aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/docs/howtos/x60tablet_unbrick.html
blob: 975c7643e63c394992575e324bcd2595a1e4b23e (plain) (blame)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8">
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

	<style type="text/css">
		body {
			background:#fff;
			color:#000;
			font-family:sans-serif;
			font-size:1em;
		}
	</style>

	<title>Libreboot documentation: Unbricking the ThinkPad X60 Tablet</title>
</head>

<body>

	<header>
		<h1>Unbricking the ThinkPad X60</h1>
		<aside>This guide will show you how to recover from a bad flash that prevents your ThinkPad X60 Tablet from booting.</aside>
	</header>

	<p>Or go <a href="../index.html">back to main index</a></p>

	<h2>Table of Contents</h2>
		<ul>
			<li><a href="#hardware_requirements">Hardware Requirements</a></li>
			<li><a href="#software_requirements">Software Requirements</a></li>
			<li>
				Types of brick:
				<ul>
					<li><a href="#bucts_brick">Brick type 1: bucts not reset</a></li>
					<li><a href="#recovery">Brick type 2: bad rom (or user error), machine won't boot</a></li>
				</ul>
			</li>
		</ul>

	<h1 id="hardware_requirements">Hardware requirements</h1>
		<ul>
			<li>a 2nd computer (maybe another X60 Tablet. any computer will do)</li>
			<li>external flashrom-compatible programmer (I'm using the "bus pirate")
			<li>SOIC-8 IC clip (I'm using the Pomona 5250)</li>
			<li>Cable (programmer<>clip) - mine came with the bus pirate.</li>
			<li>USB mini a to b cable (for buspirate<>computer connection).</li>
		</ul>

	<h1 id="software_requirements">Software requirements</h1>
		<ul>
			<li>GNU/Linux (on the 2nd computer)</li>
			<li>flashrom software (on the 2nd computer): <a href="http://flashrom.org/" target="_blank">http://flashrom.org/</a>
		</ul>

	<h1 id="bucts_brick">Brick type 1: bucts not reset.</h1>
		<p>
			You still have Lenovo BIOS, or you had libreboot running and you flashed another ROM; and you had bucts 1 set and
			the ROM wasn't dd'd.* or if Lenovo BIOS was present and libreboot wasn't flashed.<br/><br/>

			In this case, unbricking is easy: reset BUC.TS to 0 by removing that yellow cmos coin (it's a battery) and putting it back after a minute or two:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0008.JPG" alt="" /><br/><br/>

			*Those dd commands should be applied to all newly compiled X60 ROM's (the ROM's in libreboot binary archives already have this applied!):<br/>
			dd if=coreboot.rom of=top64k.bin bs=1 skip=$[$(stat -c %s coreboot.rom) - 0x10000] count=64k<br/>
			dd if=coreboot.rom bs=1 skip=$[$(stat -c %s coreboot.rom) - 0x20000] count=64k | hexdump<br/>
			dd if=top64k.bin of=coreboot.rom bs=1 seek=$[$(stat -c %s coreboot.rom) - 0x20000] count=64k conv=notrunc<br/>
			(doing this makes the ROM suitable for use when flashing a machine that still has Lenovo BIOS running,
			using those instructions: <a href="http://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x60/Installation" target="_blank">http://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x60/Installation</a>.
		</p>

	<h1 id="recovery">bad rom (or user error), machine won't boot</h1>
		<p>
			In this scenario, you compiled a ROM that had an incorrect configuration, or there is an actual bug preventing your machine from
			booting. Or, maybe, you set BUC.TS to 0 and shut down after first flash while Lenovo BIOS was running. In any case, your machine is bricked and will not boot at all.
		</p>
		<p>
			&quot;Unbricking&quot; means flashing a known-good (working) ROM. The problem: you can't boot the machine, making this difficult. In this situation, external hardware (see hardware requirements above) is needed which can flash the SPI chip (where libreboot resides).
		</p>

		<p>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0000.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Remove those screws:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0001.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Remove the HDD:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0002.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Push keyboard forward to loosen it:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0003.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Lift:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0004.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Remove those:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0005.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0006.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Also remove that (marked) and unroute the antenna cables:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0007.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Some X60T's you have to unroute those too:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0010.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Remove the LCD extend board screws. Also remove those screws (see blue marks) and remove/unroute the cables and remove the metal plate:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0008.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			Remove that screw and then remove the board:<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0009.JPG" alt="" />
		</p>

		<p>
			At this point, you should wire up your programmer according to it's documentation. For me, this was (see: "SparkFun cable pin reference"):<br/>
			<a href="http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Common_Bus_Pirate_cable_pinouts" target="_blank">http://dangerousprototypes.com/docs/Common_Bus_Pirate_cable_pinouts</a>.<br/>
			Correlating with the following information, I was able to wire up my pirate correctly:<br/>
			<a href="http://flashrom.org/Bus_Pirate#Connections" target="_blank">http://flashrom.org/Bus_Pirate#Connections</a><br/>
			And by following that advice:<br/>
			<a href="http://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x60/Installation#Howto" target="_blank">http://www.coreboot.org/Board:lenovo/x60/Installation#Howto</a>.<br/>
			Note: that last page says to wire up only those 5 pins (see below) like that: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6.<br/>
			Note: and then, for power it says (on that coreboot.org page) to connect the power jack to the board and connect the
			AC adapter (without powering on the board).<br/>
			Note: I ignored that advice, and wired up all 8 pins. And it worked.<br/>

			Here is the pinout (correlate it with your programmer's documentation):<br/>
			<img src="x60t_unbrick/0011.JPG" alt="" /><br/>
			(SPI chip here is on the bottom of the board)
		</p>

		<p>
			Bus pirate:<br/>
			<img src="x60_unbrick/0019.jpg" alt="" /> 
		</p>

		<p>
			Pomona 5250:<br/>
			<img src="x60_unbrick/0020.jpg" alt="" /> 
		</p>

		<p>
			Connect pomona:<br/>
			<img src="x60_unbrick/0022.jpg" alt="" /> 
		</p>

		<p>
			Connect pirate to USB on 2nd computer:<br/>
			<img src="x60_unbrick/0024.jpg" alt="" /> 
		</p>

		<p>
			Pirate is active:<br/>
			<img src="x60_unbrick/0023.jpg" alt="" /> 
		</p>

		<p>
			<img src="x60_unbrick/0025.jpg" alt="" /> 
		</p>

		<p>
			On the 2nd machine, I did: <b>flashrom -p buspirate_spi:dev=/dev/ttyUSB0 -w bin/x60t/libreboot_ukqwerty.rom</b>
		</p>

		<pre>
			flashrom v0.9.5.2-r1517 on Linux 3.2.0-61-generic (i686), built with libpci 3.1.8, GCC 4.6.3, little endian
			flashrom is free software, get the source code at http://www.flashrom.org

			Calibrating delay loop... delay loop is unreliable, trying to continue OK.
			Found Macronix flash chip "MX25L1605" (2048 kB, SPI) on buspirate_spi.
			Reading old flash chip contents... done.
			Erasing and writing flash chip... Erase/write done.
			Verifying flash... VERIFIED. 
		</pre>

		<p>
			At the end it says "VERIFIED", which means that the procedure worked. If you see this, it means that you can put your X60T back together. So let's do that now. 
		</p>

		<p>
			Reverse the steps to re-assemble your machine.
		</p>

<hr/>

	<p>
		Copyright &copy; 2014 Francis Rowe, All Rights Reserved.<br/>
		See <a href="../license.html">../license.html</a> for license conditions.
	</p>

</body>
</html>