Hello all!
Upfront, I am fairly new to firmware editing and modding, so if I have missed something obvious please don’t hesitate to let me know.
I have a Dell Optiplex 7040 whose Intel Management Engine has completely disappeared. I had not encountered anything like this before as the device was brought in for normal maintenance but kept throwing the error "Error sending End Of Post message to ME: HECI disabled, proceeding with boot!"
I downgraded the firmware to 1.2.8 and upgraded it again 1.18.1, but received an error stating that the "ME Firmware Update Failed: Image Loading."
Some Googling later lead me here to a fellow (user - dubioza, post - Dell Optiplex 7040 bios update: ME Firmware Update Faild: Image loading and HECI disable) who had a similar issue with the exception that HWInfo and Windows Device Manager could not find an Intel ME option at all.
Per the suggestion of plutomaniac, I followed the Guide to Clean Dumped Intel Engine and it worked! I dumped the SPI/BIOS information from a working machine of the same make and model, followed the guide to clean the file, rebuilt it, and flashed it into my broken machine.
However, I must have missed a step as the serial number, asset tag, and integrated NIC’s MAC Address have all followed over from the working machine. I went back to the Flash Image Tool and did not find an obvious field to edit that information back into the device.
Is there a way to fix these fields from the Decompiled bin files? I primarily need to fix the MAC address so both devices can exist on my network. Any help is appreciated! Thank you!
Ok, you have done good work so far. The mistake was that you should have either cleaned your own SPI dump or (if not possible due to corruption) use a 3rd party dump but then transfer your own BIOS region to the final image so that no system specific settings (Serial Number, MAC etc) are lost. Do you have your original dump? If yes, use UEFITool (non-NE) to “Extract as is” and then “Replace as is” the BIOS region from your own dump to the cleaned 3rd party one.
Hello again!
I just wanted to say thank you as this resolved the issue for me. The computer is up and functioning again and has its correct serial number, asset tag, and MAC address.
Again, thank you for your time and helping me with this process!