I think I killed my MSI Z97 U3 PLUS Motherboard!!!

[silentbogo]

Here we go... more work on this tonight:

That series is supported. I've flashed many macronix 3.3V SPI chips on ASUS routers and laptops.

.... use the board to power itself while you just connect the data pins and leave VCC off.

No. Connect FCUSB to the motherboard while it's OFF.
Only then you should plug in USB cord and start the application.

In theory it should work while hot, but I've never been able to flash it that way. Usually I get the correct chip ID, but immediately get write errors once flashing process is started.

 

[Solaris17]

That series is supported. I've flashed many macronix 3.3V SPI chips on ASUS routers and laptops.


No. Connect FCUSB to the motherboard while it's OFF.
Only then you should plug in USB cord and start the application.

In theory it should work while hot, but I've never been able to flash it that way. Usually I get the correct chip ID, but immediately get write errors once flashing process is started.

He's exhausted every other outlet available. He obviously is not connecting it correctly. and attempts to jump WP have not worked for him.

 

[Sasqui]

.... use the board to power itself while you just connect the data pins and leave VCC off.

That's what I did last night and the message on the console was posted above. Had all pins connected except VCC

 

[Solaris17]

That's what I did last night and the message on the console was posted above. Had all pins connected except VCC

Then you did it wrong.

 

[Sasqui]

Then you did it wrong.

Thanks for pointing out what they already told me

...And I double checked so many times, I'm going to be really surprised if there is something wrong. The only thing that may be messed up is I might have mirrored the pin layout on one end or the other.

 

[Solaris17]

Thanks for pointing out what they already told me

...And I double checked so many times, I'm going to be really surprised if there is something wrong. The only thing that may be messed up is I might have mirrored the pin layout on one end or the other.

Either way good luck! I'm really surprised he is going so far granted I'v never tested the boundries but I would assume it would stop at "yeah the chip is supported" so this is good!

 

[Sasqui]

I'm really surprised he is going so far

Yea, nothing like suffering a NooB like me, lol.

I'll spoon feed him the layout diagram and corresponding pin pictures at each end, so there's no missing an assumption.

 

[Solaris17]

Yea, nothing like suffering a NooB like me, lol.

I'll spoon feed him the layout diagram and corresponding pin pictures at each end, so there's no missing an assumption.

Thats a good way to do it. Though at the end if it still doesnt work you can always return the clip you have and but the one from EB. then just jack onto the chip itself.

 

[Sasqui]

Thats a good way to do it. Though at the end if it still doesnt work you can always return the clip you have and but the one from EB. then just jack onto the chip itself.

Here's yet one more option: https://www.findchips.com/search/mx25l6473e

 

[Solaris17]

Here's yet one more option: https://www.findchips.com/search/mx25l6473e

I mean not really. soldering aside you still run into the same issue with flashing a blank eeprom.

 

[Sasqui]

I mean not really. soldering aside you still run into the same issue with flashing a blank eeprom.

I'm just being a pessimist, lol. Those chips are hard to find! There's a place in Germany selling pre-flashed chips on eBay for $14, but not sure about shipping.

No time to send pics to EC yesterday evening, plan on doing it over the weekend and reporting back.

 

[silentbogo]

I'm just being a pessimist, lol. Those chips are hard to find! There's a place in Germany selling pre-flashed chips on eBay for $14, but not sure about shipping.

No time to send pics to EC yesterday evening, plan on doing it over the weekend and reporting back.

Chips themselves are cheap as hell and are abundant, if you know what to look for. I'm buying most of my Winbond and Macronix stock from China or local retailers for less than ~$1/ea.
For US residents it's even easier, 'cause you have amazing stores like Digikey, Arrow, Newark etc. Plus, you have an option to order stuff directly from manufacturer, or get some cool useful sh#t as free samples.
And even China ships to US much faster than the rest of the world.

https://www.aliexpress.com/premium/MX25L6473E.html?SearchText=MX25L6473E

 

[Solaris17]

Chips themselves are cheap as hell and are abundant, if you know what to look for. I'm buying most of my Winbond and Macronix stock from China or local retailers for less than ~$1/ea.
For US residents it's even easier, 'cause you have amazing stores like Digikey, Arrow, Newark etc. Plus, you have an option to order stuff directly from manufacturer, or get some cool useful sh#t as free samples.
And even China ships to US much faster than the rest of the world.

https://www.aliexpress.com/premium/MX25L6473E.html?SearchText=MX25L6473E

Not to mention if he was handy he could even solder on a socket and just swap to an easier chip. A boy can dream. Maybe I'll do that on my micro ITX board.

