[Question] About Bitlocker and TPMs. I cannot get my Gigabyte TPM (Module) to work with my Gigabyte motherboard.

[George10345]

I have been googling for 5 hours and nothing. So I figured I would ask here and see if I find any answers.

See the attached images. It will help understand my issue.

If anyone with a Gigabyte mobo and a TPM is here and would like to help me, it would mean a lot to me.

I want to use bitlocker on my Windows 7 Ultimate machine, so I bought a TPM for my motherboard. I do not want to use Bitlocker without a TPM because that would require a USB drive to be plugged it every time I turn on my PC, and I am going to lose it for sure. So I bought a TPM from Gigabyte ( GC TPM 2.0 ) and I have been trying to get it to work with my motherboard ever since ( Z97 Gaming 7 ). I should state that I have the latest BIOS Version.

My motherboard has a TPM header and I plugged the GC TPM 2 in there. I went into BIOS -> Peripherals -> Trusted Computing -> Security Device Support and set this option to "enabled".

When I rebooted the computer, I went into BIOS again and when I visited the Trusted Computing Section of the BIOS, instead of letting me set further options for my TPM (like enabling it so that the OS can "see" it ), it only shows the Security Device Support option and under current status it displays "Support disabled" or something like that.

I cannot even set the TPM State to "enabled" in order for windows to recognize it. I have tried Loading Optimized defaults, I have tried clearing the CMOS. Nothing works.

The motherboard knows it has a TPM connected to it (when i take it out the Trusted Computing section dissappears) but it only lets me change the Security Device Support option to "enabled or disabled" and nothing more, as it should.

What's happening?

[jools]

maybe a fix in latest bios

[George10345]

@jools The thing is, I am on the latest BIOS...

[jools]

found this

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-3161191/enabling-tpm-module-gigabyte-motherboard.html

 

 

To start the TPM Initialization Wizard and turn on the TPM
1.Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Run.
2.Type tpm.msc in the Open box, and then press ENTER.
3.If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.
4.The TPM Management console is displayed.
5.In the Actions pane, click Initialize TPM. The TPM Initialization Wizard is started.
6.Click Shutdown (or Restart), and then follow the BIOS screen prompts.
7.After the computer restarts, but before you log on to Windows, you will be prompted to accept the reconfiguration of the TPM. This ensures that the user is physically present, and that it is not malicious software attempting to initialize the TPM.
8.After logging on to Windows, right-click the Windows Defender icon in the notification area, point to Run blocked program, and then click TPM Initialization Wizard.
9.If the User Account Control dialog box appears, confirm that the action it displays is what you want, and then click Continue.

Set ownership of the TPM

1.On the Create the TPM owner password page, click Automatically create the password (recommended).
2.In the Save your TPM owner password dialog box, click Save the password.
3.In the Save As dialog box, select a location to save the password, and then click Save. The password file is saved as computer_name.tpm.
4.Click Initialize. (process may take a few minutes to complete)
5.Click Close.

[George10345]

I have come across this one.
The poor guy has the same problem as me. I feel like this: https://xkcd.com/979/
The thing is, that reply is a tutorial to initialize your TPM, "own" it and then instruct Windows to use it with bitlocker.
It does not answer the question "Windows cannot recognize the TPM in my computer, even though the TPM support is enabled in BIOS", which both the poor guy Zeppos and I have...
It implies that Windows can "see" the TPM. But my computer cannot see the TPM, even though it is enabled in the BIOS.
If my computer could see the TPM it would display it under Device Manager, which it does not
You cannot even begin to initialize your TPM if Windows does not recognize it. It simply does not let you do that.
While your answer may state things that are correct, it is the answer to a different problem.
Anyway, thank you for your time!

[jools]

my understanding is that the tpm is top down software enabled...

 

meaning enable twice in bios>boot 2 windows

then run tpm iniatialization software in windows which reboots>

then finalize thru bios (claim ownership)

[George10345]

Your reasoning is correct I think. But the problem is that my computer simply does not let me to enable it twice in BIOS, and it should.

Computers are weird.

[jools]

bios

security device support ......enable

save reboot to bios

tpm state               enable   (this is the bit you say doesn't work) if so goto windows

and see if RUN tmp.msc works

if not it mite be OS/tmp version related ....

read

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/11849.tpm-1-2-vs-2-0-features

 

OS	TPM 1.2	TPM 2.0
Windows 7	Yes	No (1)
Windows 8	Yes	Yes (2)
Windows 8.1	Yes	Yes (2)
Windows 10	Yes	Yes
RHEL	Yes	No (3)
Ubuntu	Yes	Yes (3)(4)

1. Windows 7 64bit with SP configured in UEFI + CSM boot mode can support TPM 2.0, but this has not been validated by Dell, nor is it currently supported.
2. Windows 8 launched with support for TPM 2.0, but only supports SHA-1
3. Requires Linux upstream kernel version 4.4 or newer. Linux distribution vendors may choose to backport support to older kernels.
4. Supported on Ubuntu 16.04 and later.

