KeeYees SOP8 SOIC8 Test Clip and CH341A USB Programmer Flash for Most of 24 25 Series BIOS Chip with PDF Tutorial

I'm new to BIOS programming, but after understanding it's quirks, this is quite a powerful tool! My chip was from an HP ProBook 640 G3 and is held in place with a spring retainer mechanism; therefore, programming is done out of circuit. The spring clip of this device _must_ make solid contact, even at the risk of crumpling the pins. Just flatten them out later like I did. If using IMSProg like me, the telltale sign of a bad connection is that erasing only takes a few seconds. With a solid connection, it should take closer to a minute. The programmer works well and is a very inexpensive alternative to raspberry pi and whatnot. If you have a locked BIOS and need to get by the forgotten/unknown password, this is your oyster. Very Best Regards, Tom Scott 🗽 Author of Stack the Legal Odds in Your Favor ● Speaker ● World's Leading Expert on the Corrupt U.S. Legal System

Love this little tool. Wish I had more excuses to use it. A friend locked themselves out of their laptop by setting a BIOS password that they couldn't remember. I cleared the CMOS memory several times, but the password persisted. I did some research and learned that modern laptops don't store BIOS passwords in CMOS. Instead, they are stored in non-volatile memory, such as the eeprom on the BIOS chip itself. Further research indicated that this particular laptop likely used an AMI BIOS implementation, and that the password could likely be decrypted or cleared. I happened to have this tool on hand and was itching for a reason to use it. I had never used a BIOS programmer before, so I read a few guides, identified the BIOS chip, and downloaded and reviewed its datasheet. I booted Ubuntu on another laptop and installed flashrom. I verified that flashrom was compatible with the BIOS chip. I hooked up the clip, and flashrom recognized the chip on the first attempt. I dumped the ROM three times and confirmed the checksums for each dump matched. I used UEFITool and confirmed that I was looking at an AMI BIOS and that the AMITSESetup variable was present. I found a tool on GitHub named AMITSESetup Decryptor & Unlocker that was unable to decrypt the password, but it did clear the password from the ROM dump. I flashed the modified ROM back to the BIOS chip, and much to my surprise I was able to boot the computer with no issues and no BIOS password prompt!

I upgraded the BIOS on my ASRock X370 Taichi motherboard, ignoring the warning on the download site that downgrading wasn't possible. Then I found myself wanting to downgrade it. Oops. Fortunately I was able to learn online that I could probably downgrade it with one of these CH341a programmers. I know nothing about these EEPROMs and stuff, but I managed to do it, so I'll share how in case this helps anyone. I created a Ubuntu USB stick and booted another computer with it to run this programmer. The YouTube video I found on using this said the second LED on this programmer will light up when you have a good connection to the chip, but I couldn't get it, and when I'd try to run the Linux 'flashrom' program to read the chip, it said no chip found. Then I read one reviewer that said this chip clip is junk, so I bought a blue Pomona one that was supposed to be better and soldered it to the wires from this one. That one IS a better clip, but in retrospect I believe the one included with this kit would've been adequate for me since the problem turned out to not be the clip. I noticed that when I had the clip on the chip solidly, some LEDs on my motherboard that are usually blue when the computer is on would light up a very dim green, but flashrom still didn't see the chip. If I turned the clip around 180 degrees, I'd get no light from those LED's but flashrom would now say "unknown chip", which really threw me since it made me think it was now seeing the chip and just didn't recognize that model chip. Turned out the orientation the lit those onboard LED's a little was the right one. I couldn't read the writing on top my chip, so I couldn't Google for its model # to find its voltage. I assumed 3.3V, but ended up changing the jumper to 5V also, with no luck either way. Later I learned that the chip was probably 1.8V and Amazon sells voltage converters for use with this programmer for that. But before I bought one of those, I decided I'd try something that was probably stupid. I just turned my PC on with the clip clamped onto the chip, figuring it would supply 1.8V. To my amazement, it worked! For the first time, flashrom was able to identify my chip as a MX25U11283SF, which I then Google'd and found is in fact a 1.8V chip. So I'm not sure how I didn't kill it with the 3.3V and 5V, but I was finally able to program an older version of the BIOS downloaded from ASRock's site, and the computer has been working fine since. By the way, the second LED on the programmer only came on during read/write activity for me. P.S. one of the product photos tells you to make sure to connect to pin 1 on your chip correctly, yet in the photo pin 1 on the cable going into the programmer is backward from how it should be! Look at the diagram on the programmer to find its pin 1.

