Intel Management Engine

Uses of the Management Engine

The management engine(Often abreviated ME) is a CPU which permits Out of band management of the computer.

Freedom and security issues

• The code that is running inside the management engine is proprietary and signed
• The management engine CPU has access to a lot of things, see "ME physical capabilities" for more details.

Where

Board	Firmware	Microarchitecture	ME location and physical capabilities	ME restrictions
Lenovo x201	AMT	Nehalem	The ME is inside the PCH, it: Has access to the memory Controls the computer's original networking adapters	Signed firmware If ME firmware is absent, the computer freezes about 30min after boot.
Packard Bell EasyNote LM85 (MS2290)	AMT?
Samsung Series 5 550 Chromebook	me.bin	Sandy Bridge	The ME is inside the PCH, it: Has access to the memory Controls the computer's original networking adapters	Signed firmware
Samsung Series 3 Chromebox	me.bin
Lenovo t520	AMT
Google/HP Pavilion Chromebook 14	me.bin	Ivy Bridge	The ME is inside the PCH, it: Has access to the memory Controls the computer's original networking adapters	Signed firmware
Google Chromebook Pixel	me.bin
Google/Acer C7 Chromebook	me.bin
Google/Lenovo Thinkpad X131e Chromebook	me.bin
Lenovo t530	AMT
Lenovo x230	AMT
Kotron KTQM77/mITX	AMT?
Google/Acer C720 Chromebook	?	Haswell	The ME is inside the PCH, it: Has access to the memory Controls the computer's original networking adapters	Signed firmware
Google/HP Chromebook 14	?

Why there is no replacement for it yet

Replacing the ME firmware is not that easy because:

• Its firmware is signed and the ME has a bootrom.
• On recent chipset its RAM reagion is locked while it is allocated.

So even if some people partially documented some ME firmware format, there is very few probability of having a free software replacement for it one day.

See also

• http://me.bios.io/ME:About