27 Posts
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3349
April 21st, 2022 12:00
XPS 8940,DMA security, un-allowed DMA capable bus/devices detected
Can anyone point me to a document like this one, but with the appropriate registry values for an XPS 8940?
I have an XPS 8940 that I am trying to get Windows System Guard / Secure Launch working on. I think I've got everything configured for it, but it's not kicking in. I suspect at this point that it may be because System Guard requires the system comply with the Windows DMA Protection spec, but system info shows under Device Encryption Support that one or more un-allowed DMA capable bus/devices are present.
Checking the registry key under 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DmaSecurity\AllowedBuses', I found that there are no devices whitelisted. This is still running the factory Win11 image, so I guess Dell didn't configure DMA protection for some reason?
I found a support document dated last year with the appropriate registry values for some Optiplex models, but can't find anything similar for my system. Anyone know which devices need to be whitelisted on an XPS 8940 to meet the DMA protection requirements?


NeighborGeek
27 Posts
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June 9th, 2022 10:00
There's a script on XDA Forums that will look for any PCI based devices and add them to the DMASecurity registry key allowedbusses value. Then you can go through and remove each entry one by one from that value to identify which devices actually need to be listed. It's still a time consuming process, but better than guessing at every possible device.
For my XPS 8940, I ended up with 4 devices that had to be listed in the AllowedBusses value. Below is the content of the registry file to add those 4 devices. Maybe this will be useful to someone else. (If nothing else, it will probably come up in search results a year or two from now when I've reset my computer and am struggling to find these settings again. )
NeighborGeek
27 Posts
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June 2nd, 2022 10:00
Bump. Anyone?
ispalten
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June 2nd, 2022 14:00
Can you identify the culprit that is blocking you?
My Registry on my 8940 has got Allowed Buses, just not where you are looking but under the DEFAULT @ Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DmaSecurity\Default\AllowedBuses
I have the MS Factory image installed, not the W10 that came with my XPS8940 SE, nor the W11 upgrade. I had to wipe the drive clean and use MS's Media Creation tool to install as my OS got corrupted and I couldn't use the OS Recovery method.
NeighborGeek
27 Posts
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June 6th, 2022 11:00
I just realized I didn't link that support document for Optiplex models that I mentioned in the OP. The link is below, I'm looking for something similar for my XPS.
System Does Not Meet BitLocker Automatic Device Encryption Requirements | Dell US
NeighborGeek
27 Posts
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June 6th, 2022 11:00
Everything I've found on this seems to indicate that the only way to identify which specific device is the problem is to go through them all one at a time until you find the right one. I have looked at the Default list you pointed to, but I'm not sure if that is a list of devices that are included/allowed by default, or something else altogether. There are components from several different generations of intel products listed though, and none of them are from the Rocket Lake family, so it's clearly not a list of anything specific to my computer.