{"id":62,"date":"2025-07-15T02:11:29","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T02:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/?p=62"},"modified":"2025-07-15T02:56:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T02:56:52","slug":"resurrecting-a-dead-hp-probook-4540s-with-a-ch341a-bios-flash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/resurrecting-a-dead-hp-probook-4540s-with-a-ch341a-bios-flash\/","title":{"rendered":"Resurrecting a Dead HP ProBook 4540s with a CH341A BIOS Flash"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I recently picked up a free HP ProBook 4540s from Facebook Marketplace. It was advertised as non-working \u2014 when plugged in, the caps lock light blinked and the fans spun at full speed, but no display, no POST.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First suspect? Bad RAM? I swapped sticks and slots \u2014 nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Digging deeper, I found an obscure forum post suggesting BIOS corruption is somewhat common in this model laptop. That led me to discovering a BIOS dump on another site (after plenty of hunting). I used a CH341A programmer and SOIC8 clip to flash the BIOS chip directly. No luck with flashrom (kept hanging), so I busted out my trusty Windows XP VM and the Chinese flashing software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"\/blog\/ProBook_4540s_dump.bin\">BIOS Dump is here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"602\" height=\"800\" data-id=\"69\" src=\"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/hp1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-69\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/hp1.jpg 602w, https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/hp1-226x300.jpg 226w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ch341ahp.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-78\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After writing the dump and reconnecting the charger&#8230; it posted!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moral of the story: don\u2019t give up on &#8220;dead&#8221; laptops \u2014 sometimes a $5 programmer and a bit of digging can bring them back to life.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/12-11.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-67\" style=\"width:500px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/12-11.jpg 500w, https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/12-11-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/12-11-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 85vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently picked up a free HP ProBook 4540s from Facebook Marketplace. It was advertised as non-working \u2014 when plugged in, the caps lock light blinked and the fans spun at full speed, but no display, no POST. First suspect? Bad RAM? I swapped sticks and slots \u2014 nothing. Digging deeper, I found an obscure &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/resurrecting-a-dead-hp-probook-4540s-with-a-ch341a-bios-flash\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Resurrecting a Dead HP ProBook 4540s with a CH341A BIOS Flash&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oerinet.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}