SMAKN® USB Programmer CH341A Series Burner Chip 24 EEPROM BIOS LCD Writer 25 SPI Flash

Works great with flashrom for SPI chips! Flashrom is only able to use the 16 that can be clamped with the lever; the other pins are available to the Windows software but not through flashrom (not until additional work is done for this chipset).For chips you know the pinout of, the chips go into the 8 pins far away from the USB port. Just pop in, and do read and write to a file with flashrom, done. Be sure you mark the pinouts of the BIOS chip if it is unmarked, before you put it back into the motherboard, or the BIOS chip can heat up so hot it can catch fire. There is no such danger with this programmer, and you can actually use this to find the pinout as the type of SPI chip is reaadable by flashrom before writing to it and is listed in Linux.Buy a few dozen of these if you repair computers.

This works, but had to spend some time debugging. Please read on for some tips that might help you.The chip I needed to program was Winbond with marking 25Q128FVIQ on it (or W25Q128FVIQ) for a Z170 ASUS motherboard. Initial attempts produced BIOS write failures, where readback verification showed inconsistent contents, and motherboard was even more bricked than before (absolutely nothing on powerup). But I finally solved the problem by going to an OLDER version of the programmer software! Here is what I found. Super old versions like 1.13 were no good at all because they don't even contain my model of the BIOS, which is a larger 128 Mbit chip than the older SW versions could support. Newer versions like 1.29 operated but produced Verify failures (after write, the readback of contents did not match what was intended to have been written). What finally worked was version 1.18, which is an older version that featured 128 Mbit chips in the list. One place where you can find it is if you find a video Installing Drivers for the USB Bios Chip Programmer CH341A (Black Edition) By:NSC and check its description for links on Mega.After using this version, a bricked motherboard that was stuck on BIOS update loop (previous owner likely powered down during update) powered right up with the new most up-to-date BIOS and no need to finish any updates. Turned a cheap "bricked" motherboard into a functional one just like that!

If you are buying this, you probably have the technical skills necessary to find the CH341A programmer software and successfully flash your chip. I purchased the latest 1.34 version from [email protected], as described in other reviews. It worked exactly as expected and successfully flashed version 3703 firmware onto my Asus Z170-A BIOS chip. The chip itself was a Gigadevice GD25B128CPIG, which is the same as the GD25Q128 series chip that is listed as compatible. I am now able to use my computer again after a failed BIOS flash from AFUWIN rendered it unbootable. This was well worth the money.

Worked Very as described

While it mostly works, I find that having to hunt the intarwebs for software and drivers is really annoying and sometimes risky as some places that offer a download have viruses.Sometimes it refuses to detect my boards that have W25Q80BVSIG and W25X35 chips... hit or miss it seems.I would like to give it more stars as the quality seems fine and it does actually work with flashrom in Linux Mint.. so that is a plus, but the lack of access to windows drivers and software is a real let down.[EDIT]so, after removing the BIOS and using Linux mint with flashrom.. this works so much better. 100% no issue, so I bumped up to 4 stars.

So I recently got a laptop that was password locked for free. No problem I thought, I'll flash it. There's just one problem though, this flasher is not only low quality, but it could possibly brick your laptop.The first thing I did was make several flash dumps. Both dumps had different checksums. I made some more dumps. Same exact problem. I tried using another laptop with Linux and the flashroom tool. Same exact problem. I desoldered the pre soldered wires from my clip and just used jumper wires, thinking it was the cable length. Same exact problem.After taking a look at the bottom of the flasher, I noticed something. It had one of the worst soldering jobs of anything I've seen. For regular cheap gadgets this is to be expected, but this is a BIOS flasher. This is something you don't have problems with and here it was, spitting out differing checksums each and every time. To make matters worse, one of the USB pins was not properly connected.I decided to then go buy a Raspberry PI 3 Model B A1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU, 1GB RAM and use some jumper wires to flash the BIOS chip instead. I made 3 dumps and they were all the same. I then flashed it and what do you know, it worked. Don't waste your time and money with this garbage, buy a Pi instead.

Purchased for a laptop BIOS modification. I've done other modifications in the past with a Raspberry Pi and this is significantly easier in all regards. No more setting up a second workstation to get the job done, this simplifies the task to a single desktop. Depending on your situation you may have to purchase software from SkyGZ as stated in previous reviews but you likely know that already if you're even looking at these programmers.

Awesome little programmer. I have used this to repair many laptops. I do not use the supplied software but instead use the open source Flashrom project. It supports this programmer and works flawlessly with it.