This did the trick but not for the faint of heart. The directions are not the best or most clear, so it took a bit of Googling to fiqured out how to use it for my particular bios eprom. No reason to deduct any stars but it does take detective work and again it is not for the faint of heart or someone looking for plug and play, although I assume the avg user wouldn't buy something like this. My Mobo power was interrupted midway through a bios update and it bricked the mobo! With no bios flashback I had no choice but to use this tool and again it did the trick, awesome little device!

I bricked my asus b150m when I updated the bios. No screen display but fan and lights are on. I tried to diagnose, remove, reinstall ram/gpu/fans/etc - still wouldn't post. I watched a dozen of youtube videos but ultimately I know its the motherboard. This was my first action before moving to replace the motherboard which is expensive. It worked for me. Got my motherboard working and was able to install the latest bios. Company's link will let you download the necessary app to get this working. I'm not expert but I built my computer and fix it by myself :D anyone can do this. The pins took me only few tries to get it connected to the application. I might make a youtube video to help some folks out! If your mobo is still in warranty, RMI it. But if its gonna cost you to send your mobo to the manufacturer and months of getting it returned to you, this may be a route to go. Highly recommended to those who's mobo is out of warranty like mine, it wouldn't hurt to try this first before buying an expensive mobo but if it's a reason to upgrade then do so :P

It's a very cheap flash programmer, but it actually works very well. I've tried to read BIOS of a video card and firmware of a blu-ray player and easily succeeded both times. It's easy to use and it does what it's supposed to do. You'll probably need to spend some time to find proper software that works with this programmer, but at this price point it's not a big deal. I've read that you need to modify the programmer in some way so it uses correct voltage - it wasn't the case in my experience, I could just use it out of the box and it worked 100%. It's awesome that you don't need to unsolder anything, just connect the clip to the chip, connect the programmer to USB port of your computer and you're ready to work with the chip.

I purchased this to backup and restore a G2 Mini PC BIOS. Upon some YouTube research, I discovered that one of the other reviewers on here was correct, there is a design flaw with this unit using too much power on the data bus even though the power jumper has been changed for low power chips. I modified the board as described in the videos so that I would not damage my chip, and was able to make backup copies of the BIOS before flashing a different version to it. Unfortunately I found that the BIOS chip had to be completely removed from the circuit in order to flash the replacement version. It absolutely refused to write successfully while in circuit. Reading was not a problem. Chip that I flashed was a MX25R6435F which is not listed in the software. I used the closest chip number I could find spec wise. Also note: Make sure you clean all the pins on the chip and the pinch clip with alcohol before connecting. Any debris will cause errors, including flux.

I had bricked my computer's bios (completely my fault) and ended up having to build a whole new computer as I couldn't find a replacement motherboard. Did some research recently and figured this should work. Took less than 10 minutes and now I can rebuild the old computer and sell it. It does take some computer skills, not for everyone, but my Asus board luckily has a removable bios chip so all I had to do was carefully remove it, put it in the reader, plug the reader into my computer and run the software.

This item is another uselees get rich quick chineese clone. Firstly no documentation is provided, software is hacked version of original developer. The surface mount ic clip is useless as it will not bite and hold onto smd devices providing good contact. using the cable seems to corrupt the read/write of spi devices i have tried multiple read and write cycles and the outputs are never the same and never verify there is no chip voltage selection and it burns out 25 series 3 volt devices I have measured the socket voltage and it is 5.09 volts not good for 3.3 volt devices, if you are looking for s reliable good quality programmet look elsewhere