A reset is a reset, immediate shutdown of the system that is. In general terminology, soft reset means no settings lost whereas hard is the opposite. FPT performs a soft reset as no settings are lost. The naming is correct and the behavior as expected. Besides, there is documentation for FPT and all other Intel tools found at the ME System Tools packages I upload. These are uploaded for a reason.

Now, after flashing the modded ME region and performed -greset, did you try FWUpdate? That's the whole point. The PDR warning is not important, can be ignored.

Intel Management Engine (ME) Firmware Version 11.0.16.1000 (S&H)(1.5Mo)

Intel ME 11.0 Consumer PCH-H Firmware v11.0.16.1000



MEA: 11.0.16.1000_CON_H_D0_UKPDM_PRD_EXTR_C68D85E31BC47F0C0007161E2059A09E38F66459_SHA1

Thanks to Pacman/SD for the newer PCH-H CON firmware. Thanks to KotTHECat as well for the MEInfo FWRegister3 Status report.

@ norsk_kriger:

That's an Intel system rebranded by Gateway so of course it comes will all the locks that Intel used to implement at their motherboards. What jumper is that at the motherboard? It it's Clear CMOS then it's not useful to fix the ME. Is there any other jumper which might be useful to disable the ME or similar? Why can't you use the latest BIOS from Gateway/Intel which is "DPP3510J.15A.0316"? The firmware and system tools you have picked are correct but the driver is not. You need to have installed MEI v3 drivers (from Section D) which correspond to your system, provided that you have an "Intel(R) Management Engine Interface" device at Device Manager. As a general advice, use only the DOS versions of the tools because the Windows ones are very old for modern operating systems and tend to not work properly. Never flash UPD images via FPT (FPROG was called back then), it's not meant for that and will cause a ME brick. UPD images are only for FWUpdate tool. You need to reflash the ME region completely in order to fix it and that's where the Intel protections come to play. Hopefully we can find a way to fix this issue without the need of a hardware programmer. Obviously if you have one and you can reflash the SPI chip that way, do notify because it will take considerably less time and effort to fix the ME/QST region that way. If not, this is what I suggest (move down the list until something hopefully works):

a) Unplug the system from power (turn off PSU and remove it's cable), wait 1 minute and plug it again (nowadays there is a command for that, fpt -greset, but not back then). Check if ME works now.
b) Try FWUpdate from DOS (not Windows) with the latest QST UPD firmware again with or without -generic.
c) Run FPROG from DOS (not Windows) with command fprog -d:me.bin -me (adjust the command if fprog complains about usage, it's not exactly the same as today's FPT) and if successful, attach me.bin file
d) Search the BIOS for any option such as disable security, enable ME Re-Flash, Disable ME, HMRFPO etc and if yes, set it and try step c again.
e) Search the motherboard for any jumper that can disable secutiry, enable re-flash etc and if yes, set it and try step c again.

@ Octopuss:

I meant loss of firmware settings, not operating system ones. If -greset was able to set all BIOS and ME settings to default for example, then that would have been a hard reset. Anyway, so the system got updated now fully. We had to solve two Gigabyte mistakes and wrong tool and firmware SKU usage but now it's ready. For the other computer as well, make sure you use the right tools and right firmware. They are always the same as major version, keep that in mind.

@ chinobino:

Alright, you have an unlocked flash descriptor so even things go wrong, you can always restore the ME region. What I would try first is a -greset in case the ME got stuck and if that doesn't fix it, then a region reflash. So:

a) Run fptw -greset and after the system has reset, check MEInfo and MEManuf again
b) Run fptw -rewrite -f me_orig.bin -me with the attached stock ME region taken from BIOS F6b followed by fptw -greset

From the MEInfo report, the ME looks ok so maybe a -greset is all you need. Either way, after the problem is fixed (by step a or b), use FWUpdate accordingly.

Use the DOS or EFI version of FPT, something is causing issues at the OS level

To quickly check if the problem is ME or OS related, run the DOS versions of MEInfo and MEManuf to see if any errors appear there as well.

The problem is most probably OS related. Make sure that a) the MEI device is shown at Device Manager, b) it has proper drivers installed and c) no hardware overlocking or monitoring programs are running in the background like HWInfo, AIDA64 and so on.

Intel MEI Driver v11.6.0.1023 MEI-Only Installer
Intel MEI Driver v11.6.0.1009 (Windows 8.x & Windows 10) INF (Reupload due to newer signature)
Intel MEI Driver v11.6.0.1009 (Windows XP & Windows 7) INF (Reupload due to newer signature)

Thanks to Fdrsoft/SD for the new 11.6 drivers.