> from what I recall, *the driver was trying to be responsible and lock SPI write access by default, but due to the* *> off-by-one, ended up setting the 'inverse' bit on the 2nd status register of some chips, which reversed the RO* *> and RW regions of the chip*. This naturally led to the EFI variables not being able to be saved/changed, the > firmware not being able to be updated, and in some cases failure to boot due to either the ME or MRC regions > being locked.
I assume (in RED), you are talking about Ubuntu 17.10 SPI driver. One obvious workaround is to stop in BIOS (CMOS), do the configuration adjustments/changes, save the new setup, and shutdown while still being in BIOS. This should work, since it will become new BIOS default. Zoran On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 4:36 AM, Matt DeVillier <[email protected]> wrote: > from what I recall, the driver was trying to be responsible and lock SPI > write access by default, but due to the off-by-one, ended up setting the > 'inverse' bit on the 2nd status register of some chips, which reversed the > RO and RW regions of the chip. This naturally led to the EFI variables not > being able to be saved/changed, the firmware not being able to be updated, > and in some cases failure to boot due to either the ME or MRC regions being > locked. > > I ran into this issue on Braswell ChromeOS devices using W25Q64FV/DV > compatible chips; my workaround was to modify Chromium flashrom to clear > the inverse bit on devices with the 2nd status register when doing > --wp-disable so I'd always be able to update the firmware on affected > devices. > > Nico -- did this ever get fixed in the upstream kernel? From what I saw, > the "fixed" Ubuntu ISO simply omitted the driver in the kernel config/build > > On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 9:25 PM, Gregg Levine <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hello! >> I wouldn't want to. Incidentally I run (sometimes) Slackware64 here. >> Currently its at release 14.2 with the usual updates, and a heck of a >> lot of things in their current location. >> >> And I noticed in that article an interesting smattering of typical >> English expressions. >> ----- >> Gregg C Levine [email protected] >> "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." >> >> >> On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 9:42 PM, Nico Huber <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Hi Ron, >> > >> > On 22.12.2017 03:30, ron minnich wrote: >> >> >> >> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/21/ubuntu_lenovo_bios/ >> > >> > >> > A simple off-by-one. The driver in question always sent one byte >> > too much which causes trouble if you accidentally write garbage to >> > your flash chip's second status register. Some chips enable write >> > protection that way and certain firmware doesn't work reliable any >> > more in that state :D >> > >> > Don't ask me why it writes to the status register at all by default. >> > I don't remember. >> > >> > Nico >> > >> > -- >> > coreboot mailing list: [email protected] >> > https://mail.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot >> >> -- >> coreboot mailing list: [email protected] >> https://mail.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot >> > > > -- > coreboot mailing list: [email protected] > https://mail.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot >
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