How To Libreboot Thinkpad w500
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 พ.ค. 2022
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Subscribe to my TH-cam channel goo.gl/9U10Wz
and be sure to click that notification bell so you know when new videos are released. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The Thinkpad is a working man's machine. Long lasting, reliable, and fixable You don't see much of that anymore.
Yeah much better than all those crappy ultra books that will break in 3 years
How dare you say that and ditch the holy beacon of productivity - the macbook
Many modern non-touch screen laptops are so much easier to work on than these C2D monstrosities. Thinkpads are pretty reliable though, I’ve seen these things sit out in the rain and power on the next day.
@@uvuvwevwevweossaswithglasses I like money.
Edit: and freedom
@@cd-yx3nv I should've put /s there :p
One thing about the w500 that people should know is your screws REALLY flipping matter here. Be very careful and take a million pictures as you go. Wrong screw can equal a broken screen display.
it sounds like you learned that the hard way :)
@@svampebob007 sometimes the screwed are just there to hold the thing together- other times …. Be aware and careful
Dismantle laptop, fix hardware.
Rescrew.
DVD-ROM port has 3 new rivets! (ASUS had these 1 mm short screws in 2000's)
I've installed libreboot on a chromebook, and it was a far less invasive procedure. The bios write protection is enforced by a single screw, so you can remove it, disrupt the circuit, and then flash the bios from within chrome OS, from there you can reboot, and you'll be able to install an operating system of your choice from the bios screen (chrome OS won't boot from libreboot). Still quite technical, but nowhere near as absurd as this.
which chromebook did you do this on? this sounds pretty neat
ive since googled and found out there is basically one chromebook that'll do it
I did chromebook repair as a class in my senior year of HS, alongside some tinkering with chromebooks I got cheap off ebay. They're actually fairly simple to mess with as long as they aren't locked to an organization like a school device would be. Since we'd have to replace tons of motherboards (Lenovo cannot design a good motherboard to save their life) I got quite used to messing with the write protection and flashing serial numbers and all that. Ended up being one of the main people in my class for it since I'm experience with a terminal and behind the facade, ChromeOS is really just a weird proprietary version of the Linux Kernel similar to Android. Anyways, most of the current fleet of chromebooks my school uses doesn't actually require removing the WP screw; It can all be done from crosh. It could vary for other devices, but my entire district basically exclusively uses Lenovo devices.
no SeaBIOS? refer to the archwiki page
Here for the reply
I shed a single tear when I remember when you could replace a cpu in your laptop. Short a period as it was.
@@a75431a would the board even read another cpu?
@@TrashwareArt yes it would. it would read the fuck out of that cpu ;_; better times...
I've been selling premodded firmware hardened ThinkPads since 2016 ( I call my line 'GhostPads'). I've modded over 200 ThinkPads with Libreboot/coreboor/osboot and have been a contractor for Minifree (the X200T that got FSF certified was one I modded). That programmer can give issues since it runs the logic at 5v even when the output voltage is set at 3v. Personally I've never had an issue (I've successfully modded maybe 60 or so with it) but some people have fried other boards with it. Just something to be aware of. I highly recomend OSboot over libreboot. It includes the microcode updates that libreboot leaves out. I also recommend the T420/520/w520/x220 with coreboot and neutralized IME for a more a more powerful firmware hardened system. One of my most popular models is the W520 GhostPad upgraded with an ivybridge quad core I7 and 32GB ram running Qubes OS. They are a beast. up to 3 drives (1 2.5" sata, 1 mSATA, 1 2.5" sata using a optical drive bay adapter. They are less labor intensive to modify as well. The flash rom is accessible by just removing the palmrest. (on T520/W520). My daily driver is a W520 w/ 3940XM, 32GB ram, 500GB msata OS drive, a 2TB 2.5" SSD and a 2TB SATA HDD running Qubes OS. I prefer this gen to the T/W*30 since they already have the better keyboard, they retain the 'ThinkLight' and they can be upgraded to the same max specs as the *30 line. If your interested in checking out my GhostPad line an ebay search for 'GhostPad' will bring up my machines. If you have any interest in one I would sell you one at my cost to support the channel. I also have Osboot roms if you'd like to try osboot on your machine and don't want to go through the hassle of building it from source. I really appreciate what you are doing here and would like to contribute to your efforts.
