Gigabyte Motherboard TPM Compatibility

Several years ago, the author acquired a Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 motherboard, as part of a machine upgrade. It's still in use in 2020, so it's not a bad bit of kit!

When the board was examined, it was noticed it had a 20-pin TPM header connection (or 19, if you count the fact one pin is blanked). However I could not find any information on what, if any, TPM modules were supported, nor could TPM modules be seen to be available from Gigabyte.

A request was sent to Gigabyte, asking which modules were compatible, and received this reply :

"Sorry but at this moment we didn’t sell TPM card alone in retail channel"

They were then asked about OTHER TPM modules (other manufacturers), not just GB ones, and the response?

"According to related department, we only tested our very own GC-TPM for TPM modules"

So there you have it....Gigabyte said they don't sell TPM modules to the "retail channel", but do imply they have them, but they won't give any information. Not overly helpful!. So began then searching & experimenting.

This page was found (http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1607955) where someone else had the same idea - they wanted a 20-pin TPM module, and they also found one of the same modules that was of interested (this one), but they also noticed the pin-outs didn't match - so couldn't be trusted.

So different tack was taken, and a general search was made for other motherboard manufacturers who supported TPM. After a few minutes, it was found that ASUS also sold boards with 20-pin TPM headers, AND (more importantly) they sold TPM modules! A quick download of an ASUS P5 motherboard manual (which had TPM support) got the pin out., which matched the pin-out from the Gigabyte board!

So, now it was clear that the board should be able to use an ASUS TPM module - so the job moved to trying to find one. In the UK, it seems these things are rarer than hens teeth. Practically nowhere lists them, and the two places found that did, didn't have any in stock.

Eventually one was ordered from Germany, but they couldn't source one either, so eventually the place of last resort was an eBay storefront of an Italian IT shop! Convoluted? Just a bit!

Anyway, the piece finally ordered was one of these. It looks like this:

You can't really see in that picture, put the PCB extends down behind the connector. This is a problem, as the Gigabyte board has a socket, which stops the module being connected - unless you fancy either cutting the PCB or the socket.

So two 10 pin USB header extenders were acquired, from Maplin (now defunct) which enabled the module to be connected to the board, albeit one of the pins had to be removed/bent, as the module has 1 blanked off (remember the comment about 19-pins above?).

Anyway, once the module was plugged in, the machine was powered and the BIOS entered. Lo, there was a new option on the bottom right of the BIOS screen, labelled "Security Chip" - so it was definitely recognised!

Within the Security Chip menu, the chip was defaulted to "Disable/Deactivate". Once set it to "Enable/Activate", the BIOS was saved and the machine rebooted.

Once Windows 7 had started, Device Manager showed "Security Devices", which expands to show "Trusted Platform Module 1.2". All that was left then was to install the supplied Asus software from CD, and setup the module ("owned it"). Alternately,you can use "tpm.msc", but the ASUS GUI was more user friendly.

The author has also successfully installed and configured BitLocker with it!

So, for anyone asking, the GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 (F7 BIOS) IS compatible with the ASUS TPM-Infineon chip (with spare cables).

Happy hunting! :)