Importance of updating TPM firmware?

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Zenn7
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Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:15 pm
Location: Michigan

Importance of updating TPM firmware?

Post by Zenn7 »

From my "is this a good laptop thread", I got the kid's laptop...

Got the HP ProBook 640 G1 laptop today (they left it on the porch, didn't knock; better than the delivery of the new tablet cover - they left that out by a tree by the drive - never had them not at least bring deliveries to our deck before - fortunately not much chance of anyone stealing stuff out here). It's 64bit, running Win10.

Never dealt with this TPM security thing. This says it's not up to date. V1.2 and should be updated to a newer version (best I could tell from researching, a newer version of 1.2).

Needs Owner Password (for bios maybe??) Didn't come with one, don't have it, don't have a password file. From what I could find online to attempt to reset it and just run the update w/o it, failed.

Says I have Manufacturer Info:
Name: IFX
Manf Ver: 4.32
Specific Ver: 1.2

Wants me to update to some flavor of 4.34.

This new enough to solve the critical concerns?

If not, any idea how to get around the owner password thing??

PS- I put this in that post and tried to update thread title but don't think it worked and didn't think it would be as noticed there, apologies for posting twice in two separate threads. Please educate me on proper protocol if I'm making a major faux paus here.
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gilraen
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Re: Importance of updating TPM firmware?

Post by gilraen »

Zenn7 wrote: Sat Jan 05, 2019 11:10 pm Never dealt with this TPM security thing. This says it's not up to date. V1.2 and should be updated to a newer version (best I could tell from researching, a newer version of 1.2).
How is this possible? All Win 10 devices have shipped with TPM 2.0 for at least 2 years now.

Make sure you run every single Windows update that it thinks it has. Also, verify that the laptop is using UEFI and not legacy BIOS firmware, since this sounds like a refurb that they slapped Win 10 on (you can't update TPM on legacy BIOS).
Zenn7
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Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:15 pm
Location: Michigan

Re: Importance of updating TPM firmware?

Post by Zenn7 »

It is an older laptop.

CPU is i5 4300M CPU - 2.6GHz, 2 cores.

I updated BIOS and ran all Windows updates first.

Says BIOS mode is legacy. Given that it doesn't seem to suggest I can update to TPM 2.0, assuming this is an older laptop w/ Win 10 slapped on (it's more than 2 years old - looks like 2014-2015 from a quick google search).

That's what you get for $300 refurb from Best Buy. Running some memtest/intelburn test and stuff that I learned about when I got my desktop in 2017, that's all looking good so far.

Edit - think I will skip the furmark test - uses built in video card, not separate - not sure how much value that test will have then.
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hitbyambulance
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Re: Importance of updating TPM firmware?

Post by hitbyambulance »

Zenn7 wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 1:36 am Says BIOS mode is legacy.
is it actually BIOS and not UEFI?
Zenn7
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Joined: Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:15 pm
Location: Michigan

Re: Importance of updating TPM firmware?

Post by Zenn7 »

Sorry for not responding sooner, wasn't sure. I was downloading stuff last night, didn't want to reboot then. I rebooted now and it had me go into BIOS. Nothing about it says anything about UEFI, but I have never seen that before and not familiar w/ it, so don't know if this is really BIOS or some sort of legacy BIOS (that term came up when I was googling UEFI).

Has a security option and reset BIOS security to factory setting on here. Thinking of trying that, but think I need to research this a bit more to be safe (or at least somewhat remotely confident I'm not about to do screw something up beyond my ability to rectify).
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