 

[Sasqui]

Not to mention if he was handy he could even solder on a socket and just swap to an easier chip. A boy can dream. Maybe I'll do that on my micro ITX board.

I would have no hesitation to try swapping chips. It's all surface mount, so pretty easy with a good soldering pen, good magnifier and thin solder... oh and the flux After moving a capacitor the size of a pepper grain on my EVGA board, this would be a cakewalk

 

[jaggerwild]

Just buy a Borked board of flee bay, swap the Chip boom, sell me the clam shell for the 1 i need?

 

[Sasqui]

Just buy a Borked board of flee bay, swap the Chip boom, sell me the clam shell for the 1 i need?

I searched for Z97 MSI boards on eBay and there's a ton of non-working ones. How many could be salvaged by swapping the BIOS chip? No clue but I suspect a healthy percentage.

Edit: Looked and there's more with bent pins than anything else it seems

 

[davidm71]

Sasqui,

Have you seen this: JSPI1 Adapter (click the link to purchase).

This adapter is made specifically for MSI boards. I just got mine yesterday. Not that I need to use it but when you mod its best to be prepared for an emergency.

I also experimented with my FlashcatUSB on a MSI B85M Gaming's JSPI1 port and I tried to hook up those jumper wires every which way without luck.
The FlashcatUSB is either bugged, doesn't work, or we're doing it wrong. As was mentioned earlier I had a similar issue on an old Foxconn board and no matter
what I tried I couldn't get the FlashcatUSB to recognize the chip.

Finally I reached for my CH341A Black Usb mini programmer and despite the 5v issue it worked like a charm.

Heres another photo of the adapter in use:

Unfortunately the pins on the adapter mounting plate can't be directly attached to the flashcat without jumper wires which
complicated the ease of use. I think embedded computers sells an adapter for the Flashcat to make it work like the Ch341a
so you can insert that yellow mounting plate easily onto the Flashcat. Not sure if the other end of the cable can even be
placed directly onto the FlashcatUSB to have correct pin layout.

Anyhow this is what you need. Going to try it out maybe tomorrow if I feel motivated enough to do so.

Good luck!

PS: Whats wrong with this site.. Missing all my notifications!

 

[Sasqui]

Sasqui,

Have you seen this: JSPI1 Adapter (click the link to purchase).

This adapter is made specifically for MSI boards. I just got mine yesterday. Not that I need to use it but when you mod its best to be prepared for an emergency.

I also experimented with my FlashcatUSB on a MSI B85M Gaming's JSPI1 port and I tried to hook up those jumper wires every which way without luck.
The FlashcatUSB is either bugged, doesn't work, or we're doing it wrong. As was mentioned earlier I had a similar issue on an old Foxconn board and no matter
what I tried I couldn't get the FlashcatUSB to recognize the chip.

Finally I reached for my CH341A Black Usb mini programmer and despite the 5v issue it worked like a charm.

Heres another photo of the adapter in use:

Unfortunately the pins on the adapter mounting plate can't be directly attached to the flashcat without jumper wires which
complicated the ease of use. I think embedded computers sells an adapter for the Flashcat to make it work like the Ch341a
so you can insert that yellow mounting plate easily onto the Flashcat. Not sure if the other end of the cable can even be
placed directly onto the FlashcatUSB to have correct pin layout.

Anyhow this is what you need. Going to try it out maybe tomorrow if I feel motivated enough to do so.

Good luck!

PS: Whats wrong with this site.. Missing all my notifications!

I'm getting used to this new look myself... notifications have been ok here, I got one for your post

Anyway, thanks for that. The only catch is that my MB has an 11-pin JSP1, that one you're showing is for the 9 pin, do they make one for that case? ...the Flashcat has instructions for 11-pin, but it needs a splitter. I was going to solder one together this weekend (and last weekend, lol), but just too much going on. The pin-out is below, the colors correspond to the jumper wires I have:

 

[davidm71]

You know I just noticed that its two pins short ten minutes ago

Also found your review on Amazon. Small world.

I suppose you were able to get it going finally?

 

[eidairaman1]

I'm getting used to this new look myself... notifications have been ok here, I got one for your post

Anyway, thanks for that. The only catch is that my MB has an 11-pin JSP1, that one you're showing is for the 9 pin, do they make one for that case? ...the Flashcat has instructions for 11-pin, but it needs a splitter. I was going to solder one together this weekend (and last weekend, lol), but just too much going on. The pin-out is below, the colors correspond to the jumper wires I have:

View attachment 94659

Sounds pretty straight forward, connect as per diagram
..

 

[Sasqui]

Also found your review on Amazon. Small world.

Too funny, I forgot the moniker I used there was the same, lol.

