Identifying EC Firmware - ISpillMyDrink/UEFI-Repair-Guide GitHub Wiki

Finding EC firmware within a UEFI image can be as easy as opening up UEFITool and looking for either a complete "EC Region" (since Skylake) or the first Padding section of the BIOS region, as these often contain the EC firmware and are easily identified by their size and content. Common sizes for EC firmware blocks are 128kB (131,072 B), and 192kB (196,608 B).

ITE Firmware

Firmware for ECs manufactured by ITE can often be identified by their magic number in the first couple of bytes which seems to always start with "A5 A5 A5 A5 A5 A5" in hexadecimal. Here is an example of an UEFI image from an ASUS X555UJ.

And here is an example of an UEFI image from a Lenovo NM-B911 board.

ENE Firmware

Firmware for ECs manufactured by ENE can often be identified by the string "ENE" within the first couple of bytes. Here is an example of an UEFI image from an ASUS UX510UWK board.

MEC Firmware

Firmware for ECs manufactured by Microchip are often times stored within the first filesystem of the BIOS Region. Here is an example of an UEFI image from a Dell Vostro 15 board.

Note that sometimes none of the identifiers described here are present. It might be necessary to compare with a dump found on the internet.