Is ITE IT8628E programable

[petemanuk]

Does anyone know if ITE IT8628E super i/o is programable?

[petemanuk]

Re: Is ITE IT8628E programable

Update - found out this chip is non programmable :-(

Being still quite the newbie at board repair i have questions. where does this chip get its firmware is it located in a region of the bios that it reads or does it come pre-programmed from the manufacture.

Thanks

[DynaxSC]

Re: Is ITE IT8628E programable

Hi, my guess is the SIO chips generally are not programmable chips, but rather parametrizable chips with build-in fixed logic. I have exchanged plenty of them on different bords, both ITE's and Nuvoton's w/o any programming, and they worked fine. As far as I know, they have plenty of registers which can be used for parametrising their functions, I guess this is done via the Management Engine software (ME) of the chipsets, which is some kind of firmware/independent OS of the chipsets and is part of the BIOS, and sometimes is also transferred by the BIOS during/after update to the internal chipset non-volatile memory (observed on ASUS boards). This ME is usually disigned by vendors like AMI, but it is customized by each of the board vendors according to their products lines (eg. commercial or consumer) and requirements. The ME is a quite complex part of operating software, and works independent of the operating system used with the mothertboard, eg. Windows/ Linux. It works inside the chipset even when the board is in standby, if the 5VSB standby voltage is present, and can also even communicate via the LAN interface with the world (used mostly on commercial boards for remote maintenance). This communication capability is also a potential security threat, as it allows to access the MB hardware remotely, so people who cover their cameras on laptops are not completely crazy, they only don't know why they should do it. However I have seen also some boards where the SIO had an EEPROM attached, but no idea for what reason.

[piernov]

Re: Is ITE IT8628E programable

ME is completely unrelated to EC/SIO. AMD does not even have ME.

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...29&postcount=2

"Programmable" can mean various things. OP is asking about programming an embedded Flash with the firmware, which a bunch of laptop EC have (and some high-end desktop motherboards can have too). Others load the firmware from a dedicated SPI ROM or from the main BIOS SPI ROM. Some desktop SIO do not load an executable firmware image but rather are configured through registers by the BIOS.

[DynaxSC]

Re: Is ITE IT8628E programable

Thanks piernov, this clarifies a lot, learned again something !