Will update post in a day or so when I get it hooked up. Meanwhile, I ordered a 10 pack of the same chip from china for $8 shipped... should arrive by Christmas so I have a fall-back, assuming I can program one of them with the flashcat. Shame I threw away a junk Dell MB I had laying around, want to practice desoldering and replacing a surface mount chip if it comes to that.

 

[silentbogo]

BTW, guys at Embedded Computers have updated the manual in a new software version with MSI SPI pinout (though, an older 10-pin version).
NVM, didn't see your prev. post...
... and I'm finally getting a Pro version in a few weeks!

Will update post in a day or so when I get it hooked up. Meanwhile, I ordered a 10 pack of the same chip from china for $8 shipped... should arrive by Christmas so I have a fall-back, assuming I can program one of them with the flashcat. Shame I threw away a junk Dell MB I had laying around, want to practice desoldering and replacing a surface mount chip if it comes to that.

Don't sweat, I'll do a walkthrough if you need help w/ soldering. I'm not a fan of removing SOIC with iron, but I've done it too (guilty as charged). Or you've probably already watched youtube videos from questionable people about it
The trick is, get as much leaded solder on those pins as possible, in order to dilute the lead-free stuff, and carefully heat-up each side, while gently pulling the IC upwards. Just don't pull too hard and don't ever pry anything SMD! You'll tear pads and traces for sure. Much easier w/ hot air.

Here's an example:

BTW, just looked at this stuff (Chipquick kit?):

Looks like a typical Rose's alloy, but I've never used it this way...

 

[Sasqui]

BTW, guys at Embedded Computers have updated the manual in a new software version with MSI SPI pinout (though, an older 10-pin version).
NVM, didn't see your prev. post...
... and I'm finally getting a Pro version in a few weeks!


Don't sweat, I'll do a walkthrough if you need help w/ soldering. I'm not a fan of removing SOIC with iron, but I've done it too (guilty as charged). Or you've probably already watched youtube videos from questionable people about it
The trick is, get as much leaded solder on those pins as possible, in order to dilute the lead-free stuff, and carefully heat-up each side, while gently pulling the IC upwards. Just don't pull too hard and don't ever pry anything SMD! You'll tear pads and traces for sure. Much easier w/ hot air.

Here's an example:

BTW, just looked at this stuff (Chipquick kit?):

Looks like a typical Rose's alloy, but I've never used it this way...

I watched a few clips on Youtube and just like you point out, the trick is plenty of solder, but moreso to get it all flowing on one side of the chip, then gently lifting it a bit not too hard, next clean off the solder, then heat up the other side, lift off and cleanup trace contacts. One guy posted a vid sawing contacts at the chip and then de-soldering each pin individually. All sorts of ways to skin that cat.

Im hoping it doesn't come to that

 

[davidm71]

Thats the last resort. I also noticed new firmware and manual for the Blackcat. The problem as I see it is that the Blackcat is incomplete as it only comes with a 6 pin full size jumper cable and only a 8 pin full size to mb header size jumper cable which is not enough pins to hook up to a jspi1 port never mind apparently you need to join wp with vcc.
I believe it’s doable though unfortunately the jspi1 wiring details is hard to find but if it would help having two less pins wired maybe worth a shot seeing if it would work with the board powered on?

Side note: Played around with the Blackcat last night with new firmware and was finally able to communicate with a standard 8 pin dip style Winbond bios chip. The only thing is I recommend you route SO to SO and SI to SI as running the inverse does not work. Even the manual now says to route it directly. Read in other forums to swap them but did not work for me. But I had to set it to SPI NOR mode. Also I measured the voltages on the Ch341a Black and Blackcat and both read out at 3.3 volts so non of this 5v business I’ve been reading about. The only other difference is the Blackcat expects the bios file to be packed in a Zip file which only complicates things. At least the Ch341a takes the bios bin file directly. Weird.

 

[Sasqui]

Side note: Played around with the Blackcat last night with new firmware and was finally able to communicate with a standard 8 pin dip style Winbond bios chip. The only thing is I recommend you route SO to SO and SI to SI as running the inverse does not work. Even the manual now says to route it directly. Read in other forums to swap them but did not work for me. But I had to set it to SPI NOR mode. Also I measured the voltages on the Ch341a Black and Blackcat and both read out at 3.3 volts so non of this 5v business I’ve been reading about. The only other difference is the Blackcat expects the bios file to be packed in a Zip file which only complicates things. At least the Ch341a takes the bios bin file directly. Weird.

Thanks for posting and welcome to the Flashcat party. Very interesting about the SO and SI if my routing doesn't connect, that's an easy fix. And yes to 3.3v ONLY and SPI NOR mode. Did NOT know about the .bin file needing to be zipped!