ME: FW Partition Table: BAD

[Thomas_Habets]

On a Librem13v2 I’ve flashed 4.8.1-Purism-3, after it said the checksums were correct. Following https://puri.sm/coreboot/ I then ran cbmem -c | grep ^ME to see the output, and I don’t get the output listed. I get more worrying output. Should I be worried?

ME: Host Firmware Status Register 1 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 2 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 3 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 4 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 5 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 6 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: FW Partition Table      : BAD
ME: Bringup Loader Failure  : YES
ME: Firmware Init Complete  : YES
ME: Manufacturing Mode      : YES
ME: Boot Options Present    : YES
ME: Update In Progress      : YES
ME: D3 Support              : YES
ME: D0i3 Support            : YES
ME: Low Power State Enabled : YES
ME: CPU Replaced            : YES
ME: CPU Replacement Valid   : YES
ME: Current Working State   : Unknown (15)
ME: Current Operation State : M0 without UMA but with error
ME: Current Operation Mode  : M0 without UMA
ME: Error Code              : Preboot
ME: Progress Phase          : <NULL>
ME: Power Management Event  : CM0PG->CM0
ME: Progress Phase State    : Unknown phase: 0x0f state: 0xff
ME: Power Down Mitigation   : YES
ME: PD Mitigation State     : Issue Detected but not Recovered
ME: Encryption Key Override : Workaround Applied
ME: Encryption Key Check    : FAIL
ME: PCH Configuration Info  : Changed
ME: Firmware SKU            : Unknown (0x7)
ME: FPF status               : fused
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 1 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 2 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 3 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 4 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 5 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: Host Firmware Status Register 6 : 0xFFFFFFFF
ME: FW Partition Table      : BAD
ME: Bringup Loader Failure  : YES
ME: Firmware Init Complete  : YES
ME: Manufacturing Mode      : YES
ME: Boot Options Present    : YES
ME: Update In Progress      : YES
ME: D3 Support              : YES
ME: D0i3 Support            : YES
ME: Low Power State Enabled : YES
ME: CPU Replaced            : YES
ME: CPU Replacement Valid   : YES
ME: Current Working State   : Unknown (15)
ME: Current Operation State : M0 without UMA but with error
ME: Current Operation Mode  : M0 without UMA
ME: Error Code              : Preboot
ME: Progress Phase          : <NULL>
ME: Power Management Event  : CM0PG->CM0
ME: Progress Phase State    : Unknown phase: 0x0f state: 0xff
ME: Power Down Mitigation   : YES
ME: PD Mitigation State     : Issue Detected but not Recovered
ME: Encryption Key Override : Workaround Applied
ME: Encryption Key Check    : FAIL
ME: PCH Configuration Info  : Changed
ME: Firmware SKU            : Unknown (0x7)
ME: FPF status               : fused

[Thomas_Habets]

Ah. I found the answer. It’s supposed to look like that with librem13v2.

https://puri.sm/posts/deep-dive-into-intel-me-disablement/

via

ME Status Check: Coreboot CBEM

For anyone else who may be wondering, I was checking another page related to BIOS, and for new shipments we expect to see different output with Me disabled. “The Librem 13 and Librem 15 products can be purchased today and will arrive with the Management Engine disabled by default, and it can be verified to be disabled with the source code released to confirm the disablement is accurate. Showing “ME: FW Partition Table : BAD; ME: Bringup Loader Failure : YES”” https://puri.sm/posts/category/fir…

[Wayne]

FYI, I wrote that up in the Tracker here. I wondered too when I saw the difference, disclaimer notwithstanding.