Checking whether my Bluepill is real or fake?

[SSmit.5]

I bought Bluepill devboards from two different sellers, paying extra to hopefully receive genuine STM chips. When I use the Bluepill Diagnostics Tool written by Terry Porter, the tool reports passing on all counts except for one:

Declared flash not 65536

Does that definitely mean it isn't genuine? Thinking I could get a second opinion, I launched STM32 CubeIDE. I've barely ventured outside the world of Arduino so I have no idea what I am doing. I tried to follow instructions I got off Bing LLM AI which advised me to try to start debugging in the CubeIDE. Can anyone tell me whether the following can be used to infer whether the chip is genuine or not? Sorry if that's a stupid question. I heard that the Cube softwares don't work with fake chips so I was thinking this would be a way to get a second opinion on the providence of the chips.

ST-LINK SN  : 16004A002933353739303541
ST-LINK FW  : V2J41S7
Board       : --
Voltage     : 3.17V
SWD freq    : 4000 KHz
Connect mode: Under Reset
Reset mode  : Hardware reset
Device ID   : 0x410
Revision ID : Rev X
Device name : STM32F101/F102/F103 Medium-density
Flash size  : 128 KBytes
Device type : MCU
Device CPU  : Cortex-M3
BL Version  : --



Memory Programming ...
Opening and parsing file: ST-LINK_GDB_server_a27496.srec
  File          : ST-LINK_GDB_server_a27496.srec
  Size          : 3.43 KB 
  Address       : 0x08000000 


Erasing memory corresponding to segment 0:
Erasing internal memory sectors [0 3]
Download in Progress:


File download complete
Time elapsed during download operation: 00:00:00.344



Verifying ...




Download verified successfully 


Shutting down...
Exit.

[TDK]

> When I use the Bluepill Diagnostics Tool written by Terry Porter, the tool reports passing on all counts except for one

Failing this test (or any of the others) would suggest it's not a genuine chip.

[Tesla DeLorean]

Isn't that a city in Rhode Island? Provenance perhaps?

Looks like it's reporting the Flash Size in STM32 Cube Programmer, it's in a word in OTP you could double check it vs RM0008. As I recall several of the fakes report the wrong JTAG ID's. I would suppose if it programs and debugs in the STM32 tools, that should be sufficient to use it.

Questions better directed too Terry Porter...

[AScha.3]

the jtag ID just has 1 bit different, "version number" , so its not a fake, just another version of similar chip, from GD .

"fake" is in my opinion , when "STMxx" is written on it, but a GD chip is inside.

see:

https://hackaday.com/2020/10/22/stm32-clones-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

i have 2 blue pill boards , at first i was thinking i got a fake, but is GD32F103 written on it, and even seller from ali has written: a new F103 from China...so i could not open a case. was my fault, not to read in detail all there.

and btw the GD chip is in some way even better than STM : core can run 108MHz, flash is faster (zero wait states!) and ADC has better precision - just cannot debug in CubeIDE, because other chip ID.

and its cheap, GD32F103CBT6 i payed 1.37 € . (inc. VAT and postage)

to check: connect to stm32CubeIDE and debug...if working, its STM chip. otherwise...probably GD or CKS chip.

[Peter BENSCH · Accepted solution]

This relates to a so-called Blue Pill, which uses illegally cloned STM32F103. ST resources are only dedicated to supporting genuine ST products. We are not committed to ensuring that clones/fakes products work properly with the firmware we provide.

We recommend to purchase genuine products from STMicroelectronics and purchase them from known and trusted distributors.

This thread will now be locked. However, if you face difficulties while using genuine ST products, we’re here to assist you. Please feel free to start a new thread, and our team, along with community members, will be ready to help you with any issues/questions you encounter.

Thank you for your understanding.

Regards
/Peter