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>
|
