Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Adjusting BENQ Blur Reduction and DyAc (Dynamic Acceleration) including Blur Busters Strobe Utility. Supports most BenQ/Zowie Z-Series monitors (XL2411, XL2420, XL2720, XL2735, XL2540, XL2546)
qqbr
Posts: 10
Joined: 20 Jan 2014, 14:34

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by qqbr » 16 Mar 2019, 03:58

Hello everyone! I will be very grateful if anyone can make a video guide on youtube how to Firmware upgrade using Linux tool. I have XL2720Z and im stuck on v2 version! This video can make help alot of ppl, im sure :D PLEASE!PLEASE!PLEASE! Thanks :D

qqbr
Posts: 10
Joined: 20 Jan 2014, 14:34

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by qqbr » 25 Mar 2019, 09:46

:o

TroudhuK
Posts: 5
Joined: 31 Mar 2019, 04:50

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by TroudhuK » 31 Mar 2019, 05:18

Cecil wrote:
davidm71 wrote:
akhyg wrote:can someone update the tutorial for linux and upload links for xl2411z ? i got v1 now
Just follow the tutorial on page 21.
download the prepatched Flashrom package that was posted on page 50:

https://www110.zippyshare.com/v/qacsLHgR/file.html

Just copy the folder to your desktop and compile it after you
make sure you 'sudo apt-get install build-essential' before you compile Flashrom
use Ubuntu 18.04 instead but instead of: "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty main restricted universe multiverse"
change trusty to bionic. Actually that line already exists but its bionic not trusty anymore. Just add universe multiverse to it.

Use nvidia graphic card. Intel IGPU failed me. Have a couple backup computers to experiment with. Bricking may happen without warning...

Good luck.
thanks alot that worked for me!

i was able to update my 2nd XL2720Z to V008 (as the other one had this by default). tho i didnt really see what the difference between V7 and V8 is...

i'll leave it here so someone might find this useful:
"BenQ_XL2720Z_FW_V008_20160815_backup.7z"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ugWXkA ... sp=sharing

take care
Thanks for sharing, I successfully performed a V2 => V8 upgrade yesterday.
But now I have this:
Image

davidm71
Posts: 39
Joined: 28 Jan 2019, 22:48

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by davidm71 » 31 Mar 2019, 09:58

TroudhuK wrote:
Cecil wrote:
davidm71 wrote:
akhyg wrote:can someone update the tutorial for linux and upload links for xl2411z ? i got v1 now
Just follow the tutorial on page 21.
download the prepatched Flashrom package that was posted on page 50:

https://www110.zippyshare.com/v/qacsLHgR/file.html

Just copy the folder to your desktop and compile it after you
make sure you 'sudo apt-get install build-essential' before you compile Flashrom
use Ubuntu 18.04 instead but instead of: "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty main restricted universe multiverse"
change trusty to bionic. Actually that line already exists but its bionic not trusty anymore. Just add universe multiverse to it.

Use nvidia graphic card. Intel IGPU failed me. Have a couple backup computers to experiment with. Bricking may happen without warning...

Good luck.
thanks alot that worked for me!

i was able to update my 2nd XL2720Z to V008 (as the other one had this by default). tho i didnt really see what the difference between V7 and V8 is...

i'll leave it here so someone might find this useful:
"BenQ_XL2720Z_FW_V008_20160815_backup.7z"
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ugWXkA ... sp=sharing

take care
Thanks for sharing, I successfully performed a V2 => V8 upgrade yesterday.
But now I have this:
Image
Wonder does the monitor work otherwise?

Maybe something went wrong with your flash. Does the monitor register with the first part of the tutorial?

