By the way, it ain't stolen guys. Customer knew the previous owner, previous owner had set the password who-knows-when ago. Like I said, it's a legit purchase. I get it, when people say 'oh I just got it' and there's an iCloud lock or whatever then that's super sketch, but sometimes it's a genuine case.

You don't actually need to rewrite a completely new BIOS onto the chip. All you need to do to get rid of the EFI-lock is to read the current chip using your adapter, then search the file for $svs in the file and replace that whole section with zeros (In HxD you use ''fill section, and fill it with FF), save the new file and write onto old chip. This will remove the EFI-lock but leave everything else (ME-region, SN, etc) as original :)

hi good see you in action, is it possible to have a copy of the dump? Thank you.

That is precisely what we TV technicians do (buy an already programmed SPI Flash) and we copy the info into a new one. When we receive a TV without eeprom problems, we also copy it and keep that information on our PC, we have to register Part Numbers of the mainboard, the T-Con board, also the brand and model of the screen; used in that particular device. Winbond is my preferred manufacturer when choosing these types of components. Thank you very much for sharing. All the best.

The simplest and clearest explanation I've seen, congratulations, just a couple of questions, 1.- Is this method possible to do on all Mac models?...2.- How is a bios identified on a Mac motherboard ?....Thanks

Hi thank you for the video. This is my first try of doing a motherboard repair. Looked at videos of them for years but had my first attempt today. I tried to remove the chip from a donor board and followed all the instructions. Located the chip, applied flux and set the hot air gun to 450*C. I did it exactly as you did it in the video but I just couldn’t remove the chip and ended up destroying it. Parts of the black covering just came off instead of the chip itself. I tried to remove some neighbouring chips with the same result. I wonder what I did wrong…

You can simply select the part of the rom starting with $SVS and replace it with FF. Worked on my Mac Mini Late-2012.

do you happen to still have the unlocked .bin file around? I've managed to wreck mine which is a locked winbond 25q64fviq from an older A1466 model. Much obliged if you can help a fellow out

Good stuff! Im not a mac guy but ive recently had some people come at me with some 🔐 locked down macs not like this one in particular. I really enjoyed watching youre video. Very informative concise and clear. All around fun to watch. You just got a new follower.

Super well done. I don't feel worse now about giving up on my own Firmware-locked laptop (purchased from someone who doesn't remember the password): That's a lot of skilled work you did there.

I have a dead macbook pro logic board (water damage) I installed a new logic board into the machine and it has this firmware lock, is it possible to swap the bios MXIC chip from my old board onto this new locked one?

PLS MAKE SURE U PROGRAMM THE CORRESPONDING SERIAL NUMBER INTO THE EFI OTHERWISE IT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE APPLE SERVICES LIKE ICLOUD IMESSAGE ETC

Love the content. Can you do a tour of the workshop? (we don't care if it is a mess)

Excellent and very educative video. I recently came across to a Macbook Air A1466 that experienced black screen of death after failed update to Big Sur. Previously, laptop worked fine. Now it is possible to revive it without loading EFI chip with correct firmware.

I can't believe it. You have programmer in your service shop and you replaced the original BIOS chip. The right way it's to clean the security block. The ME region, serial number, and other settings remains as original. I will clean security block for free.

13:31 You could cover the middle part with thermal tape and it won't get soldered!

