MSI Wind Gets a 30 Percent Speed Boost

By Steve Seguin, published on October 24, 2008 at 9:50 PM
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: , , , | Themes: Business Notebooks
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An official BIOS update for the MSI Wind enables a 30 percent increase in performance.

On Wednesday, MSI officially released the 1.09 BIOS update for the MSI Wind, which brings a significant boost in speed. With a press of a button, the MSI Wind can now be overclocked by 8 percent, 15 percent or 24 percent, for up to a 30 percent boost in performance.

While the previously available Beta 1.08 BIOS update introduced the push-button overclocking ability, the new official update further improves performance and also includes a few fixes. Compared to the Beta 1.08 update, the 1.09 update improves performance by roughly an additional 5 percent and users updating from an earlier version should see an even more dramatic result.

Considering that netbooks, such as the MSI Wind, are not exactly known for levels of high-end performance, there are times when having even a bit more performance can make a big difference. It is positive to see that MSI has taken the stance of supporting automatic overclocking and that it continues to enhance its products in these ways.

There are some downsides to the new BIOS update however, as it seems it may cause increased fan noise when even at stock speeds. Also, even though the 24 percent overclocking ability is present, not all users may find their MSI Wind being stable at that setting. Of course, battery life will also probably take a hit when overclocking is enabled, so that extra performance will come at some cost.

The 1.09 BIOS update can be found here. Generally, there is always a risk with flashing a BIOS and the same goes for overclocking, which is something to be aware of. The source of this information is from ElectricVagabond.com, which also contains a guide on the flashing process.

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Comments

falchard 10/25/2008 2:51 AM
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falchard

Overclocking a cheap netbook. Genious!!!

kelfen 10/25/2008 5:01 AM
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kelfen

^1+

liemfukliang 10/25/2008 5:54 AM
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liemfukliang

Let see the same spek from other vendor. Which one is faster?

Pei-chen 10/25/2008 7:14 AM
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Pei-chen

Intel Atom CPU.

blippo311 10/25/2008 1:29 AM
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blippo311

When will the Aspire One be able to overclock? Maybe some one will write a program for all of the Atoms, so we can overclock on the fly.

aajgb 10/26/2008 12:37 PM
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aajgb

Would that allow MSI wind to be able to run autocad? Thanks

tipoo 10/26/2008 8:20 AM
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tipoo

aajgb :
Would that allow MSI wind to be able to run autocad? Thanks



it can run it, but slowly.

Anonymous 10/27/2008 3:29 AM
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Intel atom can barely run vista, imagine autocad on xp you could do some basic draw maybe.

Anonymous 10/27/2008 4:08 AM
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Thanks for the link. Battery life will not take a hit as it states in the guide the overclock is only available on AC Power. However, SpeedStep still works in OC'd mode (CPU runs at half speed when idle).

Electric Vagabond.

Anonymous 10/27/2008 10:18 AM
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the title is misleading, for once i actually thought msi has upgraded it's cpu

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