[vetrom]

bios flashes are typically preflashed prior to soldering to boards -- some vendors route jtag or spi contacts, but you're more likely to need a vampire/pogo clip on for the TSOP or equivalent chip, or have fun with resoldering the bios flash if you're needing to recover from this.

It's not impossible to do in the field, but you can't really count on vendors surfacing that interface usually.

[dlcarrier]

I've worked with automated EEPROM/Flash programmers (earlier versions of this line: https://www.bpmmicro.com/device-programmers/automated-progra...), and used pre-programming services from distributors, like Digi-Key, but that was the exception. It's almost exclusively faster, cheaper, and easier to load firmware from a test fixture. You need to test the assembly anyway, and it's much easier to update a test procedure, when a new firmware is developed, than to update and track inventory of pre-programmed devices, especially when different firmware versions are needed for different hardware variations.

Pogo pins are only really needed for mass production, especially for reducing repetitive stress injuries. For one-off updates, if a header isn't populated, it's easy to hold an unsoldered header in place, for long enough to flash an update.

[bpye]

Do any server boards still socket the BIOS flash?

[arianvanp]

Yes ASRock Rack has socketed bios and BMC flash. At least on their Ampere motherboards

[BobbyTables2]

Wouldn’t matter if the BMC can infect the BIOS flash…

[jacquesm]

This is a real problem with some laptops. You can't always get to the chip contacts.