Hello, new to this forum, and I need your help
I got a 2 PCs from Taobao that has i5-4200U & i7-5500U. Both the ME Firmware and ME SKU shows “N/A” in BIOS on the 2 machines.
Since the support is poor, there’s no manufacture BIOS file that I can download. But I found that Gigabyte BRIX made similar machines, so I used their BIOS file to flash the ME region.
I flashed the ME like so, fpt -rewrite -me brix.bin with respective tools for their chipset. But BIOS still shows “N/A”.
Attached is the 2 orignal BIOS from the machines dumped with fpt -d
Any help is appreciated, thank!
Edit: I’ve also tried “Clean the ME/TXE Initialized DATA section of a SPI image dump” guide from this forum as well, still the same.
You haven’t attached anything. First do so. Based on your using of fpt, I assume your flash descriptor is unlocked?
Based on the dumped SPI images you provided, here are the two cleaned/updated/configured ME regions that you need to flash. Use the correct version of Flash Programming Tool (9.5 or 10) with the command fptw -f xx00_me_fix.bin -me followed by fptw -greset command.
4200_5500_fix.rar (6.07 MB)
Thanks a lot plutomaniac! I’ll have to try it tomorrow (it’s night where I live).
Did you just perform the instructions in “Clean the ME/TXE Initialized DATA section of a SPI image dump” guide? If yes, then I’m probably doing something wrong.
Basically, yes. For 4200 (ME9.5), I also set Anti-Theft to disabled (EOL since 01/2015) to not cause any issues. It’s not the first case of Chinese OEM rebrands with no BIOS and broken ME regions. Reflashig with an updated/cleaned/configured ME region will always work. It’s also very important to do a fptw -greset after flashing the whole ME region with FPT for it to reinitialize.
Hi. I have the exact problem with a Chinesse Fanless Broadwell 5500U motherboard, but I dont have any idea of update/modify a bios file. Can I try to flash the provided 5500_me_fix.bin? It will be dangerous?
I´ve followed "Clean the ME/TXE Initialized DATA section of a SPI image dump" and used fptw64 to flash it. Everything seems OK (same SKU, vcn and version), but again if i show bios settings it shows N/A Intel ME Version. The "clean" firmware version downloades and used is "10.0.36.1030_1.5MB_PRD_EXTR.bin"
ftpw94 shows "PDR Region does not exist" and "GBE Region does not exist".
I don´t know where is the mistake. ¿Can you help me? Attached are the original and compiled BIOS files
Regards,
Iván
original.bin.zip (3.22 MB)
compiled.bin.zip (3.22 MB)
Hello, so I tried them. To my surprise, it does not work.
Is there a possibility that the way the machines are design just doesn’t make it work? Or maybe they implemented something wrong?
Thanks for your help though!
Edit: Yes, I tried unplugging the computer and take out the CMOS battery. I’ve also tried flashing this through DOS and it’s still the same.
Another question, should I just use an SPI programmer to program the flash chip? If I were to do so, I would use the spi.bin image right?
@ rbivan:
As the guide says, never use EXTR images as clean firmware. They are not, only RGN. You can safely use 10.0.47.1006_1.5MB_PRD_RGN. It is RGN (clean) and will work just fine even if it’s newer that the firmware version you currently have. So follow the guide again, this time using a proper firmware a clean basis.
@ lonelytweaker:
The ME regions are good so the problem is BIOS related. Try reflashing the BIOS, then restore BIOS defaults and check if there is any option to disable the ME like “Enable ME Reflash” or similar. These should be disabled for the ME to initialize and appear operational. If these don’t work, you will have to reflash the stock BIOS provided by the OEM, if you can find it of course. What’s certain is that they haven’t disabled the ME, the ME region is OK and the BIOS is the only other candidate.
If you have an unlocked FD and a non-bricked system, you don’t need to use the programmer as it’s more time consuming. If you do use it though, you need full SPI images. The archive I uploaded above includes those (spi_fix) and just the ME regions (me_fix) for FPT -me use.
“Try reflashing the BIOS” as in using your fixed “spi.bin” images? And the “Enable ME Reflash” is in the BIOS setup or other places?
I think even the manufacturer doesn’t have a 100% good BIOS in the first place, that’s why every machine comes out of the factory have their ME messed up.
Is it possible that using something like Coreboot (if I can manage to port it) can solve the problem? I read that Coreboot also needs to use ME binary blob (among with serveral other blobs) though.
Thank you!
