Need real mobo dump of BIOS v402 for ASUS PRIME Z590-A - stock image no help

[DynaxSC]

Hi,

I have a serious problem to program the Z590 chipset SRAM with a Management Engine after replacing the chipset.
The new chipset is factory new and is not containing any Management Engine. Any attempts to program it into the chipset under Windows ends with a failure (eg. Error 20: Management Engine Device not present, or something similar).
Due to the lack of the ME several ports on the board, including all M.2 ports aren't working, booting OS works only on USB. So it's now other way, as to program the chipset with a ME.

Usually on ASUS boards it worked to program the oldest (first) stock BIOS version into the SPI chip.
This BIOS looks for a ME in the chipset, and not finding it starts to download the ME image from the SPI chip into the SRAM of the chipset.
However this board does not start with a stock ME correctly, so it stops after the CPU DRAM LED has been put off, and does not go further. Something in the stock BIOS is missing, or ASUS just implemented some mechanism to make it impossible to activate the ME on a new chipset using a stock image to make our live more costly.
I also tried to downgrade a dumped BIOS version (v1701) I have to v0402, but 0605 is the last BIOS version which is possible to achieve downgrading. 0402 is not accepted by 0605 to downgrade, and v0605 does not do the job. Bad luck.

Therefore I desperately search for the first version of the BIOS (v0402) but dumped from a real physical board. Only this first BIOS version has the capability to program the SRAM with a ME.
It's also possible, that lower versions exist on boards, but are not on the ASUS support site, so any earlier will do also most probably.

I hope ther is a hamster like me out there, and could make such BIOS available to me, or give me any other hint how the ME can be programmed to the SRAM a different way.

Also a hint how to make a stock BIOS correctly boot would be of high value.

Thanks in advance for help.

[Herbs n spices]

I don't have what you're looking for, but I will offer some suggestions: For ASUS z170-z390 there is a UUID and the board serial number that needs to be transferred to the stock ROM, as well as the MAC address if it has an Intel LAN chip. Those values were stored in a GUID that started with FD44... There is a program called FD44 editor that can transfer them. Although for Z590 I don't know if such a thing still exists, or if it would cause what you speak of.

Some motherboards have a ME maintenance jumper, perhaps you need to short such a jumper to program the ME? I would also carefully inspect to make sure no components around or behind the chipset were damaged in the replacement process.

[DynaxSC]

Thank you for the information. However the issue is more complicated. I know how to transfer the "personalisation data" into a stock Bios, thats not the issue. The problem is, that the mobo with a factory new chipset, and a stock Bios does not boot correctly, it hangs somewhere after the DRAM LED went off. And it does not matter if the Bios is personalized or not. Beside FD44 I even used Intels Flash Image Tool (fit.exe) to impor the stock Bios image and edit the parameters with fit to enable "Software Binding" of PCH with the Bios. The issue is that ASUS had done something in the stock Bios, that prevents a correct boot sequence to be finalized or something is missing in the stock bios. I also compared the bios structure of Bios version 0402 to 0602 an further versions, and 0402 is somehow uniqe, has one more boot section inside. Possible this is just a production Bios, which after first run combined the Bios ME with the chipset, and after this disables the factory mode to normal operation mode (this option is also selectable with fit.exe).

As I had a personalized bios version 1701, I just downgraded this version to 0602, and this downgraded bios boots normally, however won't activate the ME (bios shows ME Engine version 0.0.0.0.). Unfortunately its not possible any more to downgrade to 0402. So I believe having a personalized version 0402 would make it possible to activate the ME on the board, whereby it is probably still necessary to enable the "Software binding" with fit.exe. This worked for me with several Asus boards already.

Another idea I had was to cheat the 0602 Bios to make it possible to downgrade to 0402. I found out where the Bios stores its version, and edited v0402 to have version 0602. Unfortunaltely 0602 still refused to downgrade to the cheated 0402 with 0602 version data.

So I'm at the end of my ideas at the moment and need a new approach, or a personalized 0402 bios.