Hello there. I'm going to update my ThinkPad W520 with the Ivy Bridge processor, and I'm kinda scared because I don't know exactly what to do. Would you like to help me and the others by writing a guide? I think you'll have done a great job. After all, you had a great experience.
T430 doesn't make the cut? USB3.0 bro!?
Can I buy one?
I'm planning to coreboot my t420. For that I will be using a ch341a programmer. Is it save to use it for t420 without having to change the data pins to 3.3V output?
Hey Kenny - I make my living doing this, my company sells them librebooted. I had to watch Leah rowes video nearly 20 times to put it back together again. Glad to see there is still interest
that's pretty neat, is there a website where you sell them?
sauce?
@@MentalOutlaw would you like your channel name to be a discount code on our site?
Aloha I’m not sure why my website keeps getting deleted but
Mighty house Inc
Great job, and a cool video!
Couple of notes:
- spispeed - CH341A boards are limited to a specific speed (I think it's 512? I forgot) so that's why specifying it doesn't work.
- CH341A boards are probably the cheapest and easiest boards to do this with but they send 5V signals on the data transfer pins, which are typically only rated for 3.3V. I've flashed a good few boards with them before I found this out, so it's *probably* not going to break your board the first time you flash it (as seen here) but it should be discouraged. You can modify them to use 3.3V on the data pins by soldering a single wire, making them still a decent choice!
-MAC address - unless I missed it, you didn't flash a MAC address to the ROM! There are cases such as making an airgapped build in which it would make sense to not do this, and you can set the MAC address in software, but that's inconvenient. Documentation for this is on the libreboot website.
Still a good video and sorry if that comes off as critical. You were clearly successful and that's what matters!
Message me if you'd like to know about adding different payloads
This reminds me flashing custom fw on the first gen DOCSIS3 surfboard modems. Well presented.
8:20 for anybody trying to mess with BIOSes, before checking that both bios reads are the same, also check that the files you just created aren’t empty (0 bytes).
now i did not do this on a think pad but i recently had to change a GPU bios, and i at first got 2 bios backups but they were empty.
again, this might not apply in this case but check this anyway since it takes just a second
Gentoo + libreboot + ThinkPad = a force to be reckoned with
Kenny encouraged me to quit my NSA job.
pretty nice, congrats on 300k
Congrats on your 2nd channel getting 300k subs Luke!
@DarkXSeries7 Yeah, dont you see the white hands? that's not the vtuber black man model
@DarkXSeries7 this is Luke Smith's Deus Ex channel. He doesn't want to mix content with his Minecraft channel.
@@notuxnobux sometimes he has really poor lighting so I can see why anon didn't notice.
I don't think so. Their voices sound nothing alike, different githubs, different faces, although the thumbnails are quite similar. And when TH-cam banned mental outlaw Luke didn't get banned as well.
Nice to see a bit of HW content from my fave channel. Cheers my bro. Peace
Congrats on 300k!
Congrats on the 300k subs
I've installed Coreboot on my W520 and this was very similar. Always wanted to try it, might give it a shot now!
thank you for your channel. Really appreciate you taking the time to do these videos
Congrats on 300k
Congratulations for 300k subs on your second channel Luke
Needs to be some kind of rental service for these parts/cables you'll only need once. Then again I guess you could just resell after you're done with it.
Do not resell these.
You can: Unbrick openwrt, mod your BIOS, unbrick your libreboot, coreboot all sorts of spare thinkpads, ME_Clean your whole house...
It's a very cheap thing.
woah we have the same pfp what are the odds.
They cost literally pennies.
It's not every day that I look into trying a new mod on anything I own and it turns out I already have the special tool that I need, i.e. CH341A programmer. I needed it when I whitelisted my bios on my T440P. Now you're gonna make me do this?!?! Sounds great! Can't wait!
