No TPM or TPM has problem

I recieved a gateway laptop from a customer that will not boot up.  when I unplug the battery from the motherboard, wait a while, then plug it back in, it boots up and I get the error message:  "No TPM or TPM is problem" . What is TPM and how do I resolve this problem?
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Solution: No TPM or TPM has problem

TPM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module

Bios update may fix or just ignore.