@thomzane There's a 1.8V level shifter included with my kit.
But thank you very much for the warning! I'll verify that the Vcc pin is really1.8 volts before connecting the clip.
This is the firmware flash on my motherboard. So small! I couldn't read the part number without the aid of my phone's macro lens.
It's a Winbond 256Mbit SPI flash in a WSON8 package:
https://www.winbond.com/hq/about-winbond/company-profile/vision/index.html
Out of inexperience with modern components, I didn't realize that the SOIC8 clip included with my flash programmer kit wouldn't fit a WSON8 chip.
SOIC = Small Outline Integrated Circuit
WSON = Very-Very-thin Small Outline No-lead package
So I need one of these WSON8 8x6mm test probes:
https://www.amazon.com/junee-WSON8-Probe-Write-Burning/dp/B0BKP819W9
The seller is in China, but for $9 I could get it as early as Tuesday...
While waiting for the last piece of my recovery kit to arrive, I guess I will update the original MSI firmware to the latest version, then dump it with flashrom to a USB stick as a backup.
Something went wrong after the MSI firmware update: I stared at a blank screen for several minutes, then forced a reboot.
Afterwards, the bios settings got reset to defaults, and Linux would no longer boot because Secure Boot got re-enabled. It took me a while to find the setting to disable it again. Thank you, MSI.