Intel ME disabled offered by Dell?

General Discussion
1

I tried to find anything about this, but haven’t succeeded.

Does anyone know if it’s really what it says under “System Management”? That would be great news, if it’s true.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/latitude-5530-laptop/spd/latitude-15-5530-laptop

Also, should we look for CPUs with or without vPro support? Or as an example to clarify all security features for

what do we need and what we don’t want for Qubes…

2

Don’t get vPro, unless you need it.

Historically, many of the bugs found in IME have been in vPro. It is also the module that adds the networking features to IME, and makes IME run when the system is turned off.

There is a bios option to permanently disable the active management technology in vPro, but I would still just avoid getting a system that has vPro.

3

Thanks for the reply, but what do you (or anyone else) think about specific feature Intel ME disabled offered there?
And the second, is vPro needed for anything in Qubes?

4

I don’t think it’s impossible that Dell are selling laptops with IME disabled, others have been doing the same for a long time. It could be an error on the website, but I think it would break consumer laws to offer the service and not disable IME.

You should probably ask their customer service to be 100% sure what they mean by IME disabled.

vPro isn’t used by the OS, it’s for remote support. You can think of it as a VNC client built into the firmware, similar to IMM in a server. It basically allows tech support to have fully control of the system, including installing operating systems and configuring the bios, and it can all be done remotely.

1 Like
5

On some Thinkpad models, disabling AMT bricks the laptop, and requires disconnecting both batteries to get it to work again. English Community-Lenovo Community

6

It’s not the first time that Dell have offered machines with ME
disabled.
They will use the same process as manufacturers like Purism now do.
(Any scale manufacturer could do this - few do.)

7

So, these are good news then? It would be worth to buy it and then to wait Qubes to be possible to install to it.
I had to dig deep to get info that this laptop has Intel PCH-LP chipset, but I couldn’t find any info about it even on ark.intel to relate it with this laptop…

Did anyone tried/succeeded?