I will certainly give the ME region a clean as you have suggested when I get some time. I do have a couple of bios files (I dumped the original bios before bricking it and actually used one linked to in one of your posts to unbrick it). The original bios claimed to be GBDW1108.bin but I have my doubts on this and suspect they have bundled a lot of different bios files out with the same name as the only one that worked for me to unbrick with was BDW14302.bin.

I'll give cleaning it up a try and if it all goes wrong at least I can always recover it again with the programmer using BDW14302.bin which worked the last time even though it was bricked that even the power led didn't come on.

Thanks for the advice - I'll post back after I get some spare time to play around with it.

I spent a few hours messing around with this again tonight but sadly have nothing but failure to report. I tried 2 different bios images and followed the ME cleaning guide - I then tried flashing the images and doing the me reset with no luck, still shows as N/A in bios so I then tried both bios files again but this time by using an external usb programmer to flash the chip directly - sadly same result. I then got fed up and used the latest bios file, replaced the me section with the cleaned one (10.0.35.1012_1.5MB_PRD_RGN - was previously 10.0.36.1030), then used UBU to update pretty much all of the modules on the new cleaned bios image and flashed that using the external programmer. Still no working ME but at least it still boots and has nice new modules!

Pretty sure they have somehow disabled ME in either the bios or via hardware - gut feeling is that it's disabled somehow in the bios because it looks like a fairly generic motherboard and I'm sure ME must work on some of the different variations of this mobo and cpu that the Chinese factories are shipping.

Pretty stuck for now but not yet given up!

I'll keep plugging away at it but unless I get lucky and find a bios for a similar system that works I wouldn't hold my breath.

I had another crack at this yesterday this time using the 5mb version of the 10.0.35.1012 firmware (cleaned as per guide) - still no joy. I suspect that I will be met with failure after failure unless I get lucky and stumble upon a working bios dump. Wont stop from continuing to try though (any excuse to use the external flash programmer lol).

If I come across anything interesting or anything that works I will keep you updated.

Awesome, thanks very much - I will definitely have a read through and see what can be done. I will post back with the outcome. Thanks for taking the time to find that thread!

Back after some more attempts..

I successfully flashed the rom from that thread and performed a gpreset - the good news is that the bios is functional and didn't result in a bricking, the bad news however is that the ME is still N/A. It's definitely beginning to look like it has been deliberately disabled in some way :(

I'll give it a go although meinfo and memanuf always return an error about not being able to communicate etc. There are no jumpers on the motherboard unfortunately so if it has been disabled that way then it will probably have been soldered. (Oh the joys of totally unknown and undocumented motherboards!).

Reading back through that other thread it's a little unclear if that bios image did work for that user with regards to ME - it certainly fixed whatever problem he was having with auto shutdowns but he didn't actually mention if he had a working ME or not.

As usual I will keep plugging away at it and try to keep you updated on results (if any). I did try flashing the ME region from a gigabyte brix but met the same result (whilst not bricked it still had no ME detected by the bios or dos/windows tools).

I very much appreciate all of the help and advice you have given me - I may not have got very far but I've certainly learned a few things along the way!

Ok created a clean bin image to flash using a known working bios image, used FIT to replace the me section with a cleaned 10.0.35.1012_1.5MB_PRD_RGN version, removed cmos battery and flashed the built bin image via an external programmer, Left it powered down with cmos battery disconnected for about 10 minutes, put it all back together and same issue - N/A showing in bios as ME version number and windows device manager detects no trace of Intel Management Engine.

UBU can see the ME area in the bin file and seems to look ok however after flashing the bios cannot detect the version and simply displays N/A and windows has no clue that ME even exists - hence nothing in sytem devices for it - no unknown devices etc, just not trace of it at all. Pretty sure it's somehow been crippled in the bios unfortunately.

I've pretty much given it my best shot and I thank you for all of your patience and help - I guess this little beast just doesn't wanna play ball!