Intel Atom and BIOS updates

Probably you allready hear about intel low power system on chips like intel z37XX and Z8XXX family.Powerfull little beast with Android or/and Windows on top of it. I have some device powered with z3537F Soc and I like it.And here come CHINA and poor software engineering.I upgraded my operating system and my BIOS was corrupted! What a blame!
So no image no blinking led nothing just black screen.
What can you do? Reading chinese forums to bring back your BIOS from usb OR flashing the right BIOS back to your flashchip. You know what this is mean :D ... Turn on your iron!

MeegoPad T02

Flash chip sitting and waiting for flahing on the right bottom side.This is an 8Mbyte super fast SPI flash memory and it is supported by the FlahRom utility. I desoldered the chip because I dont know it is inSystemProgramabel or not.It is requred 1.8V logic levels so I can't hook up to bananaPi direcly.
And as I said I used my Bpi to flashing the chip but any SPI capable programer can handle the job.Next I found the correct firmware to my device so nothing more just flashing it and putting back to the board.

I used an adapter called "uSD card adapter for Arduino" logic level converter to get the right signals on both ends.This can handle the Bpi 3v3 and 1v8 for flash.I slowed down the SPI clock on my Bpi because I used breadboard for wiring and I think 10Mhz is not for breadboards at all.I used 500Khz as I remember and working fine (little bit slow but stable).

The programing adapter:

This voltage level converten is one way only, but luckily my Bpi recognise 1.8v as logic "1".

I get a fully working strick again in the end of the day exept one little think, I was too lazy to create a backup of the flash chip.So I lost my Windows license key :(
After a while I found this screenshot on 4pda:

This is where your key is

I promise I take more picture new time :)

Comments

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