Guide for migrating ME region to new BIOS ( 820-3437 in this instance ) ?

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
Is there a guide to migrating the ME region of an existing BIOS to a new clean-BIOS image?

In my specific case, I have an 820-3437 which works with a donor board BIOS (also 820-3437) but does not with its current BIOS (green/orange light, no fan spin).

I have a programmer, and I have already taken a read/clone of the supposedly faulty BIOS.

( Initially I thought it was the SPI/ROM area damaged, which has happened plenty before but this time it's gone beyond coincidence and after several swaps I'm now wanting to try migrate the ME region to a clean BIOS image and at least either confirm or rule out the possibility ).

Thanks in advance.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
UPDATE: I took the clean-ME region BIOS ROM file that was linked in this forum earlier (for the 3437), copied the section of data from the faulty BIOS just after "ssn" to EOF (inclusive) and then copied it to the clean-ME ROM.

I do not know for sure if that is right/wrong but at this point the machine is now booting and it's installing macOS on to a fresh 120GB SSD. It passed the ASD and showed the correct serial number.
 

SMMRepair

Member
iSight working? Common for it to fail ("No camera detected") after messing with BIOS/ME on these boards. Make sure it's working before calling it a day.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
Waiting for the macOS to install. I did notice that when I did the ASD initially, I didn't have the camera attached, and of course it complained; I plugged it in and the complaint went away, though of course, that's not the same thing as using iSight. Should be about done, I'll go check now.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
This is running Yosemite 10.10.5 currently; though for the purpose of testing I'm now updating it to High Sierra. No "iSight" on this model, but maybe there will be with the HighSierra version?

Facetime did work though.
 

SMMRepair

Member
Let us know; I'm not sure if the High Sierra update will fix it...but I would imagine if Facetime worked, it should be fine. If you clean the ME on this model, 99% of the time, iSight fails (also on 3435). Must do a manual force-update of EFI at that point, which is hit-or-miss and can still not fix issue. A real pain. Would be thrilled if HS update fixes it.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
Oh sorry, I think inadvertedly imparted the idea that it wasn't working and that HS might make it work. Rather what I was saying is that iSight doesn't appear to be -present- in the Yosemite 10.10.5 setup that I can see (I tried using 'finder'), and that I was saying that perhaps iSight might be installed with HS.

EDIT: Based on what I'm reading in HS, Facetime replaced iSight. With that, I think that the machine works with Facetime pretty much for now gives it a clear bill of health. Performance certainly seems good on it.
 
Last edited:

SMMRepair

Member
OK, I think there's confusion from jargon:

iSight = camera.
Photobooth = photobooth.
Facetime = facetime.

Are you saying you don't see PhotoBooth after updating to High Sierra? Photobooth should still be present...and iSight (the camera), should work with both photobooth and facetime. I'm not quite sure what you meant by "facetime replaced isight"...as isight is just a term for the camera. Also wouldn't necessarily show any results if you search for it in OSX...because it's just what the camera is called. Does that make sense? If you open photobooth and camera (isight) works, then great! If it doesn't, it might be an ME issue. But if you're able to update to HS, I would think this should be resolved. Trying to not confuse other readers, etc.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
Good morning, fresher brain now than 2am.

I went back to where I read that information ( typing in iSight into the search on the macOS ); and this is explicitly what is said: "A digital camera from Apple that was built into some models of Mac computers. Replaced by FaceTime and FaceTime HD cameras."

So yes, you're quite right there, it's the camera, just that it seems they changed the terms. I misread at 2am that they were saying iSight was the old software name.

Needless to say, the camera works in Facetime and PhotoBooth.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
UPDATE: Feel free to ignore this, turns out the camera ceased working a long time ago.


Let us know; I'm not sure if the High Sierra update will fix it...but I would imagine if Facetime worked, it should be fine. If you clean the ME on this model, 99% of the time, iSight fails (also on 3435). Must do a manual force-update of EFI at that point, which is hit-or-miss and can still not fix issue. A real pain. Would be thrilled if HS update fixes it.

A new machine, sadly another readable but for some reason non-functional BIOS (flipped bits somewhere I suppose). After the same process of taking the clean ME region BIOS and transferring the SN, unfortunately on this one it has indeed come up with the "Camera not detected" problem.

You mentioned about a forced-update EFI process, do you have a reference to that so that I can make an attempt?
 
Last edited:

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
After reformatting the machine, logging in, with Sierra, cam works again. Not sure if that's because I was able to log in as a normal user, where's prior to the reinstall it was a guest user?

Intermittent, lucky, or is there something else at play?
 

dukefawks

Administrator
High sierra will update EFI anyway with the APFS patch. Fixing the ME region as per Ghostlyhacks guide is NOT the correct way to do this.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
High sierra will update EFI anyway with the APFS patch. Fixing the ME region as per Ghostlyhacks guide is NOT the correct way to do this.

I'm making the assumption that you're referring to the forced-EFI update method SMMRepair was alluding to?

The machine is now working correctly on High Sierra (including webcam) with the clean-ME region 3437 BIOS that I previously sourced from one of your links and the serial number region copied over.

Should I encounter this issue again in the future is the process taken the appropriate one? ( clean ME + serial copy + update system to restore/update EFI ) ?
 

dukefawks

Administrator
If you need a BIOS again, just post a question here with board number and serial and I can make you one with a real working clean ME and serial number with the correct checksum for the Fsys block.
 

Paul Daniels

Super Moderator
If you need a BIOS again, just post a question here with board number and serial and I can make you one with a real working clean ME and serial number with the correct checksum for the Fsys block.

Thanks Duke, I'll be sure to take you up on that offer in the future; appreciated.
 

Sykulski

Member
I think the forced EFI update SMMRepair is talking about is by running the command bless -mount / -firmware <EFIPAYLOAD-FILE.fd> --recovery -verbose

I once made a guide on Adv.Reworks-forum (my username over there is "supermac") about how to do it. Basically you copy the EFIPayload file to a USB installer boot from it and run the command from the Terminal.

You can look at post #12 at

http://advancedreworks.com/forum/sho...tely-2165.html

to see the full guide. It is couple of years ago I wrote it so instead of using Mavericks you should use a never OS as newer machines will not boot on good old Mavericks.
 
Top