A few others people pointed out some nice information but I want to make a comprehensive comment because it's not as easy as it sounds. - It is not recommended to replace the SPI ROM chip with a different model. Different SPI ROM chips may have different working voltage (1.8V or 3.3V), different operating frequency and latency, different command set and especially support for Quad SPI mode which may not be enabled by default. In particular, the 2015 MacBooks like this one use Quad SPI mode, so the chip must support it and have its QE bit set to one. Additionally, Intel platforms all have Intel Management Engine nowadays, and it can be picky about the SPI ROM. The firmware contains a list of supported chip in the VSCC table, you can check it with UEFITool NE or Intel FITC if ever you have to swap with a different chip. - Buying pre-programmed chip off of eBay is not a good idea. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, because the people that sell them don't necessarily know what they are doing and just flash random dumps found on badcaps.net or Vinafix. - Using a pre-programmed chip or a chip from another machine means you will have the wrong serial number. In the best case the serial number is blank and the board has to be serialized using Apple's Blank Board Serializer. Otherwise it has to be edited to match the original one, and the checksum for the Fsys store (which contains the ssn variable) has to be recalculated. - Using a chip from another machine means you get the ME region that has already been tied to the new machine's PCH. This will cause all sorts of random problems depending on the machine, incl. shutdown after 30 minutes, long POST delay, fan running at full speed, ME not working, freeze/kernel panic while booting macOS, apparently even webcam not working on some Mac boards. The ME region has to be cleaned, and there's a specific procedure for that, 90% of the videos or tutorials you'll find are wrong about it. Don't copy/paste with an hex editor, don't use MEInject. This will put a raw ME region without manufacturer settings, and Macs for example have specific settings for the ME region that will be lost (and it can also cause similar issues to "dirty" ME region). The correct way is to use Intel FITC, see tutorial on win-raid forums. Some pre-programmed chip also may not have the ME region cleaned properly. - Apple switched to APFS by default with High Sierra on machines with SSD (and HDD since Mojave), which required a BootROM update (part of the EFI) to support booting from this filesystem. Meaning that if you use an EFI with an old BootROM (either flashing a random dump or using a pre-programmed chip without the update), suddenly you won't be able to boot from a drive with High Sierra or newer on it, and you won't even see it in the boot menu. One solution is to reinstall macOS on the internal SSD to trigger the BootROM update. Overall it means that it's not a good idea to ditch the original firmware. The proper way to clean a password is to edit the original firmware. To be clear I don't support shady unlocking practices, it is well known that there's a whole market of stolen goods and people making money off of unlocking them. There are 2 methods for this: - Clear out the whole SVS store. There are other stuff in this store, no idea what they are for so personally I prefer not doing that. - Just invalidate the CBF2CC32 NVRAM variable in that SVS store which contains the encrypted password. You just have to change one bit in its name, so like replace the C with an A or whatever. Note that strings are UCS-2 encoded, so in the hex editor it'll show up as 0x43 0x00 0x42 0x00 0x46 0x00 etc. By the way, only the Macbook Air 2013/2014 (820-3435/820-3437) will have the fan spin/stop/spin/stop/spin after disconnecting all power. The 2015 model here (820-00165) won't do it. Also you can buy a WSON8 adapter board for your programmer, it should come with both the 8x6 and the 6x5 footprints for 2013 and 2015 machines respectively. You don't need to use hot air to solder it on the adapter, you can just run the solder iron with some solder on the edges.

Hi Graham: Although I’d never tackle any but the most basic computer repair myself, I greatly enjoy your channel. Your technical knowledge and skill, and your easy-going ability to communicate with your audience, really stand out. To me, as a Mac user, this is one of your most interesting episodes. I shall take care never to mess with the firmware password on my Macbook Air! Best wishes for the channel and thanks _ from NZ.

My question is :What if I don't put an another chip back? Does still turn my macbook on?

u also have to Programm the serial number for each individual MacBook easiest is u get a PI SBC with SPI and u can programs them with the pi

Smashing recovery :-D So at some time you may do a byte by byte comparison between the two images to see what changes when the password is set. I used to do stuff like that with my old willem interface , millions of years ago lol.

great video, can you share the link from where you ordered?

Greeting from NY (the bronx) you are a bad ass! cool how everything was detailed. I have subscribed to your channel, good job... keep it coming. be good be safe!

why not using kapton taper to mask the ground ??

Seeing how you go about fixing this made me laugh. Cause you said we are just along for the ride sometimes. Lol. No matter how you did it. You did it. Mission accomplished. Very disco in my opinion.

"Cheap as Chips" 👍😎 P.S. Outstanding A.I. work you 🇬🇧 guys are doing.

Did you copy over the serial number using HexEditor ? Otherwise, the new BIOS chip will either have someone else's Serial, or a Blank Serial which doesn't exactly make it a professional repair.

I have actually fixed a macbook air with locked UEFI by using a removable UEFI chip that you put on the little SAM-Port or the "JTAG" connector. It still requires you to reinstall the OS on the SSD though :3 and they are very very pricy

Always a good day if one of your video's comes out ! keep up the good work !

That's a fancy looking mouse pad! Looks great 🤩

Agreed. Big fan of the simplicity in your videos.

Would it be possible to just use a soldering iron? Rather than a “hot air station”?

Do you need flux? And can you use any type of heat gun. Can you put the items in your description

i did this - and wiped the svs area w 0's and written back to the chip. soldered back in twice. now the fan just spins then stops. any thoughts?

