Good afternoon, i’m trying to modify the ME region of the bios to use the lastest ME version.
The original version is:
Full size: 1FD000h (2084864)
Version: 11.8.50.3425
The updated version is:
Full size: 1F0000h (2031616)
Version: 11.8.50.3448
The problem is that the original file is bigger, in fact ME Analyzer says about the first file: Warning: File size exceeds firmware, unneeded padding!
When I try to save file it fails saying: reconstructIntelImage: reconstructed body size FF3000h (16723968) is smaller then original 1000000h (16777216)
How can I solve this?
Thank you in advance.
Read all the notes/warnings in red color at Section B of the ME thread. Then read carefully and follow the Engine CleanUp Guide to do what you want.
@Nemo1985
Get everything else set for your BIOS and flash it without an ME update. I highly recommend following the instructions on this thread . Like all Win-Raid guides, it is long but very thorough.
Don’t skip reading that guide, but the brief overview of what I did to update my ME is as follows: 1) Identify what ME version I should use 2) Download the appropriate Intel ME System Tools package 3) Use the appropriate Intel MEI Driver Installer to update the Windows driver 4) Download the appropriate ME firmware image 5) Via command prompt, use the appropriate firmware update tool in the “FWUpdate” folder to flash the new firmware (the command was “[updater .exe file name] -f [firmware .bin file name]”) 6) Reboot and use the MEInfo tool to verify that your BIOS has the latest ME firmware
Everything you need is included in the guide.
EDIT: @Fernando I believe you moved the post to which I was responding (or Nemo deleted it and reposted in a new thread HERE). Apologies for thread clutter; go ahead and move this one as well. Thanks!
@plutomaniac thank you for the reply, I already read the ME thread, I didn’t notice the Engine CleanUp Guide, I tried to follow it but the outimage.bin is definitely wrong, it’s faster to update the ME engine by it self for sure, I liked the idea to give a fully updated bios.
@ygbsm thank you for your quick guide, Fernando has moved my question to a new topic as you thought in the meanwhile.
You’re welcome. I neglected to emphasize the importance of the Intel FWUpdate tool (as covered by plutomaniac in one of the guides); there are various possible methods to flash the ME image into a BIOS, but the FWUpdate tool preserves the DATA section of the ME region (which contains all the ME specifics to your motherboard, written by the manufacturer) as well as it does several validation steps to ensure you don’t flash an incorrect image.
Just remember to update the ME firmware again whenever you re-flash your BIOS. I keep an UBU folder with all the tools and specific files for my system, as well as some brief instructions that I wrote to myself so I can quickly refresh my memory if need be.
According to my knowledge the Intel ME Region within the mainboard’s BIOS chip stays untouched, when the user flashes a new/updated BIOS (unless it is offered by the mainboard manufacturer and definitively contains a newer Intel ME Firmware).
Maybe it’s because I do not insert the ME region into the BIOS image before I flash the BIOS; instead, I always use Intel’s FWUpdate tool to flash the ME firmware afterwards on the live BIOS image. Or it’s a particular behavior of my MB/BIOS.
I do know for a fact that my ME region reverts back to the version embedded in my BIOS image whenever I flash the BIOS.
That is what I found when I updated the ME firmware of one of my notebooks. After updating the BIOS with a BIOS update from Dell, which included an older ME version than the update I did, there was a message on screen after the BIOS flash finished stating that the ME was not updated.