06-30-2020, 03:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-30-2020, 03:43 PM by techwizardz.)
Hello. Very new to the world of BIOS modding and using hex editors so please forgive me if I sound like I don't know what I am talking about because well...I kind of don't.
That said, I have a ASUS E203MA that I suspect may have a corrupt BIOS. The computer powers on, but black screen. No external video either. Tried some initial troubleshooting and I am down to either corrupt BIOS or faulty motherboard. I want to try BIOS first. I removed the motherboard from the laptop and then desoldered the Winbond BIOS chip. Using a Raspberry Pi 3 and some soldered-on wires, I used flashrom to take a dump of the original (possibly corrupt) BIOS and saved it as a .bin
I then downloaded the latest BIOS from ASUS's website. (https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-Lap...Desk_BIOS/) It is my understanding that ASUS BIOS updates are not complete BIOS ROMs, but rather, a partial ROM that ASUS EZ-Flash merges in with the existing BIOS during an update or something to that effect. I'm not really sure how that works, but that is my general understanding however wrong it may be.
I was reading about other users with a similar situation on ASUS's website (https://rog.asus.com/forum/archive/index...55497.html) and some users were creating "reconstructed BIOS" images by dumping the original ROM and then merging in the downloaded update using a hex editor by following this:
I downloaded HxD and loaded both the original dump and the update file I downloaded from ASUS. I can see the files are indeed different, but here is where I become painfully lost. I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing at this point. I was hoping someone could help me.
Basically, I am trying to get an up-to-date ASUS BIOS ROM (as a .bin) by merging my dump with the latest ASUS update so I can then flash that image back to the Winbond chip, solder it back to the motherboard, and see if it fixes my problem.
I have attached my original dump to this post. Thanks a lot for your help guys!
Original dump: https://www.filehosting.org/file/details...iginal.zip
That said, I have a ASUS E203MA that I suspect may have a corrupt BIOS. The computer powers on, but black screen. No external video either. Tried some initial troubleshooting and I am down to either corrupt BIOS or faulty motherboard. I want to try BIOS first. I removed the motherboard from the laptop and then desoldered the Winbond BIOS chip. Using a Raspberry Pi 3 and some soldered-on wires, I used flashrom to take a dump of the original (possibly corrupt) BIOS and saved it as a .bin
I then downloaded the latest BIOS from ASUS's website. (https://www.asus.com/us/Laptops/ASUS-Lap...Desk_BIOS/) It is my understanding that ASUS BIOS updates are not complete BIOS ROMs, but rather, a partial ROM that ASUS EZ-Flash merges in with the existing BIOS during an update or something to that effect. I'm not really sure how that works, but that is my general understanding however wrong it may be.
I was reading about other users with a similar situation on ASUS's website (https://rog.asus.com/forum/archive/index...55497.html) and some users were creating "reconstructed BIOS" images by dumping the original ROM and then merging in the downloaded update using a hex editor by following this:
Code:
Reconstructed_Image 0x0 - 0x1FFFFF = Bricked_Image 0x0 - 0x1FFFFF ( 2 Mb).
Reconstructed_Image 0x200000 - 0x7FFFFF = Update image 0x800 - 0x6007FF ( 6 Mb)
I downloaded HxD and loaded both the original dump and the update file I downloaded from ASUS. I can see the files are indeed different, but here is where I become painfully lost. I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing at this point. I was hoping someone could help me.
Basically, I am trying to get an up-to-date ASUS BIOS ROM (as a .bin) by merging my dump with the latest ASUS update so I can then flash that image back to the Winbond chip, solder it back to the motherboard, and see if it fixes my problem.
I have attached my original dump to this post. Thanks a lot for your help guys!
Original dump: https://www.filehosting.org/file/details...iginal.zip