I do remember some time ago (maybe a year at this point) that some user had such a system which worked after cleaning the ME. So maybe whatever BIOS he/she was using was proper. I remember that the system was BDW as well so should have ME10.0 like yours and also a BIOS name similar to your own. That OEM had a baidu account to upload BIOS but don’t remember much else. Try searching the forum manually or otherwise, probably the ME subforum is likely to hold that thread.
I had another crack at this yesterday this time using the 5mb version of the 10.0.35.1012 firmware (cleaned as per guide) - still no joy. I suspect that I will be met with failure after failure unless I get lucky and stumble upon a working bios dump. Wont stop from continuing to try though (any excuse to use the external flash programmer lol).
If I come across anything interesting or anything that works I will keep you updated.
Ah, I found the topic I was talking about. Check it out here. I’m fairly certain you have an (almost) identical system and that guy had an operational ME in the end so that BIOS must work. CodeRush has some attached files at the 2nd post. Definitely give it a try.
Awesome, thanks very much - I will definitely have a read through and see what can be done. I will post back with the outcome. Thanks for taking the time to find that thread!
Back after some more attempts…
I successfully flashed the rom from that thread and performed a gpreset - the good news is that the bios is functional and didn’t result in a bricking, the bad news however is that the ME is still N/A. It’s definitely beginning to look like it has been deliberately disabled in some way 
Since you have a programmer and can recover in case of trouble, try flashing the entire SPI image (not just BIOS region) followed by a -greset. If that image worked for the other user and not you, then maybe it’s hardware related. You haven’t enabled any jumper at the motherboard such as Disable ME, ME Reflash or similar, right? Also, post some MEInfo -verbose and MEManuf -verbose pictures or printouts in quotes to see what state the ME is at before and after you reflash the other BIOS or SPI image.
I’ll give it a go although meinfo and memanuf always return an error about not being able to communicate etc. There are no jumpers on the motherboard unfortunately so if it has been disabled that way then it will probably have been soldered. (Oh the joys of totally unknown and undocumented motherboards!).
Reading back through that other thread it’s a little unclear if that bios image did work for that user with regards to ME - it certainly fixed whatever problem he was having with auto shutdowns but he didn’t actually mention if he had a working ME or not.
As usual I will keep plugging away at it and try to keep you updated on results (if any). I did try flashing the ME region from a gigabyte brix but met the same result (whilst not bricked it still had no ME detected by the bios or dos/windows tools).
I very much appreciate all of the help and advice you have given me - I may not have got very far but I’ve certainly learned a few things along the way!
There is no point in trying to flash ME regions from other systems as the OEM settings might be completely different or the images dirty because they were taken from previously initialized systems. If you take your original dump and follow the cleanup guide, then the output will have a proper ME region (cleaned+configured) which should work on the system. If it doesn’t, the issue is at the BIOS or motherboard. So, once you flash that good ME region, I suggest you only deal with BIOS relfashes. Otherwise, we will be dealing with multiple variables and cases where a BIOS might work but the ME you flashed along with is not proper for your system and the error is there, not at the BIOS for instance.
At Windows Device Manager, do you see the “Intel Management Engine Interface” device under “System devices”? If not, you cannot use the Windows versions of the tools to check the health or view information about the ME. It’s lack of presence there usually also means that the ME is in service mode or corrupted. If you follow the cleanup guide and reflash it, then we can rule out corruption. Try to run the DOS or EFI versions of MEInfo -verbose and MEManuf -verbose after having flashed a proper ME region with whatever BIOS you have. I’d like to see at what stage the ME gets stuck or what the error is for that matter.
Ok created a clean bin image to flash using a known working bios image, used FIT to replace the me section with a cleaned 10.0.35.1012_1.5MB_PRD_RGN version, removed cmos battery and flashed the built bin image via an external programmer, Left it powered down with cmos battery disconnected for about 10 minutes, put it all back together and same issue - N/A showing in bios as ME version number and windows device manager detects no trace of Intel Management Engine.
UBU can see the ME area in the bin file and seems to look ok however after flashing the bios cannot detect the version and simply displays N/A and windows has no clue that ME even exists - hence nothing in sytem devices for it - no unknown devices etc, just not trace of it at all. Pretty sure it’s somehow been crippled in the bios unfortunately.
I’ve pretty much given it my best shot and I thank you for all of your patience and help - I guess this little beast just doesn’t wanna play ball!
Almost certainly disabled at the BIOS or at least the problem lies there and not ME region itself. Did you try the DOS or EFI versions of MEInfo and MEManuf -verbose as I asked before?
Yup both dos and efi tools fail with similar errors (I don’t recall the exact wording but basically they can’t communicate with the ME).
Mmm, yes, seems BIOS related unfortunately. It’s common with these no brand Chinese systems. Well if you ever manage to find something that works let us know as well to hopefully help someone else down the line.
I had the mini-pc apart earlier to solder in a sim card connector (I’m planning to add a 3g or 4g mini pcie card) so whilst I had it apart I did some more testing).
I flashed the bios from an i5 Broadwell based MSI Cubi (similar chipset) using my trusty external flash programmer (I know this is seriously NOT recommended but I figured what the hell, I can always flash back) just to see if the ME was detected using that full bios flash.
Surprisingly the system boots up nicely with the MSI bios and boots into windows with no issues at all - BUT - sadly still no ME detected so I flashed back to the correct bios image and gave up.
I now fear that ME is actually hardware disabled via the motherboard on this mini-pc and not via the bios. My suspicion is that there is most likely a bridged (or open) pair of solder pads somewhere on the motherboard that would normally contain a jumper to enable or disable ME. At this point I think it’s a dead end as I can’t start randomly opening and closing motherboard solder joints hoping to get lucky (well I could, but I won’t because I don’t like the smell of smouldering burnt electronics).
Yes, that could very well be the case. As I might have already said, some other Chinese OEM were claiming that they had ME disabled on purpose because the consumer "can’t find drivers". Completely ridiculous but maybe that unknown OEM went the extra mile, so to speak, and disabled it by leaving the ME Recovery solder pads open. Intel’s ME disable procedure involves sorting two audio chip pins (DVDD + SDATA_OUT) during boot so they suggest to OEMs who want an easy enable/disable way to have these two traces end up at a jumper. Maybe it might be easier to follow those at the motherboard but yet again, the above are informational as I totally understand your point of view. You have already spend a lot of your time due to idiocy of certain Chinese manufacturers. 
I’m stubborn enough to have a look the next time I have it apart - If aint broken fix it until it is right? lol