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The AMT feature is not enabled, but I believe the ME chip is physically present on all Intel chips since 2006. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel https://lib

The AMT feature is not enabled, but I believe the ME chip is physically present on all Intel chips since 2006. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel

derefr 9y ago
The ME "chip" is the Platform Controller Hub. The ME core on that chip is basically your "real" CPU: it initializes your devices into the correct modes at boot, and does things in response to BIOS interrupts, manages DMA regions according to the ACPI DSDT, virtualizes IRQs, refreshes DRAM, etc. The modern Intel socket CPUs are more like application accelerator cards for this hidden "mother" core. Until recently, you could think of your Intel computer more as an ARC[1] PC with an embedded Intel support slot, than as a pure Intel PC. If you wanted to, you could write a custom BIOS that would boot a Haswell-era motherboard with no CPU inserted, and it would run just fine—because the motherboard already ships with all the CPU it needs to act as a functional computer. (And with the hack on the article, you could run your own software on such a PC, too!) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synopsys#ARC_International https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synopsys#ARC_International So no, you can't really remove the ME; it functionally "is" the computer in a lot of ways. Of course, you could remove its ability to run software other than its kernel—but this doesn't make it "brain dead" or "switch it off"; it just makes it do very slightly less. There's still a lot of (necessary!) stuff going on in there.
- amigoingtodie 9y ago
  I would really like to see Doom running on a mobo w the main cpu missing.
  - jdiaz5513 9y ago
    This is how we shall benchmark that CPU.
- kogepathic 9y ago
  > If you wanted to, you could write a custom BIOS that would boot a Haswell-era motherboard with no CPU inserted, and it would run just fine—because the motherboard already ships with all the CPU it needs to act as a functional computer. Has anyone actually done this? If you have a link to someone who's run a board using only the ME processor I'd be really interested to see it! I thought the ME was covered in all kind of NDA and proprietary goodness. Booting a board without the main x86 installed would be quite a feat of reverse engineering!

The AMT feature is not enabled, but I believe the ME chip is physically present on all Intel chips since 2006. https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel https://libreboot.org/faq.html#intel

derefr 9y ago

The ME "chip" is the Platform Controller Hub. The ME core on that chip is basically your "real" CPU: it initializes your devices into the correct modes at boot, and does things in response to BIOS interrupts, manages DMA regions according to the ACPI DSDT, virtualizes IRQs, refreshes DRAM, etc. The modern Intel socket CPUs are more like application accelerator cards for this hidden "mother" core. Until recently, you could think of your Intel computer more as an ARC[1] PC with an embedded Intel support slot, than as a pure Intel PC. If you wanted to, you could write a custom BIOS that would boot a Haswell-era motherboard with no CPU inserted, and it would run just fine—because the motherboard already ships with all the CPU it needs to act as a functional computer. (And with the hack on the article, you could run your own software on such a PC, too!) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synopsys#ARC_International https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synopsys#ARC_International So no, you can't really remove the ME; it functionally "is" the computer in a lot of ways. Of course, you could remove its ability to run software other than its kernel—but this doesn't make it "brain dead" or "switch it off"; it just makes it do very slightly less. There's still a lot of (necessary!) stuff going on in there.

amigoingtodie 9y ago
I would really like to see Doom running on a mobo w the main cpu missing.
- jdiaz5513 9y ago
  This is how we shall benchmark that CPU.
kogepathic 9y ago
> If you wanted to, you could write a custom BIOS that would boot a Haswell-era motherboard with no CPU inserted, and it would run just fine—because the motherboard already ships with all the CPU it needs to act as a functional computer. Has anyone actually done this? If you have a link to someone who's run a board using only the ME processor I'd be really interested to see it! I thought the ME was covered in all kind of NDA and proprietary goodness. Booting a board without the main x86 installed would be quite a feat of reverse engineering!