Asus P8Z77-M motherboard adding TPM 2.0 for Win11 upgrade

goldbug101 · 3 Mar 2022 at 10:56

Hello All.

I have had this excellent Asus P8Z77-M motherboard inside my rebuilt computer in original Acer case for about nine years now.

It has an Intel i5 CPU and 16GB of RAM - quite probably DDR3. 512GB SSD C: drive and 1TBHDD D: drive.

I am looking at the possibility of 'upgrading' the OS to Windows 11 from Win7 at some point and running TPM.MSC tells me the computer is not currently suitable for WIn11. I checked the motherboard manual and there is indeed a TPM connector on the board - 19 pins iirc, but don't want to be stuck with V1.2.

A quick scout around on Fleabay shows up numerous TPM 2.0 compatible modules. I asked one vendor who said his TPM is only compatible on motherboards with DDR4 RAM. Is that the end of the story for my Win7 PC or is there some other option. I did 'upgrade' to Win10 at one point but hated it - still do - so reverted it to Win7 and it's Running fine.

Any ideas or suggestions - appreciated as ever.

Thanks all.

Journey · 3 Mar 2022 at 11:15

Use the Microsoft work around for installing it without TPM. If you haven't needed it or used it since your system was new then you don't need it now.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e

goldbug101 · 3 Mar 2022 at 11:29

Journey said:
Use the Microsoft work around for installing it without TPM. If you haven't needed it or used it since your system was new then you don't need it now.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e

Thanks Journey. apparently win11 will work with TPM 1.2, so should i perhaps install a tpm1.2 module first, bearing in mind what you say?

Journey · 3 Mar 2022 at 11:34

goldbug101 said:
Thanks Journey. apparently win11 will work with TPM 1.2, so should i perhaps install a tpm1.2 module first, bearing in mind what you say?

Entirely up to you. Ask yourself why you need TPM now and what it will give you, rather than just spending money on something for no reason.

Perhaps read the below.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-is-a-tpm-and-why-do-i-need-one-for-windows-11?amp=true

goldbug101 · 3 Mar 2022 at 11:39

Understood - I Just read that Microsoft was stipulating 1.2 as a minimum for Win 11, but I agree about not spending money willy-nilly. DO I even need/want Win11 When my Win7 PC still works fine? Tricky.

Thanks

Tetras · 4 Mar 2022 at 14:50

I don't think it matters if you have a TPM because your CPU is unsupported, so you may need to use the workaround anyway.

I'd say the best option is to use Windows 10 (which will give you most of the newer functionality and security updates until 2025+) and just install a theme pack to make it look and behave like Windows 11.

drakulton · 4 Mar 2022 at 14:58

goldbug101 · 4 Mar 2022 at 16:51

Tetras said:
I don't think it matters if you have a TPM because your CPU is unsupported, so you may need to use the workaround anyway.

I'd say the best option is to use Windows 10 (which will give you most of the newer functionality and security updates until 2025+) and just install a theme pack to make it look and behave like Windows 11.

Cheers Tetras.
I did put Win7 on this PC once but really didn't like it - very user-unfriendly. Not long ago I reinstalled Win7 over it and am much gappier with it.

I see the future is inevitable and am prepared to try Win11 provided it is a noticeable improvement on 10.