[ILUG] [TOTD] flash bios in linux

[Dave Airlie]

> In other words, for a very long time now, the EPROM (flash these days) is
> powered-but-idle except during boot and the bridge chip driving
> the socket won't notice anything so long as you can avoid nuking it with
> static - and good luck getting the board to boot if you do *that*.
>

I wouldn't be too qucik to do this on chipsets with a random number
generator in HW.. these are usually in the BIOS Flash chip.. not sure if
popping them live is always a good plan, buy a flash programmer :-)

I working with a guy who designed an in-house x86 motherboard and he
usually knows what is safe and what isn't and he always powers down before
pulling the BIOS out of his board... so I tend to follow him.

Dave.

 > > I've often read of it,
> > but never met anyone who had tried it,
> > let alone succeeded.
>
> I haven't done it with a PC.
> I did it accidentally in college with a lab-built board.
> Nobody noticed until my team-mate tried to test the application I had
> just physically removed and stuck in the UV-eraser....
>
> Ronan
>

-- 
David Airlie, Software Engineer
http://www.skynet.ie/~airlied / airlied at skynet.ie
pam_smb / Linux DECstation / Linux VAX / ILUG person