As long as you have a backup image, you can just order a new flash chip from Digikey and restore the backup.
this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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they're not socketed, are they? i have virtually zero soldering experience
edit: the chips are the W25Q32FV & W25Q64FV. both are rather cheap wholesale, at ~$0.40 / chip. i've just never replaced a chip like this. i did buy a pencil a while back, though, so it could be good to learn.
No, they are not socketed. They are 8 pin SOIC packages, which are not too hard to solder.
Look for an SMD solder practice kit that has SOIC packages and practice with that. The motherboard will have a lot more layers, so it will take more heat than the practice board though.
To remove the old chip, I would carefully cut the pins off and desolder them one at a time with some solder wick. Then clean the pads up with the wick. Use lots of flux and don't drag the wick across the pads. That can damage them.
Get a soldering iron tip with a flat surface on it. The round, fine pointed tips don't transfer enough heat. You will also want a wide chisel tip for the solder wick.
To solder the new chip, hold it with tweezers and align it on the pads, then tack one corner pin down. Then solder the opposite corner, then the rest of the pins. If you bridge any pins, just clean it up with solder wick.
thank you very much! upon more thought, i think the chips are probably fine. i'll try flashing a known good in ~2hrs.
Good chance you could read the number on the chip and find a replacement on AliExpress
That's a shame... T440ps are cool machines; I wish I had one. I've got a decked out T540p but it's such a pain to work on
they are -- i have 2 (daily driver & the fuck-around-box)
my daily is maxed out -- 1080p IPS, backlit keyboard, t450p trackpad, 4910MQ, 16GB ram, and a 4g modem :P
the fuckaround has a 1080p TN, stock keyboard & trackpad, 4300M(?), and like 8 or 12 GB or something
How is the 4910MQ temperature-wise; did you have to do a heatsink mod?
I'd love to do a BIOS mod on my T540p to get rid of the WIFI whitelist but I can't for the life of me take the thing apart without damaging the keyboard; it's such a bad design.
with a mild undervolt (~ -50mV core, cache, GPU), i hit ~85 C on sustained loads (~3GHz on battery), though i've seen it in the high 90s when closed on sustained loads. i actually cooked my speakers that way, need to buy a new set, lmao. at least they can be swapped easily
i don't have the dGPU heatsink, if that's what you're asking. stock heatsink, repasted + an undervolt seems to be sufficient to tame the beast.
i highly recommend the BIOS mod if you can swing it. i run a custom coreboot build (seabios + grub), so it shows my logo on boot, has a custom BIOS password routine (rolled it myself!), and i have full disk encryption (even /boot!) for debian, with the grub in flash handling LUKS2.
my only complaint is boot times, GRUB can take nearly a minute to unlock the disk, due to non-existent SSE code. if that was taken care of, it could probably unlock in a couple seconds. (note to self, summer project!)
unrelated to the topic, but could you do a geekbench on the undervolted 4910MQ when you get around to it? I know it's not sustained load, I've just completed tweaking a $20 2015 MBP with 4770HQ with -75 mV. here's mine: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/12094501. still hits 95+ C with its shitty cooling. thanks.
Is there an easier way to mod the BIOS that doesn't require taking the whole thing apart? AFAIK there was an IvyRain-esque mod in the works
if already flashed, one can use flashprog -p internal. on the stock bios, at most you may be able to hack together a method to flash coreboot, but you can't neuter the ME, nor recover the megabytes of flash the ME firmware uses.
not sure about the t540p, but the t440p isn't too hard to externally flash. two screws to get inside, then the various internal screws (most of which are identical), remove the keyboard & trackpad, the VGA port screws, and then your flash chips are exposed. hook up an SOIC8 clip (on ebay for ~$5) to a pi pico, flash pico-serprog, and then use flashprog on another machine to flash the chips.
once successfully flashed, you can easily update coreboot from within the OS. however, if you flash a broken build, -- whether it's a lack of vendor blobs, like for the (neutered) ME, or simply a BIOS that can't get you to your OS (or a rescue USB) -- you will need to reflash externally before the machine will be usable again.
You pretty much have to fully take apart the T540p and flip the mainboard over to get to the BIOS chip. Same for CPU upgrades.
i didn't believe you, so i looked it up that is so fucking moronic LMAO
Right? Especially considering how easy it is to get to the CPU on the T440p...