Edit: OK, I was too naive. Porting Coreboot to a new board is hard.
If you don’t have a BIOS/SPI from the OEM, then sure. But I don’t think it will change anything.
Yes, BIOS menu. It’s usually found at 5MB/Corporate SKUs but you never know with these OEMs.
Obviously, they are releasing them broken. What exact models do you have?
Sorry for the long wait, I took some pictures of the motherboards itself. I actually have 3 of these PCs, but only one has good BIOS and ME which has i5-3317U. Here’s the link to the album.
I guess there’s no hope for the other 2 PCs?
Thanks
Based on the pictures, you should have these HYSTOU i5/i7 fanless mini-pc. Check their site here and their forum here. At this forum thread here they have uploaded a bios for “hystou i5 and i7 fanless mini pc” as the description says. The folder says 5200, their support says that it’s for i5-4200u at the 3rd post. So maybe it covers all BDW based i5 and i7 fanless mini pcs. Your 4200 has HSW though (ME9.5 firmware) so I’m not sure what he is talking about there. Based on the BIOS they provide at the first forum thread I lined above and the ME it has inside (10.x), you may be able to use that clean BIOS for your 5500 system. Do you want to give it a try?
Be interested to hear if anybody has managed to get the ME working on these mini-pc’s. I’ve made various attempts and bricked the bios a few times (nothing that a cheap ch341a programmer and bios files linked to on this thread couldn’t recover).
I checked out the ME area using UBU and it appears to be present and correct yet the bios will always report the version as N/A so it has somehow been disabled.
The mini pc works well enough without the ME loading however I am trying to install macOS on it (which works fine mostly) and macOS requires ME to be working in order to load the HD6000 graphics kexts/drivers - catch 22!
The problem with these Chinese machines is that the “OEMs” that build them don’t really know what they are doing and may flash BIOS and/or ME from other systems that are similar or so. I guess it depends on each case. For some people, cleaning the ME and reflashing fixes it. For others, the problem is actually at the BIOS and nothing we do at the ME will solve it. As I had said to the other person above (who didn’t bother to reply back), you may need to try some other BIOS if you can find any and know it has big chances to work. It’s especially easier to test if you have a programmer and such knowledge that you do. I suggest you only deal with the ME for now and if cleaning it does not solve the problem, then other BIOS or…other system. Do you have the original firmware that your system had? Meaning the original BIOS and ME regions, the full SPI image backup before any modifications for that matter. If yes, you should work on that. Take the original SPI image without modifications and clean the ME region using my guide. Then reflash back and test. If cleaning the ME does not help, it’s a BIOS issue.
I will certainly give the ME region a clean as you have suggested when I get some time. I do have a couple of bios files (I dumped the original bios before bricking it and actually used one linked to in one of your posts to unbrick it). The original bios claimed to be GBDW1108.bin but I have my doubts on this and suspect they have bundled a lot of different bios files out with the same name as the only one that worked for me to unbrick with was BDW14302.bin.
I’ll give cleaning it up a try and if it all goes wrong at least I can always recover it again with the programmer using BDW14302.bin which worked the last time even though it was bricked that even the power led didn’t come on.
Thanks for the advice - I’ll post back after I get some spare time to play around with it.
I spent a few hours messing around with this again tonight but sadly have nothing but failure to report. I tried 2 different bios images and followed the ME cleaning guide - I then tried flashing the images and doing the me reset with no luck, still shows as N/A in bios so I then tried both bios files again but this time by using an external usb programmer to flash the chip directly - sadly same result. I then got fed up and used the latest bios file, replaced the me section with the cleaned one (10.0.35.1012_1.5MB_PRD_RGN - was previously 10.0.36.1030), then used UBU to update pretty much all of the modules on the new cleaned bios image and flashed that using the external programmer. Still no working ME but at least it still boots and has nice new modules!
Pretty sure they have somehow disabled ME in either the bios or via hardware - gut feeling is that it’s disabled somehow in the bios because it looks like a fairly generic motherboard and I’m sure ME must work on some of the different variations of this mobo and cpu that the Chinese factories are shipping.
Pretty stuck for now but not yet given up!
From what you tested, it’s definitely disabled in the BIOS so nothing you can do will solve it (other than a working BIOS of course). Apparently that’s a “common” practice there judging from that reply? Either way, ridiculous. If you find a solution, do let us know though so maybe others can be helped in the future.
I’ll keep plugging away at it but unless I get lucky and find a bios for a similar system that works I wouldn’t hold my breath.