Libreboot

216 readers

10 users here now

A Lemmy community for Libreboot, the essential firmware for fully liberating your laptop!

Libreboot is a free (libre) BIOS/UEFI replacement. Based on coreboot, the aim is to distribute low-level boot firmware that is 100% free software, and easy to use.

Post questions, issues, victories, defeats and more here!

If you'd like to help me with (or fully take over) moderation, just let me know!

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

CH341a for Librebooting an X200: Yay or nay? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm aware that Leah strongly discourages using CH341a, but I understand that this is chiefly because it's voltage is 5V, whiich risks burning the 1.8V or 3.3V datalines of the devices we're librebooting.

At the same time, I've seen a popular video specifically recommending CH341a when librebooting an X200. I assume this advice should be ignored.

However, Leah also specifies that you can technically tweak the CH341a to reduce it's voltage, following this guidance.

My question is: is this worth it, or is it safer to just use a Beaglebone Black/Raspbery Pi instead? What's your experience been?

I'm unfortunately on a budget, and BB/RPi are both prohibitively expensive for me. Then again, so is a laptop that's bricked thanks to an improperly fixed CH341a.

Have you had problems using a (tweaked or untweaked) CH341a? What's your advice? I really appreciate it. Thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

You'd only need to plug the power in and connect the 3v3 & ground to the chip. I was only mentioning this because then you'd never have to set the voltage and a lot of people have it laying around. Otherwise, any DC power supply would do as long as you can get that 3.3v output.