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Flashing firmware
tutorial
Upda!ng the firmware is possible using the
internal method, where the updates happen
from a running system, or using the external
method, where the system is in a shut down
state and an external programmer is a"ached to
write into the flash IC.

Contents
Flashing internally
Flashing firmware standalone
Flashing firmware externally supplying direct
power
Flashing firmware externally without
supplying direct power

General advice
It’s recommended to only flash the BIOS
region.
Always verify the firmware image.
If you flash externally and have transmission
errors:
Use short wires
Reduce clock frequency
Check power supply
Make sure that there are no other bus
masters (EC, ME, SoC, …)

Internal method
This method using flashrom is available on many
pla#orms, as long as they aren’t locked down.

There are various protec!on schemes that make

it impossible to modify or replace a firmware
from a running system. coreboot allows to
disable these mechanisms, making it possible to
overwrite (or update) the firmware from a
running system.

Usually you must use the external method once

to install a retrofi"ed coreboot and then you can
use the internal method for future updates.

There are mul!ple ways to update the firmware:

Using flashrom’s internal programmer to

directly write into the firmware flash IC,
running on the target machine itself
A proprietary so$ware to update the
firmware, running on the target machine
itself
A UEFI firmware update capsule

More details on flashrom’s

internal programmer

External method
External flashing is possible on many pla#orms,
but requires disassembling the target hardware.
You need to buy a flash programmer, that
exposes the same interface as your flash IC
(likely SPI).

Please also have a look at the mainboard-

specific documenta!on for details.

A$er exposing the firmware flash IC, read the

schema!cs and use one of the possible
methods:

Flashing firmware standalone

Flashing firmware externally supplying direct
power
Flashing firmware externally without
supplying direct power

WARNING: Using the wrong method or

accidentally using the wrong pinout might
permanently damage your hardware!

WARNING: Do not rely on dots painted on flash

ICs to orient the pins! Any dots painted on flash
ICs may only indicate if they’ve been tested.
Dots that appear in datasheets to indicate pin 1
correspond to some kind of physical marker,
such as a drilled hole, or one side being more flat
than the other.

Using a layout file

On pla#orms where the flash IC is shared with
other components you might want to write only
a part of the flash IC. On Intel for example there
are IFD, ME and GBE which don’t need to be
updated to install coreboot. To make flashrom
only write the bios region, leaving Intel ME and
Intel IFD untouched, you can use a layout file,
which can be created with ifdtool and a backup
of the original firmware.

ifdtool -f rom.layout backup.rom

and looks similar to:

00000000:00000fff fd
00500000:00bfffff bios
00003000:004fffff me
00001000:00002fff gbe

By specifying -l and -i flashrom writes a single

region:

flashrom -l rom.layout -i bios -w coreboot.rom -p

Using an IFD to determine the

layout
flashrom version 1.0 supports reading the layout
from the IFD (first 4KiB of the ROM). You don’t
need to manually specify a layout it, but it only
works under the following condi!ons:

Only available on Intel ICH7+

There’s only one flash IC when flashing
externally

flashrom --ifd -i bios -w coreboot.rom -p <program

TODO explain FMAP regions, normal/fallback

mechanism, flash lock mechanisms

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