I've never been this early. Great content bro
Thanks for the demonstration!
My God was the rpi a disaster at this. Gave up and used my desktop. Thanks for this tutorial. I'm quadcore hacking my old uni W500 and going to get it to run my radiotelescope 😊
this is so cool man, i am learning CS, how long did it take to learn so much? Thanks for the video!
Thanks for the video outlaw
did you see that Duck Duck Go reached an agreement with Microsoft to let them put trackers in their browser? I'm always reminded of your last few previous DDG videos when I see more about the direction they're going in
congrats on 300k
Damn ,I will have to switch search engines then,any recommendations
@@wallmartdragonlink2513 Searx is a good option. Startpage is also pretty good
Congratulations for 300,000
These thumbnails never get better
Never gonna do this, but it's cool to watch it.
I can't wait for a video on the PinePhone Pro.
Neat. I didn't know libreboot was a thing before I saw this.
I know other people have mentioned the issues with the black and gold version of the CH341a where the datalines are at 5 volts instead of 3.3 volts. There is another version of the CH341a that has a built in voltage switch. If you want to see what it looks like, Adamant IT did a video about it called CH341a v1.6 Review, No More Volt Mods! - LFC#297 .
Libre "Little Leah" Boot
I can't be the only one that remembers this, right? Kept me far far away from that project ever since.
I don't know what exactly you're talking about; but I assume it's some old drama with the fsf. Leah is super chill now, and there's no libreboot drama anymore.
@@caleblagrange7164 that drama kept me away from FSF. Those are a cult that will do anything to adhere to their religion even if it goes against the people. They even made their own fork, tried to do a hostile takeover, and now they have a dead project that doesn't work with half of the hardwre in the world.... How moronic can somebody be...
And it's done! Now I have a LibreBooted X200! On my way to install Hyperbola
~8:20
there is a point of checking the readback's contents.
if the outputs are all zeroes, diff won't lie that these readbacks are still equal.
Great video!! thank you AGAIN mental outlaw!
Librebooting/Corebooting non X200 GM45 Thinkpads is something I *never* want to do again. Went through a phase of Thinking it would be a fun side hustle to sell Librebooted T400 and T/W500 Thinkpads (some even with the quad mod) and I still have nightmares about it.
thanks for the educational video, could you explain in the next video how to coreboot an X570 motherboard with a Ryzen 9 5900x?? it would be really nice to be gaming on a non-backdoored machine :) btw, are you going to expand your channel onto peertube someday?
Thanks Kenny!
If you know soldering. You can always reprogram the BIOS chip to original, if something goes wrong.
pretty cool video, reminds me of bisqwit's video where he did the same thing because of lenovo's bio not accepting a third party bluetooth card
This is a new level of freedom. Super impressive!
Usually red is voltage source and black is ground
The WCH IC company are actually kinda based. They make the common CH340 and CH341 USB to serial / SPI ICs, they make the CH55_ series microcontrollers, native USB devices that could make keyboards and the joysticks and like for a lot cheaper than a mega32U4, and now why’re even making RISC-V CH32V ICs, presumably meant to be replacements for STM32s and heir knockoffs.
thanks man.
on the back of the main programmer there's two sets of pads setup for common ICs. Using this tool myself for different chips I've found that the clip is the worst way of doing it and leads to more errors and time waste than just removing the IC and soldering it to the programmer directly, reflashing, and then soldering back to the board.
Wouldn't it be better to run a hash check instead of diff on the roms? They are binaries.
It is something that is incredibly inmportant as well as, is ensuring the ec version is up to date.
Has there ever been a time when that mattered?
People really love their Thinkpads. I've never owned one, personally.
best guide
I librebooted my x200 a while before watching this so for once I actually understood a whole Mental Outlaw video
@@WardenLord3000 No it's not random, it's the size of the bios rom chip on your motherboard. It has nothing to do with ram. It alone won't be enought though. You also need the bios chip's serial number.
