TPM not detected message..and secure boot question

[stringfellow]

Hey.

I have a Dell Latitude 5580 laptop and just upgraded it's BIOS. After upgrade completed I now receive this message on every boot:
"Alert! TPM Device not detected."
And it gives me these options:
F1 retry boot
F2 go to BIOS settings

Mercifully hitting F1 loads my Mint 19.3 and everything seems to work fine. I researched this via Google and Dell and tried the fix that works for some where you power off, disconnect from AC, disconnect battery, hold power button 60 seconds to fully discharge, then reconnect battery and turn machine back on. No luck. And looked in BIOS and no settings for TPM which there are supposed to be it sounds like. Some recommend upgrading TPM firmware while others are saying that hosed things further, so I'm shying away from that. Some also saying this message went away when they reformatted hard drive and set up Windows in their case from scratch. But that's a lot of work for something that may or may not fix. Maybe some day when I do wipe/reinstall Mint I'll see if this fixes the issue.

Is this something related to Mint in any way? I assume not?

Is TPM needed in Mint? I looked at other threads and sounds like the answer is no.

And semi-related, this machine used to dual-boot with Windows but now I got rid of Windows and did clean install with just LM 19.3. But when it was a dual-boot machine I disabled Secure Boot in BIOS on recommendation of some that makes dual-boot install go smoother. And just kept it disabled. Since I'm just running LM 19.3 now is it safe these days to enable it? Won't mess anything up? Or perhaps just leave it disabled as not needed?

It's a bummer, but I'm fine with pressing F1 on device boot if the concensus is that TPM is not needed.

Thanks in advance.

inxi output:

Code: Select all

System:    Host: latitude Kernel: 5.4.0-80-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 
           Desktop: Cinnamon 4.4.8 wm: muffin 4.4.4 dm: LightDM 1.26.0 
           Distro: Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude 5580 v: N/A serial: <filter> Chassis: 
           type: 10 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Dell model: N/A serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.19.2 date: 01/25/2021 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 67.2 Wh condition: 67.2/68.0 Wh (99%) volts: 8.3/7.6 
           model: LGC-LGC8.820 DELL DV9NT77 type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-7600U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Kaby Lake 
           rev: 9 L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 23199 
           Speed: 600 MHz min/max: 400/3900 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 601 2: 612 3: 601 4: 633 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:5916 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.6 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
           resolution: 1600x900~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.0.8 
           compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel 
           v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9d71 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-80-generic 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 357.85 GiB used: 222.13 GiB (62.1%) 
           ID-1: /dev/mmcblk0 model: 128GB size: 119.37 GiB serial: <filter> scheme: MBR 
           ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: SanDisk model: X400 M.2 2280 256GB size: 238.47 GiB 
           speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 2012 scheme: GPT 
RAID:      Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 
           port: f060 bus ID: 00:17.0 chip ID: 8086.282a rev: 21 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 233.24 GiB used: 110.52 GiB (47.4%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/dm-0 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 
Repos:     No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb https://mirrors.sonic.net/mint/packages tricia main upstream import backport
           2: deb http://mirrors.sonic.net/ubuntu bionic main restricted universe multiverse
           3: deb http://mirrors.sonic.net/ubuntu bionic-updates main restricted universe multiverse
           4: deb http://mirrors.sonic.net/ubuntu bionic-backports main restricted universe multiverse
           5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ bionic-security main restricted universe multiverse
           6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ bionic partner
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/steam.list 
           1: deb [arch=amd64,i386] https://repo.steampowered.com/steam/ stable steam
           2: deb-src [arch=amd64,i386] https://repo.steampowered.com/steam/ stable steam
Info:      Processes: 298 Uptime: 27m Memory: 31.25 GiB used: 1.48 GiB (4.7%) Init: systemd 
           v: 237 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.5.0 alt: 7 Shell: bash v: 4.4.20 
           running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.0.32

[Moonstone Man]

Is TPM needed in Mint?

No, it's needed by secure boot. Updating the BIOS will have reset your BIOS settings so you need to enter the BIOS and set the system up properly. It's probably wise to disable secure boot, and you should disable fast boot also.

[stringfellow]

Okay thanks Kadaitcha Man. Will leave Secure Boot disabled and just try to ignore TPM message. And will look at BIOS settings. I think it retained my old settings.

Is TPM needed in Mint?

No, it's needed by secure boot. Updating the BIOS will have reset your BIOS settings so you need to enter the BIOS and set the system up properly. It's probably wise to disable secure boot, and you should disable fast boot also.

[mikeflan]

Nice post. I'm going to nominate you for the Best Post of the Week Award. Don't expect too much from that.

From my research:
Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a hardware chip on the system motherboard to provide enhanced security.

And from here:
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-u ... l-computer

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Unlike most other driver and firmware updates, the TPM firmware cannot be updated 
by simply downloading and installing the package. If the TPM is owned (by Windows), 
the firmware will not update. The TPM  ownership needs to be cleared before the 
TPM firmware update can run correctly.
Note: If the TPM is not seen in the BIOS, a hard reset is required to bring it back online.

I see you tried the hard reset.

I think they need a Timeshift for bios

[stringfellow]

Ha. If only. And thanks for the nomination. ; )

In lieu of timeshift I may actually try to downgrade my BIOS to next version down and repeat in hopes that it fixes the TPM message/issue. My thinking is that a BIOS upgrade caused this so maybe reverting to older version will fix. But perhaps too simplistic if the BIOS upgrade changed something related to TPM that an older version would not change back. But worth a shot I figure.

I think they need a Timeshift for bios