 

[jools]

hot fix tpm 2.0 on win 7

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2920188

[George10345]

Still not working... I really hope Gigabyte has an answer to my problem. There really is not that much stuff online about these kinds of problems... It is like searching in the dark... I wonder if I upgrade to Windows 10, will my problem go away?

[jools]

1 last question

when you first went into bios and set "security device support" to enable , you did save and then exit bios f10? then re-enter bios  to enable "tpm state" then f10. in this order

[George10345]

After I enabled security device support I saved using f10 so that any changes I made would be saved. Then after I rebooted I entered the BIOS and tried to find the "tpm state" option. There is no such option on the screen, but there should be. The only option shown on the screen is  the "security device support : enabled" option, which is set in freaking enabled so that I can change the tpm state option, but it doesnt want to work properly.

[d13]

same problem here.

 

Bought a Gigabyte GC-TPM 2.0, installed it correctly, went to BIOS and set Security Device Support to Enable, pressed F10 (saved) and rebooted back into BIOS, I do NOT see any "TPM State" option and neither does Windows 10 Pro or Windows 8.1 Pro recognize any TPM module in device manager or tpm.msc.

 

Gigabyte z87x-d3h motherboard

[Aric5301]

Hi. So obviously it's been quite a while since this thread was active but I have somewhat of an update!
I recently purchased a GC-TPM2.0 chip to use with a Gigabyte H97M-D3H motherboard and encountered the same problem.
It turns out that Gigabyte didn't enable support for TPM 2.0 chips in the latest BIOS update for this motherboard that they have placed on their website.
After contacting Gigabyte through their eSupport site, I was sent a newer version (for my motherboard, they sent me version F8e, compared to version F8b that's available on their website) and manually installed it on my motherboard. It worked! Windows 10 21H1 recognizes the chip.
So for anyone else with the same problem, I suggest you contact Gigabyte, and hopefully they will have you covered.

[VAN1SH1NG]

On 9/23/2021 at 9:47 AM, Aric5301 said:

So for anyone else with the same problem, I suggest you contact Gigabyte, and hopefully they will have you covered.

No luck here, the person from Gigabyte eSupport who replied said they don't have anything other than what is on the support site.  Disappointing since i actually assembled this PC fairly recently just before the Windows 11 news came out.  Luckily I found the GC-TPM2.0 module for cheap, but yeah it doesn't seem to work with the F8b bios.

[Aric5301]

Here's the link that Gigabyte sent me from which I downloaded the BIOS: https://yadi.sk/d/aOMZOZbO45bJeQ.
Please note that this is the link that I got specifically for my Gigabyte H97M-D3H motherboard.

I installed version F8e on my motherboard using an external flash drive and Gigabyte's Q-Flash Utility.
Please note that for the BIOS to recognize the flash disk, the flash disk first needs to be formatted to FAT32 file system.
This can be done in several ways.
Later, you'll be able to reformat it to exFAT.
Good luck!

[morralletti]

On 11/3/2021 at 4:31 PM, Aric5301 said:

Here's the link that Gigabyte sent me from which I downloaded the BIOS: https://yadi.sk/d/aOMZOZbO45bJeQ.
Please note that this is the link that I got specifically for my Gigabyte H97M-D3H motherboard.

I installed version F8e on my motherboard using an external flash drive and Gigabyte's Q-Flash Utility.
Please note that for the BIOS to recognize the flash disk, the flash disk first needs to be formatted to FAT32 file system.
This can be done in several ways.
Later, you'll be able to reformat it to exFAT.
Good luck!

It works! Thank you very much for your contribution! If at some point the yandex link goes down I have a copy of the bios file you mention! 

Attached in this post is the copy of H97MD3H.f8e.

Greetings from Spain!

H97MD3H.f8e

[MobiusNZ]

On 11/4/2021 at 4:31 AM, Aric5301 said:

Here's the link that Gigabyte sent me from which I downloaded the BIOS: https://yadi.sk/d/aOMZOZbO45bJeQ.
Please note that this is the link that I got specifically for my Gigabyte H97M-D3H motherboard.

I installed version F8e on my motherboard using an external flash drive and Gigabyte's Q-Flash Utility.
Please note that for the BIOS to recognize the flash disk, the flash disk first needs to be formatted to FAT32 file system.
This can be done in several ways.
Later, you'll be able to reformat it to exFAT.
Good luck!

Just want to say thanks - I have the same board and the BIOS I had plus an update to the "latest" game me the same issue that the TPM was disabled or off. Installed the BETA and its all go. Means I should be able to dabble with a legit update to Windows 11.

[Ash_0023]

Hey, im having the exact same issue now, but i am using a H97-D3h ( Non M version.) If i try downloading the bios that was provided here, it gives an error, which im guessing is because I am not using the M version of the board. I am using the latest bios provided on the website, i'll try contacting support and see how that goes.