AiTrip EEPROM BIOS USB Programmer CH341A + SOIC8 Clip + 1.8V Adapter + SOIC8 Adapter for 24 25 Series Flash

Working perfect

I was able to use this to fix my bricked MSI Tomahawk Z490 motherboard. Like many others, it failed after a simple BIOS update. From then on it would refuse to boot, no POST, no nothing but some fans at idle. The only thing that would come on was a single "CPU" LED. Hard resetting the BIOS/removing the battery, etc. did not do anything. And naturally, this board does not have any kind of "bios back" / bios recovery system. I figured it was bricked, but reading online gave me some hope about the possibility of reprogramming the BIOS chip externally. So, after a ton of research, I ended up buying this programmer linked below clipped it onto my BIOS chip* Was concerned about the whole 5V output instead of 3.3V, but read some people who said it worked fine. I rolled the dice and it worked fine for me also. I did not have to modify my programmer's output voltage. Now clipped in, I was able to detect the chip, and read and make a full backup of it. I then wrote the most recent BIOS to it and rebooted. Unfortunately now the board didn't turn on at all. Not even the LED diagnostic light. Rats. I keep at it though, and eventually I decided to flash the BIOS that was the original version it had before I did the upgrade that broke everything. I reboot, and BAM, it POSTs! From there I manually update the BIOS through the BIOS itself and a flash drive with each firmware update file. Every update takes, and I end up with a fully up to date motherboard with almost everything working.** *The SOIC 8 pin clip is very finicky, cheap, and I don't think would be good for more than a few attempts. The more I played with it / the longer it was on the more messed up the little tiny gold tabs became. **My Intel NIC's MAC address was hosed after this. I was able to figure out what it should be by looking it up on MSI's website, as they weirdly have a tool for that. Then booted off a linux USB and used some commands to write the original MAC to the NIC. Rebooted and verified all looks well in windows.

This one follows the flawed design where the IC woukd be exposed to 5v regardless of the jumper position. I had to mod it so that the power and data lines are now at 3.3v. Once done, it worked just fine. The clip takes a bit of fiddling around before it would give a proper connection. Once you get a knack of it, it works everything. Can't fault at all, except for the design around voltage limiting.

The CHA341A programmer is acceptable for the price... but the CLIP is a total joke. Get a 5250 Ponoma clip to complete your kit!

So I installed wrong bios update and bricked my old pc (no 2nd bios chip or USB bios port either). PC was fully dead, one second power loops.. removed my bios chip from the motherboard (as I couldn't get the clip on since the bios chip was right next to a sata port) then placed it in the adapter that fitted the winbond 25 series chip and plugged that into the programmer. Instantly read contents and directly reprogrammed correct file. Resoldered chip back onto my motherboard. PC came to life! Very happy