MCP61SM-AM WinFlash BIOS update warning!

This applies to BIOS update on MCP61SM-AM motherboard with bootblock protection enabled in BIOS (in my case Acer Aspire T180). The one and only official update available on Acer website is R01-C0 from 2008/12/09.

Problem:

• You have bootblock protection enabled in BIOS settings
• WinFlash shows that bootblock is hardware protected and BIOS update fails
• If you reboot (DO NOT DO THIS!) your motherboard will be bricked and your only hope would be BIOS chip replacement

Source of a problem:

• WinFlash won't check if BIOS bootblock is protected before starting update procedure
• Bootblock is being updated after all other blocks so you end up with error and unusable mixed-up BIOS
• Why anyone would make a BIOS flash utility to work in such a stupid way?

Solution:

• If you hopefully haven't rebooted your PC yet, open a backup of your old BIOS version in WinFlash
• Check everything to update except a bootblock
• Click reboot after update is done
• Enter BIOS and disable bootblock protection
• Update BIOS in WinFlash