DreadVector

I have run into this in practice with a few workstations that are still perfectly fine in terms of performance but cannot officially move to Windows 11 because of the TPM and CPU requirements. In reality the choice is to leave them on Windows 10 or install 11 through bypass methods, and that is not really about old hardware but more about artificial barriers. From the perspective of power use and speed they are still fine, but security support becomes the deciding factor. The result is a paradox where the hardware is still healthy but the vendor is pushing it toward retirement.

I ran into the same problem on a 24H2 machine and disabling Intel Smart Sound Technology for USB Audio in Device Manager fixed it. No issues since and the mic works normally.