Thank you very much! This worked like a charm! Now the computer works as it should.
A few questions tho:
I followed your instructions to the best of my skills, read the whole thread several times and must admit didn’t understand much (I have a lot of experience from the times up to Pentium III including component level repairs but that’s where it ends, and so my memory 
)
What are the implications of using non-cleaned PE files or the ones provided on the forum? Will there be a problem re-installing Windows? If so what should I do to sort this all out?
So far the newest Lenovo firmware is from 2015 and didn’t solve the problem in the least. I wrote on Lenovo forum as did many others but no answer so far…
Thank you one more time for your help so far.
If the computer now works as it should, you have nothing else to do. Any OS will install just fine. Engine firmware cleaning is only required when it is corrupt or transferred from another system of the same model, as explained at the CleanUp Guide.
Hi,
I have a Lenovo yoga 2 pro & it shuts down after 30 minutes .
When I try to read the ME info I get " error 9256: communication error…" ( dos boot )
I use an external programmer to flash the SPI & I am unable to get the ME to work.
I do not have the original SPI from this system , I somehow managed to lose it.
I got this board dead & I had to replace the EC chip & reflash it ( ite8586vg ) I have the 30 minutes shut down ever since .
I clean SPIs almost daily , I fix laptops & many arrive with dead SPIs so when I flash a doner SPI I get slow boots if I don’t clean the SPI.
I have a cleaned ME SPI for this model that I usually use & I think it worked on about a dozen boards in the past .
I tried using some other SPIs of this model , even dirty ones that had issues, just to try & get some response from the ME .
nothing seems to work.
I also tried the SPI posted here :
but I got no results , I can’t get any response from the ME.
any idea would be much appreciated
The quoted post is still the correct way to solve this problem. Make sure you use the programmer to re-flash the entire SPI image as attached. Then power off the system, remove all power (AC, battery, RTC) for a few minutes and try again.