For the algorithm babeh.
I will have to install Libreboot on our worker coop server before building our cloud.
never clicked faster
love the ar on pepes back. I just cucked out and bought x200 that was already librebooted 2 years ago.
very cool
Based
💯 GNU machine
jayson tatum teaching me to go off the grid
i have a high end W500, awesome machine and i use it pretty often to this day running windows 10.
Don't use diff, use cmp. The latter is for binary files. Even better is to use sha256sum and compare the hashes.
tip from me: if your programmer install corrupted rom, try desolder eeprom and solder to ch314a. I got that problem with Legion 5 after windows removed bios during update XD
To anyone watching this thinking "man, I wish I knew what MOSI and I2C mean, or where to get Dupoint wires" then I'd strongly recommend getting a raspberry pi (or arduino). Or building a drone/rover.
Drones and raspberry pis are to embedded systems what linux/pirate gaming and leetcode/scratch (the programming language) are to devops
i.e. its a fun way to get started and its how a lot of people start
nice!
Like No. 600 :)
Very nice! Will you play with a BSD distro or gnu guix?
I'm kenny's sister and he said NO
I'm Luke Smith, I think you can't play any games on those distros. Sorry, but you have to overthink further to find what you want 🤓
LOL
@@thegiantratthatmakesalloft9415 Luke smith doesn't play video games though...
@@thegiantratthatmakesalloft9415 nah you can play supertux cart on it
this is the tutorial that we've all been waiting for.
is there any more knowledge you can drop on us about me_cleaner or HAP/AltMEDisable bit?
What about either are you interested in knowing about?
The latter is just a way of soft disabling the me without really changing the firmware. ME_cleaner can do a lot more than the soft disable by neutering and truncating the me and resizing the regions in the ifd to give you more space for the bios region. In short, altme is just a half measure.
My desktop pc got two bios chips which you can choose between with a switch. So i took the unused chip out and read the contents with an arduino and ran the me_cleaner over it (-s is the option to truncate the me and set the HAP bit i think) and then just flashed it back to the chip tried to boot, worked first try. Now the ME is atlest not reachable from the OS and most of its region is now filled with 0xFF so there should be a lot less potential for glowing action at a distance.
So if you want to do this with another pc make sure you have a way to flash a backup. Most of the time you can just lookup the datasheet and connect it to a raspberry pi or an arduino with flashrom/serprog flashed on it. IMPORTANT most bios chips (virtually all) have a 3.3V logic level and arduinos are mostly 5V which will fry the chip so you need a level shifter (there are premade boards on amazon). The rest is just commandline. If the chip is soldered onto the motherboard you should completly power it off including removing the bios battery and use a clip (i also managed to directly solder wires onto my thinkpad bios chip but that requires good soldering skills)
@@RAnderwill props to caleb and minespeed too for the info, but I generally know that me_cleaner only works fully for older (core 2duo and older) machines and newer ones can either be fully disabled with ME_Cleaner if CPU sold separately and newest ones like Alder Lake can only utilize altmedisable/hap bit trick
@@minespeed2009 I am looking for the most powerful setup to run a ton of VMs at the same time with Qubes.
BASED
BASED
Does libreboot disable the trusted platform module? I've always hated the idea of the TPM but I loved the high build quality of thinkpads, but obviously being business machines they all have TPM, I haven't kept up with the development of the TPM disabling tools but it'd be awesome if just flashing libreboot makes the TPM inoperable.
Why would you ever want to disable a perfectly good piece of hardware......
What's wrong with TPM?
@@ninjawaffle4888 Yeah this one is okay, generally I would still prefer not to use it but it's not like it's doing weird things behind your back like ME can. It basically just lets the OS stash key material in it, which often turns into a headache if you have to replace a motherboard. But if you just don't use it, it doesn't cause any harm.
lets goo
why did you choose the 6year old libreboot release instead of coreboot?
Cool, is it possible to flash on a Dell inspiring 5575?
I have an old chrome book from when I used to work at amazon, it does not even have a bios as far as I know. Anything I can do with that?
