About five years ago, I built a PC with the Maximus VIII Hero Alpha mobo. It's been great. With an i7-6700K, 32GB RAM, and a 2TB Nvme SSD, it runs Windows 10. I use the desktop for all kinds of things but mainly development and photo editing. I often have about 20 apps open, including WSL. The machine is fast - even a "heavy" app like Visual Studio Code starts instantaneously!
So when I learnt Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0, I realised I wouldn't be able to run the OS. The mobo doesn't include a header for a TPM chip or the PTT BIOS setting.
On reading more, I learnt that my mobo's chipset is the
Intel Z170 Chipset. This includes PTT (Platform Trust Technology), which "supports all Microsoft requirements for firmware Trusted Platform Module (fTPM) 2.0".
So, in theory, my mobo supports TPM 2.0 via firmware even though it doesn't have a TPM chip or an expansion slot for a TPM card. Unfortunately, as I said, the BIOS doesn't expose the PTT setting!
It turns out that it's not unusual for PTT support to be not exposed by the BIOS of some mobos, according to this
Ars Technica article.
Putting the Win 11 requirements to one side, I'd like TPM because I have bitlockered my C drive. A lot of people don't realise that you don't need TPM for that. All that happens is that when you boot up, you're asked for the bitlocker password. You can daisy chain other bitlockered drives onto the C drive so you don't need to enter their passwords. It all works well.
My question is: why didn't Asus expose the PTT setting for chipsets that support it? My guess is that it's just a switch at bootup. Moreover, would Asus consider issuing new BIOS firmware with PTT enabled? They don't need to provide a UI in the BIOS (if that's too much work) but just provide the same firmware with PTT enabled. Those that want it can install the update; those that don't can ignore it.
Of course, that may not allow people like me with a 6th gen CPU to run Win11 but it would still be handy for bitlocker.