Think you have to type : sudo i2cdump -r 0-127 1 0x50 (matching it to the appropriate bus number)

TroudhuK
Posts: 5
Joined: 31 Mar 2019, 04:50

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by TroudhuK » 31 Mar 2019, 10:40

Yes the monitor works well, I had to adjust all the parameters again, and there were some curious behaviour with buttons lights just after the firmware update (power button red when on, and white when off...), solved after a night power off (but I didn't try to reboot computer or really switch off the electricity, or reinstall the driver, I will try later, after the next Windows Tuesday update).

EDIT : After a real power off, and a reboot, ALL is solved, my button 5 doesn't open the factory menu anymore :lol:

richiehawtin
Posts: 1
Joined: 07 May 2019, 08:27

How I upgraded from V1 to V4 on the XL2420Z

Post by richiehawtin » 07 May 2019, 08:55

TL;DR

This is a summary of what helped me with some instructions of that which helped me. There is alot of old info going around.

After a long period I finally succeeded. It took me alot of time and I just want to share what helped me getting it done (I feel it's my duty to you guys still stuck in V1. My first attempt bricked my XL2420Z. Linux still got signal from the VGA port so this gave me hope. I asked my uncle for another laptop with either DVI or VGA. That was one of the things that made this update succesfull. I learnt that some laptops or ports don't work. So If you bricked your screen and it still gives signal, try again with another laptop. MACBOOK DOESN'T WORK. <--- at least mine didn't.

I used all distributions of linux imaginable, but the one that succeeded was http://releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/. You also want to download the correct Flashrom because the old links don't work.

Flashrom: http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=392 ... 4453371344
Patch to read I2C protocol: http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=766 ... 3197152488
Firmware V4 of the XL2420Z: http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=037 ... 0328799959

First grab a USB flash drive. 8 GB+ works best
Get the ISO for Linux (Ubuntu)
http://releases.ubuntu.com/14.04/

Download the easy to use USB installer here:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal- ... y-as-1-2-3

Install it then boot to the flash drive and run the try Ubuntu mode.
When it finishes loading, open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T);
type "sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list" without the quotes to bring up the editor.
At the end of the second line, add "Universe Multiverse" so the line looks exactly iike this:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty main restricted universe multiverse
Save and exit the sources.list file.

Then type: sudo apt-get update
Then type: sudo apt-get install i2c-tools subversion libpci-dev

Then type: sudo apt-get update
Then type: sudo apt-get install libusb-dev

Put the Flashrom file on your desktop. Select the directory in your terminal. You can also drag your flasrom into terminal, remove the '' '' and put cd in front of the line.

Throw the IC2 patch in the Flashrom folder.

Type: sudo modprobe i2c-dev

Type: sudo i2cdetect -l <--this lists all i2c buses

sudo i2cdetect 1 <---this lists al i2c buses on bus 1.

sudo i2cdump -r 0-127 1 0x50 <--- get EDID (0x50) from bus 1. You are looking for an EDID dump that shows the monitor name in it. You may have to change the 1 to a 0, if your monitor is on bus 0, or to a higher value, seen up to 5 on 290x DVI ports, or more ( 0 0x50 instead of 1 0x50, or 5 0x50). Once you find the dump that says "XL2411Z/XL2420Z/XL2430T/XL2720Z" etc, then you're good to go.

Important: My chip didnt have the name: MX25L1605A/MX25L1606E. It was different. Keep this in mind. You may need to change that in the following steps. (My chips was on bus 7 btw)

sudo ./flashrom -p mstarddc_spi:dev=/dev/i2c-1:49 <----# identify flash chip, on bus 1 (/dev/i2c-1) at address 0x49. Change the 1 to a 0 if you are on bus 0. Change the 1 to a 5 if you re on bus 5, and so on.

(dump current firmware)
sudo ./flashrom -p mstarddc_spi:dev=/dev/i2c-1:49 -c "MX25L1605A/MX25L1606E" -r backup.bin <--again change the 1 to a 0 if you are on bus 0.