Is there anyway to libreboot or coreboot (unsure of the difference in those terms) an older desktop?
I have an old one with an FX-6300 gathering dust. I would like to refurbish it with an AMD card (I havea Nvidia GTX750ti in it right now) and run Artix on it (I'm not sure if I might mess up Gentoo on it due to the peculiarities of the FX6300's core count, possessing 6 ALUs and 3 control units [or maybe it's the other way around, idk]). Obviously there would be no point to using such an old desktop other than because it has no AMD PSP, so having the BIOS not glow in the dark is a must as well, in addition to the closed-source drivers for Nvidia needing to go.
just go find the supported boards list for coreboot.
Based.
@DarkXSeries7 The entire thing is based.
@DarkXSeries7 This BIOS = Based Input/Output System
@DarkXSeries7 cringe
I feel like I'm watching one of Lewis's videos
Unfortunately I have an R61 which isn't supported by libreboot. Otherwise I would totally do this!
You think you can do one for the early model MacBook? I happen to find one at a yard sale for literally 10 dollars, I need to get a charger and a new battery for it
You might be able to unlock it but you'll probably have to check if libreboot or coreboot actually supports your computer.
Yes, some macbooks can actually be librebooted. Check their website!
mother love me long time long time...
There should be more open source firmwares.
I wish I could be able to flash my x570 motherboard with Libreboot. That's the only issue I have with it. It does not support newer hardware, but that's not Libreboot. Fault It's companies not allowing it to happen.
The W500's 16:10 display is very good aspect ratio for hacking or programming. Later Thinkpad use 16:9, which is not as good.
👏🙂
Woo woo
is this better than a x200? could you do a libreboot of that?
Does display brightness work?
It really takes all that just to flash the bios? What happened to the days of the desktop where you could flash the bios from the desktop? Or even just pop in a different chip? Or just plug in a USB, and tell the current bios to "update" from that? You know, the way normal things flash the bios. Where you don't have to jump through a million hoops.
I already looked in many forums and documentation, and I didn't find if coreboot or libreboot can be installed outside that list of supported devices, I know it seems obvious. my computer is an ideapad 310, would it be possible?
is there "how to libreboot $whatever legacy bios laptop" guide? at least at the state "how to split bios dump into loadable modules and rebuild the bios rom image with libreboot"
What does Libreboot resolve? I’ve already installed Linux on a laptop and a second HD on my desktop system...
was wondering what will be the best modern laptop for libreboot. w500 has quite old hardware
Almost all supported models will be older. Hard to reverse engineer newer hardware, plus a lot of bios can be locked down tight.
@@baremetaltechtv thank you for answering. What will be the top of the line machine that could use libreboot
@@baremetaltechtv Interestingly, even up to haswell machines the bios can be replaced pretty easy. It's just the me and ifd regions that get locked down.
Coreboot should be usable for newer machines, libreboot only really works for much older ones.
How to disable IME next? That way we can make sure our notebook's firmware isn't glowing in the dark.
libreboot has the IME completely removed
Reducing cable length can improve your success rates. Pesky speed of light.
Lol, no, it has nothing to do with the speed of light. At these low frequencies delay accuracy is completely irrelevant. If the signal is bad, it's because of dispersion, not delay.
GNU Guix review when
uhh... you do know the data lines on that are pumping 5v?, and there's a big difference between NOR, NAND, and managed-NAND. If you got it working you likely got lucky. 3v3 is somewhat tolerant to 5v, but not always, and on a 1v8 chip with an adapter it will totally blow the chip.
Luke updated his website to hugo
Why would someone choose to do this currently, especially with the limited selection of now weak hardware? What kind of safety benefits is gained by not using the proprietary bios?
not being spied on
what even IS libreboot, anyway even without knowing this it is interesting
I want to Libreboot my T400 and run a pure libre GNU/Linux distro.
Wtf is this? Should I customize bios for normal workstation mainboard? Or it should be replaced to Megatrends bios on server mainboards only?
What if there's no logo or company name on the IC chip?