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**Codeberg.org** @Codeberg · 30. Jan.

We have published a new newsletter about our current activity: https://blog.codeberg.org/letter-from-codeberg-looking-into-2025.html

* Meet us at #FOSDEM in Brussel and get stickers for you and your friends!
* Learn about our infrastructure improvements, networking and #Ceph storage.
* Read about other news from the past months.

blog.codeberg.orgLetter from Codeberg: Looking into 2025 — Codeberg News(This is a stripped-down version of the news letters sent out to members of...

**lj·rk** @ljrk@todon.eu · 30. Jan.

30. Jan.

lj·rk @ljrk@todon.eu

@Codeberg

> However, our motivation to invest time and energy into this device is exhausted and our experience with coreboot and firmware recovering is limited on these modern devices. It would be great if someone could recover the firmware, or, at the very least, use it as a learning opportunity.
>
> If you want to give it a try, we hereby offer you the device to take a look. We can hand it over in Berlin, bring it with us to FOSDEM in Brussel or potentially even figure out shipping with you.

Kind of sounds like something for @elly and/or @april?

**April The Pink ⋆☾╶⃝⃤☽⋆** @april@donotsta.re · 30. Jan.

30. Jan.

April The Pink ⋆☾╶⃝⃤☽⋆ @april@donotsta.re

@ljrk @Codeberg @elly both berlin and fosdem works. ~~why not both~~

Heres a deal: bring it over to fosdem, and if i manage do to the thing, i get to see codebergs berlin shit

**elly** @elly@donotsta.re · 30. Jan.

30. Jan.

elly @elly@donotsta.re

@april @ljrk @Codeberg kicks door down, slams backpack on the floor, pulls out non-descriptive plastic box out and a laptop

D-did somebody say coreboot?

(MrChromebox works for StarLabs now, expect firmware quality to get better with upcoming release)

**Codeberg.org** @Codeberg · 30. Jan.

30. Jan.

Codeberg.org @Codeberg

@elly @april @ljrk

Thank you all for the networking. We'll bring the notebook to our stand if you want to take a look, and hope we didn't roast the chip with our experiments already.

**elly** @elly@donotsta.re · 30. Jan. *

30. Jan. *

elly @elly@donotsta.re

@Codeberg @april @ljrk Sure thing! Is it SOIC or WSON by the way? WSON will be a bit more challenging since I don't have probes

Codeberg.org @Codeberg@social.anoxinon.de

@elly
Honestly, I don't know. It's a StarBook MK VI. The chip is very shallow, smaller than in the guide at https://support.starlabs.systems/kb/guides/installing-slash-recovering-firmware-with-external-programmer. We tried to follow that, but didn't manage to clip on the chip reliably with the equipment we had.

The guides for other models use an FPC cable with a debug port, which is probably the better idea.

They offer a debug kit in the shop, but it's quite expensive (given we probably only need such a cable, a breakout board and the pinout docs) ~f

@april @ljrk

support.starlabs.systemsLabTop Mk IV - Installing/recovering firmware with external programmer - Star Labs

30. Jan. 2025, 15:22·

0Mal geteilt·2Mal favorisiert

**elly** @elly@donotsta.re · 30. Jan.

30. Jan.

elly @elly@donotsta.re

@Codeberg @april @ljrk So it's SOIC-8, easy-peasy :)

Those cheap Chinese clips are useless, they fall apart after one use (assuming you even manage to clip it). I'll bring Pomona with me, it'll be a 5-minute job. As long as you haven't reversed the polarity on the chip, it'll be fine

**Codeberg.org** @Codeberg · 30. Jan.

30. Jan.

Codeberg.org @Codeberg

@elly OK, we hope for the best, then.

Note that we had a similar issue (judging from the symptoms only) before and shipped it back to StarLabs. Although they recovered the firmware, they "were not happy with how it was performing after this" and replaced the mainboard. Not sure what they meant exactly by this. Just so you know :)
@april @ljrk

**April The Pink ⋆☾╶⃝⃤☽⋆** @april@donotsta.re · 30. Jan.

30. Jan.

April The Pink ⋆☾╶⃝⃤☽⋆ @april@donotsta.re

@Codeberg @elly @ljrk elly and me will get it back on track somehow. (also uwu funny Coreboot boot logo?)

**elly** @elly@donotsta.re · 4. Feb.

4. Feb.

elly @elly@donotsta.re

@april @Codeberg @ljrk It was WSON after all, so I didn't have tools to fix it at FOSDEM... and I don't want to blast SPI chip with hotair to take it off due to delicate plastic parts close-by (WSON chips have a big ground plane underneath, so it's the only way to take them off).

I cleaned up broken solder and scratches on the board without taking the chip off, get correct voltages on all pins. However, board is completely "dead" - it draws 1.37W from the bench PSU and power-cycles every ~30 seconds.

This is just a hunch, but I believe that Embedded Controller is trying to load it's FW from the SPI flash (why didn't they put a dedicated flash nearby, it's only 128KB...) and that somehow got corrupted, so EC cannot start - therefore, system appears dead.

https://github.com/coreboot/coreboot/blob/main/src/mainboard/starlabs/starbook/variants/adl/board.fmd#L7
https://github.com/coreboot/blobs/commit/9df5910d68081d7bd31385c99420352622ef168f

Debug header has 12 pins and I can map them using a diode mode in the multimeter, I'll order a ribbon cable from China. Hopefully I can get a breakout board so that unbricking in future (if needed) will be as simple as sliding in the ribbon cable and flashing it using flashprog...