Hi amijo I have a question if you would please here is the question dose MacBook Air 2020 hads EFI chip please let me know and if can be reprogram thank you you

I very much enjoyed this and many of the videos that you do. Excellent way to solve an issue. Thanks for sharing.

All you needed to do..is use the password blocked chip...read it in the programmer...save it .open the saved bios file in a hex editor.....locate the password block..normally begins with...svs..select it...fill it with dummy values...FF...save it...reflash the existing chip...job done.

reprogram the EFI chip Apple: laughs in T2

Hello Adamant IT ...... I have a Macbook Air A2337 2020 with me AND it as Activation password on it so I cant go to option menu or reinstall OS on it. Question - is it Possible to replace the EFI CHIP and the Activation password be removed ?

Erase my efi for error can you sell bin file for MacBook Air model 1466 please or if you help me where find that file please. thaks for the videos

Hey, if my EFI chip is damaged and I can't put it in the programmer, after buying a new chip, what do I have to do to make it work again?

How much does this usually charge someone to get down bc mine is doing this and I need to go to apple tomorrow To fix it.

Dear Adamant I bought iMac 2019 and I didn't format it directly but after one year when I wanted to sell I formatted and it appeared that its firmware looked and the seller is responding. Can you help me in opening it Please? I have a proof of legal purchase from Ebay.

Great vid! See I learned something very important! And I want to combine it with another method! Basically use the same device, but with different connectors, depending on the MacBook Model and year! Also, I will agree with this method, you will have to make sure that the serial number of the logic board for the repaired EFI device is entered into the chip or flashed! And then if that doesn’t work, press “E” for erase NVRM, Nand, Fans, PMU, or whatever else there is that Apple has, then restart the computer! Hopefully, the new EFI chip will be able to read and/or save the device serial number somewhere in the EFI boot modules, so that when the machine does it checks, it can start up normally as originally programmed from Apple! Hopefully, all security is disabled prior to you doing the mass Apple settings erase and reset! That’s what I had to do after replacing the chip with a whole new EFI programming! Like one of the guys said, we need a cable to plug into all of the MacBooks’ engineering and testing sockets! Way cheaper than what they are being sold for now! Time for some ingenuity! God Speed! 😎🔥💯💰🌎💻📱💣

I had a suggestion for 13:20 . It is more of a question than a suggestion. How about applying masking tape on the bottom of the chip (Ground pin). Just to make your life a little easier so that it doesn't short out the other leads. I guess that might work. It would mean you don't need to verify every time whether it has shorted, If you are pulling it on and off the board multiple times

K so I changed the efi chip on a 2015 macbook air all went well after the new install macbook turned on I went and installed the new os and that worked got the home screen up then I went and turned the power off now it won't turn back on any ideas can you please help? One last thing the light is green on charging cable and the fan is running

Very good information Bro, very helpful, thank you.

Hi I purchased a 2018 MacBook Air A1932 and it also has a firmware passcode that the previous owner doesn’t remember. I’m trying to watch your video but I can’t seem to find a EFI chip for my model. If you could help me find the right one so I can purchase it, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

Not sure why you didn't share the ebay link for the replacements. Kind of common sense

Hey Mr I haven't slove my own problem yet, with this formula

Hi friend! How could I know which would work to my Mac?

Good video Adam. It looks really fiddly placing those chips onto a board.

Did you ever made a video about how to clean me region of the efi? That would be nice content too. Thx 😄

Nice work mate!

Nice video. The repaired Macbook now uses the software which came on the preprogrammed chip. Are you not afraid there are virusses and other unwanted stuff in this software?

Hello, please I really need help. I recently misplaced my MacBook Air and after a while I happened to find it somewhere in my house but before then I had already locked my Mac using Find My Mac, but now the password seems to be dead, even if I punch in the one I put there while activating the lock it still doesn’t work. Please help me… 😢

I have macbook air 2015 same problem, lock firmware, how much for fix it? I bought it from a girl and I have the purchase note. I need to fix this.

hey i love the video can you do a video on the T203? to the activation lock on a mac book pro 2020 is the 2020 too new to do a bypass? thank you!

