As a very belated data point to disabling the ME on the x230, it appears that it also disables the e1000e wired ethernet. The Linux kernel's ich8lan.c file reports an error that "No valid NVM bank present" and won't bring up eth0 if the ME has been flashed with a minimal firmware.
Since the ME shares the device with the host for command & control by external parties, this seems like there must be some setup that the ME does on the device to coordinate access with the x86. -- Trammell -- coreboot mailing list: [email protected] https://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
