Upgrading an HP Z440 Workstation

[NonSequitur777]

@DGroves or @SDH,

All right, since both of you participated in earlier discussions about upgrading TPM 1.2 to TPM 2.0 in select desktops here and here, perhaps either of you can help me with this:

I just tried to upgrade TPM 1.2 to TPM 2.0 on my HP Z440 Workstation, and it appeared to succeed:

However, after several restarts, TPM 1.2 was not updated to TPM 2.0:

In addition, "Windows PC Health Check" suggests that TPM 2.0 is not supported on this PC:

Even though the HP Z440 QuickSpecs claims otherwise:

Btw, must I enable "Virtualization Technology (VT-x)", "Intel VT for Directed I/O (VT-d)", and/or "Intel TXT (LT) Support" in BIOS?

Any thoughts on this?

Thank you in advance,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Esteemed Forum,

The Intel i7-6900K (LGA 2011 socket) arrived and carefully cleaned with 99.9% isopropyl alcohol electronics cleaning grade:

Btw, this CPU has a much larger footprint than, say an LGA 1151 processor such as an i7-9700K.

Installed, using MX-4 Arctic thermal paste, and my HP Z440 Workstation happily booted right up:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Bill_To]

Hi @NonSequitur777 

I am not familiar with the Z440 MB but I would try enabling BIOS Virtualization, it should not hurt anything.

All of my newer TPM 2.0 MBs/CPUs had this enabled by default after updating to the latest BIOS since W11 was released. Prior to W11 I had to enable this in the BIOS to do Virtual Machines.

Regards

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Well now, just realized that my HP Z440 Workstation was 'stuck' at the previous processor's (Xeon E5-1650 v3) 6-Cores and 12-Threads, rather than the 8-Cores and 16-Threads an Intel i7-6900K offers.  This is because I had 'locked in' the number of processors at 12.  To reset this situation, accessed "System Configuration", unchecked the number of processors, hit OK, then apply, and restart.  After that, the correct total number of processor Threads ("processors") showed up.  Selected the largest number, checked the "Number of processors" box, OK, apply, and restarted:

And PassMark also confirmed the substantial 26% performance increase (CPU Mark 10554 to 13302) resulting from upgrading to an i7-6900K:

Link: https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V11/display.php?id=205708919894.

In addition, as discussed, the RAM speed with this high-end Intel 6th gen processor improved from 2133 MHz to 2400 MHz:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Bill_To]

Hi @NonSequitur777 

Any luck with TPM 2.0?

Regards

[NonSequitur777]

@Bill_To,

Nah, but that will not deter me from upgrading to Windows 11 Pro.

I will upgrade to W11 Pro this afternoon, using what looks like a much simplified ("setup.exe /product server") upgrade method: (1043) Newest Way To Upgrade From Windows 10 to 11 on Unsupported Hardware - YouTube. Will see if I have to do the same (Win11 23H2 ISO) for 23H2.

I wonder if @Paul_Tikkanen sees an issue with this method.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @NonSequitur777 

Thanks for sharing the video.

I have seen similar methods before but not that exact one.

The method I use works fine for me and allows me to just plug the Rufus drive into any PC's USB port I want to upgrade to W11.

The Rufus method works on W11 23H2 and has also worked to upgrade from W11 22H2 to W11 23H2.

What I did find out is that even though W11 23H2 was released by Microsoft as a simple feature update, a W11 unsupported hardware PC will not get that update.

I had to wait until the W11 23H2 ISO file was released by Microsoft and make the Rufus installer with it.

So, once a year we will have to continue to go through 'some' procedure to update unsupported PC's to the new release unless something changes (which I doubt).

I don't consider that a big deal. 

Certainly not enough to prevent me from updating to the new W11 version.

Here's the current Microsoft support lifecycle of each W11 release...they appear to be good for two years.

Windows 11 Home and Pro - Microsoft Lifecycle | Microsoft Learn

[Bill_To]

Hi @NonSequitur777 

Just did a clean W11 install on one of my PCs.

I by-passed having to sign in using a Microsoft Account by entering a bogus email account address and a non-existent password.

W11 then gave the option to set up a local account.

Regards

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @Bill_To 

There is a much cleaner way to set up W11 using a local account. 

This is particularly helpful if you have a PC where no Wi-Fi driver was installed by default.

There is no need to use a real or fake Microsoft account.

How to bypass internet connection to install Windows 11 - Pureinfotech

[Bill_To]

Hi @Paul_Tikkanen 

Thanks for that. That is a good one.

I have also seen running Task Manager and stopping a network service, I think it was network flow, at that point in OOBE.

Regards