This is what we want from you god bless you thanks

Hi Adam what a great vid thank you 😊

Hi guys, quick question, if I reset the password, 1) will it wipe out the data on the device? 2) Will it reset the apple cloud password? Many thanks

Hey not sure, did you do a episode on the programmers specifically? A "what to do" question. I have a "play" mobo (socket 775) that I am using to de-stress from work, want to play with the bios without losing the original chip/programming. I can buy the chips on ali for cheap but not finding a programmer that will do them (its an 8 pin starts with a 25 and the programmers Ive looked at (CH341A USB Programmer) have said they can read it but not program it).

Hi great video a couple of suggestions have you thought about using a low melt leaded solder on the original SMD component to assist with removal as it mixes with the unleaded solder and allows for easier removal amd secondly you could also locate the are aon the chip that has the password on it and rewrite it with ffff data. I am assuming each Mac computer has different eeprom data thus saving you having to keep numerous spare EPROMs

Some people are selling MacBooks on eBay that have the efi password turn on i brought a mid2013 MacBook air off eBay when i tried to update the Mac os the MacBook air locked up when i told the seller they told me that the MacBook air came from a computer recycling company and they didn't know the password they gave me the phone number to recycling company and the recycling company person said they only sale to businesses not to individuals and they don't know any passwords to the computers and apple won't help because iam the original owner of MacBook so i replace the efi chip and one other thing eBay wouldn't gave back my because it was after 30days

Thanks for the video and the information.

I like your post Sir Adamant, but I am not sure if anyone can follow what you just did.

Probably easy solution for ground would be to put a kapton tape over it rather than relying on luck

Thank you for your videos😊😊😊

You now have two EFI chips with same serial number

nice tutorial again. keep posting repairs

Thought I was on a Louis video for a second there. You didn't use nearly enough flux btw

Will this work with Macbook Pro 15 inch 2018?

Locked laptop and whiped ssd sounds a bit suspisious to me..

Oh my God. Who are you ? You are a genius. So amazing video . Thanks a lot . You saved me a lot of money . 💎

Winner, winner. Chicken dinner! Unh. Take that, Apple! Now if someone could help me crack the password put onto the BIOS of an ancient Dell laptop that came with Windows Vista.

Hey, Great Video. What is the model of your hot air gun?

Should be able to edit the original hex and use the original chip. Have you done a file compare between the original chip vs the ebay chips? Just toss both files into notepad++. I get a bit nervous with an unknown firmware.

love the vids keep em up

What’s the bios chip link for eBay. Is it the same for a 2018 Mac book pro

A clean job deserve a brilliant recommendation STB SECURITY you really save my life Thanks so much..

Can you also remove iphone / ipad activation lock this way?

Take a shot every time Graham says “however”!

Great stuff Graeme

Good video man. Thanks

How much would you want for an old macbook? doesnt even have to be fully together could be missing pieces i wanna make a project outta one lol

dosdude1 Has a video on "How Removing a Firmware Password" if you only have one EEPROM Chip Way easy than this video

From where I can purchase one of these chips ?

How much generally it cost to replace the BIOS chip?

How much does this service cost with u ? Where would I ship to and how do I get in contact ?

hi sir i’m here for beg your help i have 3 computers that have efi password macbook pro 2015 model a1502 emc2835 macbook air2017 model a1466 emc3178 and macbook pro 2012 i don’t know which chip on motherboard i can remove and i don’t know which adapter i can use for reprogramming the chips i need your help sir thank you

can you help me the name of the device used to inject voltage /current on the motherboard to find hot component

Is it possible to use an older firmware chip on a newer MacBook Pro about 2020, all the chips I see in eBay the newest is 2016

I for one would be kind of suspicious if a customer came in with a locked "second hand" notebook. Are you legally safe doing something like this, what if it is actually stolen?

which is cheaper checkm8 efi remove or this method?

Hi man I have same problem with my girlfriend mac book air how can I get you to fix it

What camera do you use, can you give brand and model please?

Where can i get schematic brd files for open board view app that you use???

Which adapter you used for reprogrammer the chip?

programmer ezp2019 plus is work for chip micron 25Q064A?

Tbh some of this is well advanced to my knowledge and expertise. But it’s amazing to see you in action and doing these work arounds etc. I don’t personally use 💻 🖥 mac’s but nonetheless terrific episode again, and as usual. Love your content 👌🤘🤟💓👍. What is your trading if you don’t mind me asking and what got you into this type of work. I feel you’d be better servicing NASA diagnostics 🥰🤯🤯