Re: choosing a motherboard

<[email protected]> wrote:

> Windows11 will not tolerate my motherboard because it lacks that chip.

There are 2 ways to supply TPM support: a TPM chip, or BIOS firmware.
While my mobo has a TPM slot, it also has Intel's PTT (Platform Trust
Technology) code in its BIOS to emulate the chip.  AMD has their fTPM
BIOS code.  You may have to go into the BIOS to enable this feature.

I purposely did not fab my host to include a TPM module.  I also went
into BIOS to deliberately disable Intel PTT.  This ensures I am not
bothered by Windows Update offering me to upgrade to Windows 11.  Easy
kill switch.  If I sometime later (probably Windows 12 more likely than
Windows 11) decide to upgrade from Windows 10, I go into the BIOS to
re-enable Intel PTT, and allow the upgrade.  If I want to revert, I
would have to first disable Intel PTT in BIOS, and then restore to the
image backup before I started all this.

> I suspect this old machine and Win10 will outlive me, so I'm not very
> serious about shopping for a pre-built machine and I'm kinda scared to
> attempt a build (mostly because of the old-age frailities I've picked
> since I built the last one, but also because of the money - I'm
> finally fully retired now (89) and the inflation is kinda terrifying).

Since you did not identify your mobo (brand and model), no way anyone
else can check if it has a setting for Intel PTT or AMD fTPM.  Read the
mobo's manual.  It should mention this option if supported.

As Paul mentioned, there may be other requirements than just TPM, like
which CPUs are supported by Windows 11 as well as RAM minimum.  See:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifications
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements

Maybe PC Health Check might provide some guidance:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/how-to-use-the-pc-health-check-app-9c8abd9b-03ba-4e67-81ef-36f37caa7844

I don't have that app installed on Windows 10 to see what it reports.