Replacing EFI CHIP from donor board

I have two boards MBP retina A1398 15" 2012
Specs are the same.
Can i replace the chip from one to another?
I need to swap serial numbers on them
I dont want to mess with dump where you can change only text serial but not the inside hash etc so it wont display it correctly in ASD
I want to ask will it work normal in respect of Me region, icloud, imessage etc? Please answer if you done that and trsted

You can swap chips.

Change BOTH the serial number and board serial number in the dump.

The serial and board serial have characters in common. I think that changing ONLY the serial and NOT the board serial was what's breaking AHD/AHT.

I have just attempted this, but I'm mailing the chip and it won't be installed until Wednesday at the soonest, so I can't be sure.

yes i can rewrite the serial of the machine and serial of the board which is similar but longer
but i also heard that there are unique UUID and also some crypted serial somewhere in dump which needs to be also replaced

so to sum up - replacing whole chip is a safe easy way to go or not?

also i heard about blank board serializer. can i edit dump serial to FFs so the software will allow to put serial and reinitialise all the areas where it needed? any succesful attempts?

That all depends on your goal!

Is the original EFI chip bad? Or just sporting a pass lock?

reverendalc wrote: That all depends on your goal!
Is the original EFI chip bad? Or just sporting a pass lock?

both machines are password NOT locked. i am just replacing top case and bottom cover. i want the new board match the cover's serial number and box.
old board is dead but efi chip is good.


please see above answer, i added some questions

i'm not very experienced with the blank board serializer, as i just do my work with a hex editor.
i would love to hear about your trials and tribulations if you attempt that though (zeroing out serial and running serializer)

are you trying to get this machine past apple service technicians, or are you just trying to make a very finely composed repair?

if you are replacing the top case and bottom lid, won't the bottom lid serial NOT match the box?
if you have all parts from both machines service and donor, i would just swap logic boards and clean the EFI rom to your liking.

the job i just did, the serials were identical except the middle four characters (unique device id) and the board serials were nearly identical too

if you want to just swap bad EFI chips, then i think you will have success changing serial and board serial, but please try and report back.

as far as iCloud/messages/facetime, apple is strict in some ways, but lax in others:

all they require is a non-blacklisted MLB and ROM ID for messages and FaceTime to work correctly. my hackintosh uses an imac14,2 smbios, but messages and FaceTime are activated with MLB and ROM from a 2010 MacBook pro 15". That's right, a haswell quad core iMac (in their eyes) with a 2010 dual core MacBook MLB and ROM ID. I have a home-made serial number, and i've even allowed apple to remote control my "mac" (-;

i tried both ways:
1. i tried to edit dump and put there serial from donor. both system and board numbers. even the four last symbols of the serial that is repeated after the serial number. it boots and shows ok in system info, but in ASD you get no serial number. i dont think that is good to go. although i am not planning to have it apple serviced.
2. i tried to edit dump and put zero bytes or SystemSerial insted of serial as i found on the internet so the blank board serialiser would work.
i tried three BlankBoardSerializers i found on internet
1. seems corrupted, instantly shows efi error and doesnt boot
2. two fields:ask serial, re-enter serial, then button:set serial and it ask for serial again over the fields, doesnt reboot as it says, doesnt do anything
3. ask a serial then error 460 blabla

please help, i am stuck
please PM with a good bbs software to perform this kind of work.

the only way i could do it is to take a bad donor board dump with the needed serial from its case and inject into it my board's ME region. it works, it shows needed serial everywhere now. although i am a bit unaware how it will work further

Interesting. A step in any direction is a positive one.

Can you please explain in greater detail your current circumstances with the mac?