This should take about 5 minutes to dump. Once that's done, copy backup.bin to a folder on the local hard drive (NOT the USB drive) so you can can upload it somewhere. The dumped file should be 2 mb in size. We can easily verify if you dumped the right thing by a hex editor.

Copy the Version 4 firmware into the flashrom folder.

DO NOT RENAME IT TO FIRMWARE.BIN !!!!!

# extend firmware to 2MB, to match the flash chip size
(this step is important; the flash chip is 2 MB, but the raw firmware is 800k'ish. In order to flash with this flashrom patcher (the MSTAR ISP unit does not have this limitation), the other 1.2 MB must be filled with "empty/dummy" bytes to make the file 2 MB in total size. This is a limitation of flashrom itself).

tr '\000' '\377' < /dev/zero | dd of=firmware.bin bs=1k count=2k
dd if=XL2411Z_V2_20131209_8B72.BIN of=firmware.bin conv=notrunc (# < important !--REPLACE XL2411Z_V2_20131209_8B72.BIN with your firmware you are flashing!! Example: XL2411Z_V4.BIN or XL2420Z_V4.BIN or XL2720Z_V4.bin (as I suggested above).

(What this did was, it created a DUMMY empty 2 MB file called firmware.bin.
Then it MERGED the V2 (for this example only, in your case it will be the V4 file) with the 2 MB dummy file, a new 2 MB V4 file, that will be called firmware.bin

# write firmware
sudo ./flashrom -p mstarddc_spi:dev=/dev/i2c-1:49 -c "MX25L1605A/MX25L1606E" -w firmware.bin <-------HERE YOU SHOULD BE CAREFULL. Put in your bus and your chip. You can read them out again to be sure. MX25L1605A/MX25L1606E wasn't my chip

(this will take between 5-20 minutes).

Hope it helped. Thanks to OP as well!

TroudhuK
Posts: 5
Joined: 31 Mar 2019, 04:50

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by TroudhuK » 07 May 2019, 09:06

You can use (as I did) the last version of flashrom from git, instead of the old one + patch. To build it: make -j CONFIG_MSTARDDC_SPI=yes (and some other CONFIG_... which block the build because of dependencies, =no).

towe
Posts: 4
Joined: 27 Jul 2019, 13:25

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by towe » 27 Jul 2019, 13:32

I bought a XL2420Z yesterday, which was still on firmware version 1.

After some troubleshooting because of the ancient guide and no longer existing repositories, I sorta got it to work - I could start flashing the firmware.
However, after some time, it reported the following:

Code: Select all

Erasing and writing flash chip... FAILED at 0x00051000! Expected=0xff, Found=0x37, failed byte count from 0x00051000-0x00051fff: 0xfd0
ERASE FAILED!
What could've caused that?
richiehawtin wrote: Important: My chip didnt have the name: MX25L1605A/MX25L1606E. It was different. Keep this in mind. You may need to change that in the following steps. (My chips was on bus 7 btw)
What chip did end up working for you? The "identify flash chip" returned three possibilities for me.

towe
Posts: 4
Joined: 27 Jul 2019, 13:25

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by towe » 28 Jul 2019, 05:59

Tried it again today with a DVI cable and my NVIDIA card.

It still failed to flash (mismatch at 0x00000030), but at least the display started working again.
It does show up as V004, but there's a few quirks:
The OSD menu sometimes shuts itself down.
When pressing the EXIT key, some sort of color service page shows up.
Pressing the wheel on the remote control no longer opens up the menu, but scrolling the wheel still does.

Is this "normal" for V004 or do I have some sort of partially flashed device now? (XL2420Z)

TroudhuK
Posts: 5
Joined: 31 Mar 2019, 04:50

Re: Firmware upgrade using Linux tool, requires no hardware

Post by TroudhuK » 28 Jul 2019, 06:04

TroudhuK wrote:EDIT : After a real power off, and a reboot, ALL is solved, my button 5 doesn't open the factory menu anymore :lol:

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