It's always a good idea to clean the BIOS from surveillance ballasts like IME.

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-06-21, 13:23:

It's always a good idea to clean the BIOS from surveillance ballasts like IME.

Right on! I'm just not sure removing it will eliminate the listing in device manager.

The board has an 8 pin SPI header that I'm creating an LPT adapter to extract and flash the rom. (Repurposing an SPI to LPT adapter made for an ASUS P5B deluxe)

I have one old Acer notebook with HM65 Express chipset and i3-2328M CPU with IME-neutralized Insyde BIOS. It has win 7 x64 installed as a second OS and I can't see any "PCI simple communication devices" in its device manager panel. I can't remember how it was before the BIOS "cleaning". And I have no idea about what will show win 98 as devices after IME removal from BIOS.

Be careful. Some of these notebook BIOSes can have some software "locked" (protected against software flashing) parts - the BIOS is "locked" by itself. The solution is to use a hardware flash programmer, but then the flash chip has to be desoldered from the motherboard and soldered back after the reflashing.

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-06-21, 14:54:

I have one old Acer notebook with HM65 Express chipset and i3-2328M CPU with IME-neutralized Insyde BIOS. It has win 7 x64 installed as a second OS and I can't see any "PCI simple communication devices" in its device manager panel. I can't remember how it was before the BIOS "cleaning". And I have no idea about what will show win 98 as devices after IME removal from BIOS.

Be careful. Some of these notebook BIOSes can have some software "locked" (protected against software flashing) parts - the BIOS is "locked" by itself. The solution is to use a hardware flash programmer, but then the flash chip has to be desoldered from the motherboard and soldered back after the reflashing.

I thought that the SPI header was just a 1:1 the pinout of the BIOS chip? 8 pin connector and 8 pin bios chip or rather 7 as I believe CS\n pin is missing and not needed.
The Board is an industrial ITX motherboard MX57QM.

Previously I used a Bios editor to unlock a bios option "reset system with ME disable mode" The system reboots but the device manager checkmark remains.

Dothan Burger wrote on 2025-06-21, 15:41:

I thought that the SPI header was just a 1:1 the pinout of the BIOS chip? 8 pin connector and 8 pin bios chip or rather 7 as I believe CS\n pin is missing and not needed.

Check the legs of 25Q64FVSIG chip for connection to the SPI header with a multimeter in "continuity" mode just to be sure. It seems like /CS (chip select) leg will be of no use during flashing, but mind that you'll need voltage on Vcc leg and the chip is still in circuit on the motherboard.

I wouldn't trust a BIOS setting like "reset system with ME disable mode" to deactivate IME just like that 😀

analog_programmer wrote on 2025-06-21, 16:01:

Dothan Burger wrote on 2025-06-21, 15:41:

I thought that the SPI header was just a 1:1 the pinout of the BIOS chip? 8 pin connector and 8 pin bios chip or rather 7 as I believe CS\n pin is missing and not needed.

Check the legs of 25Q64FVSIG chip for connection to the SPI header with a multimeter in "continuity" mode just to be sure. It seems like /CS (chip select) leg will be of no use during flashing, but mind that you'll need voltage on Vcc leg and the chip is still in circuit on the motherboard.

I wouldn't trust a BIOS setting like "reset system with ME disable mode" to deactivate IME just like that 😀

Yeah it was wishful thinking on the BIOS edit. So it looks like the red dot signifies the CS/n pin on the bios, and I think elmorlabs SPI pin out is correct. I'll check for contunity between the grounds.

For what is worth I disabled ME with me_cleaner on two HM70 laptops in order to run i-series CPUs without the 30 minute shutdown* and as a side effect there is no more HECI in device manager.
Also I always did it working "externally", either desoldering the EEPROM or using a (knock-off) pomona clip.
And also while you're there you should also unlock the flash descriptor, so that future flashes can be done via software.

Have a look over at win-raid, there there are several tutorials about playing with ME.

andrea wrote on 2025-06-21, 18:59:

And also while you're there you should also unlock the flash descriptor, so that future flashes can be done via software.

Yeah, this is it for the software "locked" parts. They have to be manually altered in this part - the "flash descriptor".

I also used some information from WR-forum to prepare my IME-cleaned Insyde BIOS.

Dothan Burger wrote on 2025-06-21, 13:10:

Would removing the Intel Management engine from the BIOS with ME-Cleaner eliminate the device manager listing?

The best solution is to install a NoDriver driver, see Re: Revamped my XP/Vista machine

red-ray wrote on 2025-06-21, 19:42:

Dothan Burger wrote on 2025-06-21, 13:10:

Would removing the Intel Management engine from the BIOS with ME-Cleaner eliminate the device manager listing?

The best solution is to install a NoDriver driver, see Re: Revamped my XP/Vista machine

That looked like a great suggestion but it's Windows NT only? I was wondering if such a thing was possible, a fake driver to cover the device manager entry. I know it's stupid but it bugs me.

EDIT: Added my device IDs and it installed just fine, thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for, an easy solution that doesn't risk hardware.

In my XP box have it "disabled" in device manager so no yellow exclamation.