UPDATE:

I restarted from scratch and the files in decomp were as they were supposed to be so I proceeded. I finished the steps, reassembled, hit power. Beep beep beep....8 of them. My heart sank. A quick google was 8 beeps was for video. I reseated the laptop monitor cable to mobo, and BAM, it came online!

Intel Managemet Engine was sitting pretty in device manager and it shut down on command.

HUGE thanks to @plutomaniac and @Lost_N_BIOS for all the help!

Great you were able to fix this yourself @Mofoist great job!!
Apologies that I missed being here while you first stressed out working on the BIOS, but glad you eventually got it all sorted!

@plutomaniac I should be able to share the repaired bin with people with the same model/configuration of my laptop correct?

Yes, but it may have your board specifics, which they would need to swap in their own (Serial, asset tag, service tag, LAN MAC ID etc)

That's what I thought I had read somewhere. Since Dell's own update did this there are people asking for the repaired bin. I just linked them to the process I followed.

@Mofoist - Or, they can use tools (Del DST CD) post recovery, just posted a link for someone a few days ago
8470p 8570p bios moding tools

Hi @Lost_N_BIOS.
I do have the same issue as he mentioned and I'm about to follow the exact process he showed but why do I need to reprogram the system service tag?

@plutomaniac Windows Defender is going crazy with virus detects on ME Analyzer btw

@Adel If you pull your own .bin file from your own motherboard and follow the guide, you don't have to reprogram anything if that's what you're asking. You just have to dump the chip, clean it starting with section D2 of the guide, flash it and you're done.

@Mofoist Thanks for the clarifications. I'm kinda lost in the guides here though. Could you please post the exact steps along with links to the guides without having to reprogram anything?

Pardon my ignorance as the words "pull your own .bin file", "dump the chip" "clean it with section D2 of the guide (which guide?)" and "flash it" are not obvious to some people (including me).

I'm pretty sure there are many people here and there facing the same problem as you had and we would appriciate it if you clear things up.

Zitat von Mofoist im Beitrag #39

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@Adel If you pull your own .bin file from your own motherboard and follow the guide, you don't have to reprogram anything if that's what you're asking. You just have to dump the chip, clean it starting with section D2 of the guide, flash it and you're done.

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You need to dump the BIOS/ME region and rebuild ME, if I'm understanding your issue correctly @Adel - and you are correct, if you use a dump someone else provides you will need to swap out your NVRAM and any other padding files etc so you keep your current board details (Service tag, asset tag, lan MAC ID etc)
This is why it's easier to dump your own BIOS and work on that as the source. Dump FD is not required/helpful

You need CH341A or other hardware flash programmer and SOIC8 test clip to dump your BIOS (Pull your own .bin file/dump the chip") and here is the guide to clean ME region - [Guide] Clean Dumped Intel Engine (CS)ME/(CS)TXE Regions with Data Initialization
https://www.ebay.com/itm/201316582787
https://www.ebay.com/itm/382486015977

Repaired bin from someone else, board details aside, will not help anyway because you cannot reflash ME region in that way, only with a programmer or unlocked FD via pinmod. Unless you can find a ME/Service/FD/FDO 2 pin jumper on your board.
Here in this thread at section "E.1" is how to do the pinmod to unlock FD - [Guide] Unlock Intel Flash Descriptor Read/Write Access Permissions for SPI Servicing

@Lost_N_BIOS I've just ordered both pieces (it takes 2 weeks to arrive).

In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out the E6 method.
I have managed to locate the setup_var value. In my case, the name is "Me FW Image Re-Flash" and its default VarStore value is 0x1.
So I guess I don't have to enable this option from the EFI shell since it's already enabled.
Am I missing something?

Zitat von Adel im Beitrag #43

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@Lost_N_BIOS I've just ordered both pieces (it takes 2 weeks to arrive).

In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out the E6 method.
I have managed to locate the setup_var value. In my case, the name is "Me FW Image Re-Flash" and its default VarStore value is 0x1.
So I guess I don't have to enable this option from the EFI shell since it's already enabled.
Am I missing something?

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Yes, you can try that method and use those files etc, and you need to set 0xD1 to 0x1 via grub - rename your efi file to shell.efi - if that fails use this method/layout - [Help needed] Hidden Advanced menu Bios HP Z1 J52_0274.BIN (2)
However, this method cannot be used in your case since ME FW is corrupted, that is only to enable ME FW Update tool to reflash the ME FW and it only works if ME FW is working/healthy