There has been some slight panic over the compatibility of older graphics cards with Windows Secure Boot in the coming future. Secure Boot has long been a requirement in Riot Games’ Valorant, and now it has been confirmed for Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 in an attempt to crack down on cheaters. We have a guide on how to turn it on, if you’re interested.

This comes from a long-winded Reddit post, which we recommend checking out if you want to delve into the technical aspect of the situation. To put it more simply, Microsoft’s UEFI 2011 certificate, which many GPUs rely on, expires next year, in June 2026. Assuming there is no update to the firmware in this time, the hardware will be unsigned and may fail to pass the requirements for Secure Boot on Windows. Though the post focuses on Nvidia, it could also affect AMD cards.

Secure Boot certificate will expire in June 2026 for older GPUs

Secure Boot is a security feature on Windows that ensures only trusted, digitally-signed software can be run on your PC during the startup process. It’s designed to eliminate malicious rootkits and, likewise, gaming cheating software that runs at a very low level in your system. Just like kernel-level anti-cheats, its requirement is becoming more commonplace in PC gaming.

The post from u/gaseousgalaxy discusses the implications of this loss of support in 2026 (confirmed on Microsoft support), and there’s plenty of discussion about whether this should be a real worry or not, with its fair share of comparisons to the Y2K panic. In any case, the user laid out how the lack of certification may affect your machine; they said it can affect GPUs as recent as their RTX 3080 Ti.

What breaks?

• GOP images signed only by Microsoft UEFI CA 2011
• After expiry, Secure Boot will/can/may block that GOP, so you get a black screen before BIOS
• If your motherboard requires a GPU to POST and you have no iGPU, the machine will not POST, making the dGPU functionally a brick until fixed

Source: Reddit

Essentially, if you want to run Secure Boot on your system and happen to be using an older GPU that is only signed by the Microsoft UEFI CA 2011, you could ‘soft brick’ the PC. Of course, you can always disable Secure Boot if this doesn’t affect any games you play – most games don’t require it – but then you also run the risk of malicious software (though that assumes you are irresponsible on the internet).

u/gaseousgalaxy urges a call to action for GPU partners and Nvidia to update the VBIOS for all affected models. Whether this will end up being a real problem or another Y2K remains to be seen. And, again, this proposed problem likely stretches to all GPUs of a certain age and/or support – not just Nvidia.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.