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Hi, BDMaster
I have a thinkpad t440s for many years. I've upgraded to 12G ram and 256G ssd. It runs quite quickly and well. Only the wifi card is a bit slow. I searched online (I'm from china so i can only use baidu or bing, not google) and found some posts about how to remove the whitelist in bios. At last all leads to bios-mods.com.
So I register and download all the software and patch listed in this post. However, it seems my bios is protected by Protected Range Registers. And prr.exe could not resolve the problem.
Then i have to try the hardware way and buy a CH431A Programmer. Well, it's quite easy and cheap to get a CH431A programmer on Taobao. It costs me only 32yuan or just 5 usd. I backup the bios and patch it with CodeRush_UEFI_Patch. Then with CH431A flash back to my 440s. Everything goes quite well and the computer started with five beep and then windows showed. I then shutdown to assemble the backcover and battery. But when press the start button again, the computer didn't have any response. It seems become brick.
I don't know why it turns out so. I tried to flash again. I disconnect the bios battery. Nothing works. After i connect the CH431A programmer with the bios chip with the clamp for too many times, I'm afraid the clamp may pull the bios chip out of the motherboard. At last the CH431A programmer even could not read the chip.
I wonder if my computer was totally bricked. I guess maybe it's just the clamp for CH431A programmer could not connect with the bios chip properly. I browsed on taobao.com and found something special. It's a tiny retractable metal hook that can connect every single foot of the bios chip to the CH431A programmer. I bought a set of ten such hooks for 60 rmb or 10 usd.
It really worked and i can flash the bios chip again.
But the computer still could not start. I browsed online again and found someone said after disconnect both the inner battery and bios battery of t440s, then press start button for ten seconds, the bios will be restored to original status , so a bricked computer could restart again. I tried the method, it turns out something really changed. Because before that when i plug the power cord to the computer, the light of the start button did turn on . Now i can see the red light. Then i pressed the start button, the computer start with many beeps and the screen did not show anything.
Now i know the bios is working. I then searched online for the beeps pattern of the bios. It turns out to be CPU/Memory error. I put some new Silicone grease on the cpu and with a rubber cleaned the connecting finger of the memory chip. After restart , everything is ok now. My 440s is back again .
Well, now i can use a intel A210 wifi-6 card. And i bought another 1T m.2 ssd and installed on the WWAN slot of the 440s. I think 440s could be with me for many more years. :)
Thanks for your wonderful work giving us the chance to explore more possibilities. And i would like to share my experiences in case someone else may face the same problem.