Hi.
I was doing a factory reset—changing to Pureboot—when my Librem14 became unresponsive. Today, with an experienced tech friend, we used the programmer to reflash the BIOS and then the EC. We also checked the battery charge. Unfortunately, the laptop remains unresponsive. The battery light does not shine as well.
Any suggestions? Purism did not reply to an email regarding sending it in for repair. Any advice would be appreciated.
1 Like
Looks like a poor opensource statements, however the issues looks come from EC Firmware, make sure Reburning the ec-firmware with a Good external e.e.p.r.o.m burner like Bus-Pirtate.
Good Luck!
Purism 
1 Like
How long have you given them to respond?
I would persevere with Purism Support since it does seem as if this will be technically difficult to fix.
If you want to have another go yourself, did you review How to Hardware Flash your Librem 14 Boot Firmware – Purism ?
Also a read of Librem 14 - recover from pureboot update bricking ?
2 Likes
As you said this issue arose same day I would give a bit more time for support to respond, my personal experience has generally been under 24 hours for an initial response with subsequent response times varying.
1 Like
Thanks. I used KeeYees SOP8 SOIC8 Test Clip and CH341A USB Programmer Flash. It appeared to be reflashed. I’m not sure whether trying with another device will make a difference but I will look into it. Cheers.
1 Like
Thanks. It’s been six days since I contacted Purism. Perhaps I’ll send a second request.
3 Likes
Can you Execute an EEPROM-Firmware Checksum to find an Error?
1 Like
Sometimes also they might reply but their reply gets eaten as spam before it reaches you (or it reaches you but is in your spam folder). You could try following up by private messaging in this forum so that you can distinguish between: they haven’t replied yet v. they have replied but you didn’t receive their reply.
1 Like
How do you execute an EEPROM-Firmware Checksum? Do you mean using flashrom to read the chip and validating that checksum against the downloaded files?
I helped @throwninthishere with attempting to recover. We flashed the pureboot according to these instructions: How to Hardware Flash your Librem 14 Boot Firmware – Purism
And flashed the EC according to this: Librem 14 EC Upgrade Hardware Method – Purism
Flashrom successfully verified flash after each operation, so I don’t think there is any issue with the rom on the chips at this point.
1 Like
Yes in that way but on new REdownload ec firmware. However Flashrom do
checksum via Verified after burning the chip, however this does not mean that the original downloaded firmware is good. However you can do a checksum via Flashrom -v ecfirmware -p CH341A
I never used Pureboot so i do not know anything about it, however go for Coreboot this time to testing.
Either Cable and Burner from this David-Hamner Post are Professional and shame for Purism of course.
Please use Genuine Pomona or 3M Clips and Buspirate Burner both of this improve Reliable and Safe over Generic( KeeYees SOP8 SOIC8 Test Clip and CH341A) CH341A some time damage the chip. However you can try Reburning till get working the ec chipset but before burning the ec firmware try read the chipset info then burning…
Verified does not at all from a already corrupted file download.
1 Like
I cloned the repo with the firmware files: librem_14 · master · firmware / releases · GitLab
So I’m quite confident there isn’t any corruption in the download.
While I am quite experienced with linux, I don’t have any experience with Librem laptops. Is it plausible that a problem with either of these chips could make the machine so non-responsive that even the battery charging light no longer lights? Or does this indicate that there is likely some other hardware error?
1 Like
Read the Chipset to see the state, then downgrade of ec firmware, go for ec1.12.
What you mean Linux?, quite experienced on core(kernel)? or you are quite experienced on ?/Linux.
Very Tricky by default.
EC management Battery, Keyboard and LEDs
1 Like
I’m not a kernel developer, but I’ve been managing fleets of linux servers professionally for many years.
We’ll give EC 1.12 a try. I take it if EC is fixed, we’ll get battery lights, regardless of the state of the boot chip. So we can focus on EC, then move on to worrying about coreboot/pureboot after we get that fixed.
2 Likes
Moreover let me Ping to Purism L14 Firmware Programmer @jonathon.hall to address with the issue too.
2 Likes
You only get a battery light if the battery is charging - the battery must be connected, and it must be below the start-charge threshold when plugged in, then it’ll light until it finishes charging. If it is already full, no lights will turn on.
Did you disconnect the battery when flashing the EC/BIOS?
Since you cloned the downloads with Git, the files are good, and you said the verifications passed so this sounds like an issue beyond firmware.
How exactly did the laptop become unresponsive originally - did the OS freeze but the display remained on? Did everything go dark and it would not turn on again? Do you recall if the AC adapter was connected or if the battery was nearly discharged?
I understand you’ve already contacted support@puri.sm, I’ll let them know about this one (I don’t know what the queues look like at the moment, thank you for patience).
3 Likes
@throwninthishere @Chapped5509 - Support says they believe they have responded to this email, but that you may not be receiving our emails. Could you please check your spam folder? (Not sure which of you sent the email originally)
1 Like
Hi,
Please check your spam folder or try using another e-mail account to contact us, I’ve replied to your initial e-mail but it seems you might not be receiving my e-mails.
2 Likes
I’ll send it again from another email address. Thanks.
1 Like
The batteries were disconnected for flashing. The laptop become unresponsive when doing a factory reset, changing to pureboot. Everything went dark without sound but I thought that it was just rebooting. After a long time—like 30 minutes—I starting trying to turn it on to no avail. AC adapter was connected at all times.
Thanks for your help.
1 Like
Thanks @jonathon.hall, I checked the battery with a multimeter and it’s fully charged, so I guess we will not expect a battery light when plugging it in.
Battery was disconnected during the flashing of both chips.
1 Like