Hi
Michal Widlok michalwd1979@gmail.com writes:
Hello, I know that libreboot completely remove intel ME from old boards based on GM45 chipset (like lenovo T400), and recently I found that it is possible to neutralize it on newer chipsets also: https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner Since some of my T400 laptops still running on original BIOS (mostly because of external video card and battery management with tp_smapi), I was thinking if it is possible to use ich9deblob to remove intel ME from original bios image. I have a special connector added to the laptops so reading/writing flash images is quick and easy now.
I think having a different descriptor with no ME region works to some extend with vendor, YMMV.
The question is: Can I generate new descriptors with ich9deblob from factory.rom (original bios image) and then add the descriptors with "dd" to it just like to the libreboot image? Like: flashrom -r factory.rom ich9deblob
There are some flaws in ich9deblob so I'd recommend taking a look at blobltool in util/blobtool.
With blobtool you can generate a descriptor: blobltool ifd-x200.spec ifd-x200.set x200-descriptor
Due to a current limitation of flashrom (patches are pending) you need a file of same size as your flash. so you need to pad x200-descriptor dd if=/dev/zero bs=1 count=8188k >> x200-descriptor
(8188k is 8m - 4K, adapt accordingly to your flashsize)
dd if=deblobbed_descriptor.bin of=factory.rom bs=1 count=12k conv=notrunc flashrom -w factory.rom
If you want to update only one region of flash (in this case descriptor) I highly recommend using flashrom layouts to do just that.
Create a layout using ifdtool: ifdtool vendor_bios.rom -f vendor_layout Then only flash the descriptor region: flashrom -w x200-descriptor --layout vendor_layout --image fd
Thanks in advance, Michael Widlok