I tried flashing my laptop to the latest 3.17 version from an old version to get around the charging bug. I used the EFI method but it bricked my machine. I went through support and I’m out of warranty and they told me to be a new mainboard.
Upon startup I get blue lights that blink during the second sequence indicating that there is something wrong with the CPU. Before the firmware update the laptop booted just fine.
I’ve followed this sweet guide on flashing the firmware via a CH341 flasher and am able to dump my current firmware but don’t know if the chip has the proper firmware on it because the laptop won’t boot.
Does anyone have a dump of the current, 3.17 firmware from the EC that they could upload so I can check it against what I have?
The only problem is that I’ve followed the guide listed there after building an Ubuntu build machine. It failes during build. Then there is the issue of getting the actual build number of the EC? Which build is the current, stable release of the EC firmware? Then there is flashing. The bin file generated is only 512Kb and the EC has the BIOS firmware copied twice. What is north of 1Mib? What code is that and is it dependent on the version of firmware in the BIOS? There are almost too many questions here that aren’t documented anywhere to flash this thing.
If you are getting blink codes, your EC is intact and you should not need to reflash it. It will be OK to temporarily run a newer EC build with an older AP firmware.
After you get back up and running, you can reinstall a same-version firmware update (matching the one you manually flashed) using the Insyde flash tool and it will bring the EC back to the right version.
Specifically, you should be looking for a larger-capacity flash chip (128 or 256 Mbit). You can extract the capsule image from one of the “EFI shell” update packages and flash that to the large-capacity flash chip you identified earlier.
You can safely ignore the embedded controller and it’s associated flash chip until you’ve repaired the AP firmware.
I have nothing relevant that could help you to share but I’d like to say I find it disconcerting that to my knowledge, there’s no guide on how to flash firmware on bricked systems. I think it would be in line with Framework’s goals to write and publish one—all the more so because accidents of this nature clearly happen.
Nevertheless, it’s disappointing to read that under the current circumstances, rather than to refer to official documentation, the customer support suggests that a new motherboard is purchased in such a case. This is plain antithetic to the company’s mission.
Sorry, I’m using the EC’s term for the CPU, the “Application Processor”. I’m recommending that you find the flash chip containing the system firmware–rather than the embedded controller firmware–and reflashing that chip with a capsule image (hx20_capsule*.bin) from an older version of the EFI shell updater.
I’ve been pretty harsh on Framework in the past but what you suggest is a bad take. If a computer is bricked, then it is wholly unable to be interacted with outside of external programmers and the like. Do you really mean to suggest every buyer of the Framework laptop should also both own and be knowledgeable in the use of such programmers? Be reasonable, most consumers will not own nor have any interest in learning how to resurrect a dead board in such a way or to solder new chips onto a board. The firmware flashing guide is one thing, that could be possible and of use, the rest not so much.
I don’t think anyone would suggest that. But I think many of the more technically inclined users could follow a guide.
With a step-by-step guide, this is nowhere near soldering imo. You need more skill for soldering, practice, and it costs more for decent equipment set up.
Manual flashing takes a pogo pin adapter & an usb flasher. Holding pogo pin adapters on can be fiddly but not terrible. Altogether, I think manual flashing is doable without prior experience.
But maybe a guide shouldn’t be placed along with others. Being a last resort thing. It might be better as a community created thing.