So my friend has a moates setup for burning proms and hes using eeproms from moates and he keeps having issues with the chips. He will burn it, put it in and the car will run amazing for a week or so then the prom will crap out and he will burn a new one but the catch is once he swaps it out for an identical prom a few days later he can take the failed chip, reflash it and throw it in and it will run fine, he was asking me about ecm grounds being the culprit but Idk what to say, I've never seen chips that go bad temporarily

Any ideas?

 

Do you mean EPROM or EEPROM? I believe normally you'd be using an EPROM (the chips which are erased using UV light).
If that's what it is, it's possible that a "weakly" burned chip might be marginally working for a while but then it starts to decay. Is the window exposed or is he covering it up?
Has he tried just removing the chip and immediately putting it back in? Maybe the problem is with the contacts, not the programming.
He could use a multimeter to check the voltage at the chip in the ECM, it should be a steady 5.0V, if it's much lower than that it's more likely to be glitchy.
I don't have a pinout in front of me but usually the Vcc and GND pins are at opposite corners. Be very careful not to short adjacent pins with the probes. Masking tape around the probes helps avoid that.

 

moates set up uses the eeproms. What do you mean craps out? Chip isnt bad if its able to be reflashed and confirmed. What happens if you leave the chip in but just disconnect the battery and then reconnect it resetting the computer? When he goes to reflash it does it show to have a program still on it?

 

I recently ran into the same problem. I ran a SST27SF512 for about 2 years. Then just 6 months ago, I went to start the Camaro and i cranked briefly and then greyish smoke can out the mufflers. I sent the chip back my programmer and he read it. It was fine. So he erased the bin and reburned it. But unfortunately, it is as dead as a door nail.

 

According to my friend the chip will lose part of its tune, it will spaz out and when he turns the key to the on position it will act like the aldl is jumpered, flashing code 12 etc, he tried the battety thing with no luck, he said when he hooks the chip to his laptop it shows something, but its definitely NOT his tune, its half of it I guess

Sorry for the lack of info I'm doing this third party lol its keepig an awesome 91 camaro on the road lol

 

Uuuhhhh, no. A EPROM is burned with code. In other words, 1's and 0's. In computer terms, "on" and "off". The only way for a chip to fail is with static or voltage spike. Unless there is a manufacturing defect, then that may be the issue. But its like everything else, its gotta break sooner or later.

 

Alright well its an eeprom thatvwe are dealing with here. What could cause these issues Idk why half a time.would just disepear on him...

 

The chip may be bad to begin with. If it failed twice, thats a red flag. Try another chip. If you have multiple chips going bad, then yes, check the grounds. Perhaps there is a short somewhere on a sensor wire that is causing the ECM to fail the EPROMs programming. Perhaps it's the ECM that is shorting out the EPROM. I would suggest you to put in the oem memcal and drive around for a while to see the difference. Get a buddies ECM and swap em out and see what happens. Or better yet, run the Camaro until it fails. Then run the diagnostic codes a see what you find. More than likely you'll get a TC 51.

 

Or one or more of the legs (contacts) of the EEPROM a loosing contact in the socket or the adapter itself is loosing contact. Just a thought?