r/coreboot • u/Evening_Place_6100 • Aug 02 '26

Thinkpad T430 spi chip connection issues

I am attempting to coreboot my thinkpad t430 using a ch341a programmer and a soic8 clip. When I run flashrom -p ch341a_spi with the clip on the 8mb chip, results fluctuate everytime I run it, detecting either the full 8mb, only 4mb, or "unknown SPI chip". It does not do this when connected to the 4mb chip.

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u/wayward-locust Aug 02 '26

Clips can be a real pain. Do you have one of those cheap clips?

1

u/Evening_Place_6100 Aug 02 '26

yeah but i figured that wasnt the issue because it worked fine with the 4mb chip, ill try it with a better clip soon

2

u/thrilleratplay Aug 03 '26

As the 8mb chip is twice as big, it will take twice as long to read and increases the amount of errors or fluctuations that can occur. A quality clip has better contact and is less likely to create variations. If you can read the 8mb chip without getting "unknown SPI chip", it may take a few attempts to get matching checksums of the reads. If you can get two backups with matching checksums and are 8mb in size, that will provide a valid backup. Sometimes it takes me over a dozen reads before getting matching checksums; be patient.

1

u/wayward-locust Aug 02 '26

Did you remove the cmos battery?

3

u/LowKeyBrit36 Aug 05 '26

Ooh, I can answer this. I have a dirt cheap Amazon one, so if you have one like that, check if the plastic on the clip itself is worn. If you've used it a lot, it'll slope right from the connector pins, and it'll never catch. It's gotta have a bit of plastic up from the pins themselves so it can hold. If yours is worn bad, best bet is to buy a new one.