TPM 2.0 support and Windows 11 (intel)

As Win10 support is ending this year, I was looking to update my PC to Win 11 and came across this thread. While the intent of this sticky is good, unfortunately I find the OP to be quite inadequate. I immediately had follow-up questions, such as, what is the exact meaning of "it does not support TPM 2.0?"--does that mean natively, out of the box, the board does not have that capability built in? But what about all those TPM modules all over eBay? Are you saying that such a board will NEVER support TPM 2.0 even with such a module?

If anyone else is still looking for help with such questions, and is confused like I was, hopefully the following will clear things up.

Firstly, ASRock has a helpful page to tell you exactly which version of TPM your board is compatible with:
https://www.asrock.com.tw/mb/spec/card.asp?Model=TPM-S%20Module&cat=Support

If your board is on that list, then you need to buy the corresponding add-on TPM module to enable TPM. (Unless maybe if it's built into your CPU? It could be that the board has a discrete TPM module, but the CPU also has it built in. My guess is that could be the case for some board/CPU combos. Not sure.) The "»TPM-S Module" link lists approved modules for ASRock.

However, if my understanding is correct, TPM 1.2 and 2.0 are not compatible, and it's a hardware thing. So, I believe that means that a BIOS update can't make a board designed for 1.2 compatible with 2.0 even though the pin layout may be the same. In any case, if your board is listed in the 1.2 section in the above link, there's no point buying a TPM 2.0 module for it as it will not work!

However, TPM 1.2 is still okay for installing Win 11 with just a bit of registry tweaking.

I found a TPM 1.2 module for my H81M-HDS, and it works. If you need such a module, you better hurry because it looks like they have almost completely disappeared from the market due to low demand. The one I got is from Authikey, and it uses a different chip from the one listed by ASRock. Looks like the "officially supported" 1.2 module, with the Nuvoton chip, has been discontinued everywhere.

Here are a few articles that provide good summaries about TPM and Win11.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-windows-11-requires-a-tpm-and-how-to-get-around-it/
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/10/how-to-upgrade-to-windows-11-whether-your-pc-is-supported-or-not/

tonymy01 wrote: a game he plays, Valorant, demands TPM2.0 if the computer is running windows11.

Wow, that's really frustrating! Did you install Win 11 with bypassing TPM completely? Or do you have TPM 1.2 on this board?

tonymy01 wrote: So please please Asrock can you produce TPM2.0 versions of F/W for TPM1.2 motherboards?

Lol. Check my above post. There's no point in asking this. You may as well ask them to make a board for Intel CPUs compatible with AMD CPUs.

tonymy01 wrote: As for ASRock f/w, they did it for the Z97 Killer, but not the Z97X Killer.

What is the "it", exactly? What did ASRock do with the f/w?

tonymy01 wrote: I just received a TPM2.0 module for ASRock boards, my Z97X detects it and lets it be set to secure boot, but shows some kind of "not enabled" in the BIOS, and Windows msinfo32 says TPM not running.   If I knew what I was doing I would take the TPM2 components from the 2.60 Z97 Fatality Killer and cludge them into the 2.60 for Z97X but my efforts to mod the f/w ended up in a mess.

I don't understand how you got any functionality out of the TPM 2.0 module at all. On the link that I posted in my post, all the Z97-based boards are listed under the TPM 1.2 category. Here it is again:
https://www.asrock.com.tw/mb/spec/card.asp?Model=TPM-S%20Module&cat=Support

As I said before, based on the info I found, TPM 2.0 is not backward compatible with 1.2, even though the pin layouts are the same (i.e. either module can plug into either port). The hardware behind the pins is different for the two standards, from what I recall finding. Am I wrong on this point??

It seems to me that you're tilting at wind mills, as the expression goes. Everything you described depends on whether TPM 2.0 is compatible with 1.2, hardware-wise. If you don't believe me you should try to find this out for yourself before you try any further fiddling.

I think the only viable path for you is to get a TPM 1.2 module, which is what I did. I'm not sure if that specific game will detect a difference between 2.0 and 1.2, and if it will care, but I think it's physically impossible to get TPM 2.0 from a board built with TPM 1.2.

I got this one:
https://authikey.com/product/tpm-for-asrock/

It actually has both 2.0 and 1.2 in one product. So you could experiment with both. And it specifically lists Z97.