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Associate II
December 17, 2024
Solved

Confirm Genuine or Fake Bluepill Board

I am using a Bluepill Board but it is not functioning as expected

How do I verify if the chips on my Bluepill Board are genuine or a fake knock off?

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Peter BENSCH
Peter BENSCHBest answer
ST Technical Moderator
April 14, 2025

ST resources are dedicated to supporting genuine ST products. We are not committed to ensuring that clones/fakes work properly with the firmware we provide.

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5 replies

Peter BENSCH
Peter BENSCH
ST Technical Moderator
December 17, 2024

There are several possibilities, which have been discussed several times here in the community. Nevertheless, you can safely assume that there is a fake on a Blue Pill. This has also been discussed at length on Hackaday, and they have also created a diagnostic program that should be able to detect such fakes.

If you absolutely want to keep the board, you should consider desoldering the fake MCU and soldering on a real STM32F103. However, the best and less expensive alternative is to forget all this fake stuff and buy a NUCLEO board, because it is ultimately cheaper.

Hope that helps.

Good luck!
/Peter

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    Andrew Neil
    Andrew Neil
    Super User
    December 17, 2024
    @Peter BENSCH wrote:

    buy a NUCLEO board, because it is ultimately cheaper.

    Especially when you consider that it comes complete with a genuine ST-Link built-in!

    A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.
      gbm
      gbm
      Super User
      December 17, 2024

      And what do you exactly mean by "is not functioning as expected" ?

      Many of BluePills use Chinese STM32F103-alikes. Some of them are 99.9% compatible, some only 98% compatible, but they do their work. It's just that genuine ST software and hardware tries very hard to avoid supporting them. You may encounter problems with debugging, as ST refuses to connect to the non-genuine stuff (and that's quite ok - why should they provide development support for alien and not quite legally ok chips?). Once you have your firmware verified on a real STM32F103 and programmed into the clone via UART bootloader, it works.

      My STM32 stuff on github - compact USB device stack and more: https://github.com/gbm-ii/gbmUSBdevice
        Peter BENSCH
        Peter BENSCHBest answer
        ST Technical Moderator
        April 14, 2025

        ST resources are dedicated to supporting genuine ST products. We are not committed to ensuring that clones/fakes work properly with the firmware we provide.

        In order to give better visibility on the answered topics, please click on Accept as Solution on the reply which solved your issue or answered your question.
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