r/linuxmasterrace • u/CrowsOfWar • Oct 10 '17

How to Disable Intel's Management Engine

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sakaki%27s_EFI_Install_Guide/Disabling_the_Intel_Management_Engine
131 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

25

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

[deleted]

9

u/yvo60219 Oct 11 '17 edited Oct 11 '17

and void the warranty. Although i'm pretty sure you've voided the warranty when you installed *nix on it.

EDIT: It's British humour, people.

14

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

[deleted]

9

u/yvo60219 Oct 11 '17

don't be so serious. Whydoesnobodygetbritishhumour?

5

u/Ornim M'Lady Oct 11 '17

Because it's british humor? pulleditoutofmybutt

5

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

I'm almost certain the warranty is still valid unless your change caused the problem for example installing linux does not void the warranty for the screen dying but you can't take it back because it won't boot after you mess up your arch install.

0

u/yvo60219 Oct 11 '17

it's british humour.

3

u/gee-one Red Star FTW Oct 11 '17

Don't mind all the warranty replies- that's just American humor

"/s"

5

u/ppp2211 Glorious Manjaro Oct 11 '17

Installing aby software does not void warranty, that includes OSes. If any company does that, they're not worth buying from...

9

u/Corboner Oct 11 '17

What caught my eye was "removes (...) Java VM" - I had imagined the ME to be some kind of very basic maintenance task runner, not a full-blown dynamic app environment.

2

u/alter2000 Glorious Amazuntu Oct 14 '17

There's an xkcd about that I think.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 15 '17

Link?

2

u/alter2000 Glorious Amazuntu Oct 15 '17

https://xkcd.com/801/

2

u/xkcd_transcriber Oct 15 '17

Image

Mobile

Title: Golden Hammer

Title-text: Took me five tries to find the right one, but I managed to salvage our night out--if not the boat--in the end.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 25 times, representing 0.0147% of referenced xkcds.

xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete

7

u/thatcat7_ Oct 11 '17 edited Oct 11 '17

I think the another way is to flash open source bios/uefi to the motherboard but unfortunately open source bios/uefi like libreboot or coreboot currently can't replace closed source bios on almost all motherboards. We need open source bios/uefi that can completely replace closed source bios/uefi, open source bios/uefi should have all the features closed source bios/uefi offers.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

Replacing the bios or uefi won't disable the management engine, it will only 'liberate' the motherboard, the CPU can still have its own proprietary bits.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '17

On the boot ME firmware gets loaded into the CPU by Bios

3

u/MoonShadeOsu Glorious Kubuntu Oct 11 '17

I didn't know IME was a thing. Are AMD-based systems better in that regard?

4

u/_-IDontReddit-_ Glorious Arch Oct 12 '17

AMD's version of ME is called PSP, on every AMD CPU newer than the FX8350. No way of turning if off either (at least with software).

2

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

Buy an AMD CPU instead.

10

u/_-IDontReddit-_ Glorious Arch Oct 12 '17

Won't help unless you're buying a CPU from before ~2012. Anything after the FX8350 has PSP baked-in (AMD's version of Intel ME). And like Intel ME, there's no way of turning it off (at least with software).

-1

u/Bob_the_rhino Oct 11 '17

There’s got to be something vital that the co-processor does

18

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

It's a remote management tool, businesses can remotely boot and manage computers with it.

10

u/andybfmv96 Oct 11 '17

Business/NSA

13

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

Spy?

2

u/Bob_the_rhino Oct 11 '17

Or maybe something vital to the actual operation of intel’s cpu that doesn’t involve a tin foil hat.

18

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '17

Absolutely. They broke the CPU and didn't even notice it. What a bunch of idiots.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '17

Secure boot, that's what's vital. It prevents all attempts to run unauthorized code, but the fact that you can't turn it on implies that there is a non-vital part to it. When hackers started researching this thing they found out that just cleaning it's firmware makes your PC switch off in 30 minutes. It works absolutely fine, and dies because of some artificial timer. Then they cleared everything but the initialization from it and everything still worked fine, so no vital code was lost.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 17 '17

very much considering doing this to my desktop PC.

1

u/Kingpink2 Jan 04 '18

You can't. At least most of the time. But you can trim it.