MSI's new BIOS release is interesting news because most
netbooks are like peas in a pod, based on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom
N270 processor, along with the chipmaker's 945GMS northbridge and ICH7M southbridge. Few of these popular products offer much to differentiate themselves, aside from storage options and just how tiny one's fingers have to be to work their keyboards.
MSI's Wind U100
(Click image for further information) |
When it first announced its
Wind U100 netbook, MSI promised something a little different: A "TurboDrive" function that would allow overlocking the CPU to nearly 2.0GHz via a keyboard shortcut. Unfortunately, the feature didn't work on the initially shipped units. But, it's now enabled via MSI's new BIOS upgrade, version 1.09, according to bloggers who report having tried it.
MSI's official description for the downloadable upgrade says only that it "fixes a keyboard I/O resource issue" -- said by the bloggers to have been an inoperative num lock key -- and allows faster booting by bypassing onboard memory checking. But the upgrade reportedly also allows overclocking the 1.6GHz Atom by eight percent, fifteen percent, or 24 percent when the Wind U 100 is being run on AC power.
The newly overclockable MSI Wind U100
(Click to enlarge)According to blogger Kevin Tofel of the site
jkOnTheRun, the BIOS upgrade also increases the Wind's potential shared graphics memory, from the previous maximum of 64MB up to a more generous 224MB. The overclocking and added graphics memory makes the Wind "the fastest netbook out there without a voided warranty," claims the
Electric Vagabond.com blog.
Further informationTo obtain MSI's new BIOS, version 1.09, for the Wind U100, see the company's website,
here. To read Kevin Tofel's blog entry on the benefits of the new BIOS, see
jkOnTheRun,
here. To see the relevant
Electric Vagabond entry, go
here.
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