The PC is an extremely complex piece of engineering, which relies not only on hardware, but on a close and integrated relationship between it and software. So much so that sometimes a simple system update can kill a hardware function or cause it to fail. This is what happened to MSI motherboards under Windows 11, which lost the ability to manipulate CPU clock speed. That is, the so-called overclocking.
The maximum clock speed achieved by a CPU, GPU, or any other chip, including memory chips, is voltage. When we raise it or lower it, what we can achieve is reduce the power consumed at certain speeds, but what is clear is that if we lower it more and more, the limit of speed that we can reach is lower. It is the motherboard that gives the voltage to the processor and the figure is marked by its firmware. Well, it looks like MSI with Windows 11 took the easy way out: adjust the voltage.
Problems in Windows 11 with MSI cards for Intel
One of the latest Windows 11 updates left MSI motherboard users for Intel without the ability to perform CPU overclocking and voltage manipulation exercises through utilities like XTU. And more precisely, we don’t know which of them, but if the cause in terms of software and has to do with the security system via virtualization in Windows 11. Other manufacturers haven’t had this issue with the latest Microsoft OS update, so it’s really a MSI exclusive issue.
The affected motherboards are those with the 400, 500 and 600 series chipsets, so those of 10th to 13th Gen Intel Core processors are affected. Apparently MSI would already have the patch for the new models which would be the 600 series and no news of the solution on older motherboards. So if you have a Z490 or Z590 card for your Intel processor and you have overclocked your processor or plan to do so, you should know that under Windows 11 MSI cards do not allow it.
The problem only occurs if you are using Windows 11 and not Windows 10. The only solution at the moment seems to be disable kernel isolation in BIOS settings. By doing so, we are disabling the ability for Windows 11 to enable security virtualization causing the issue on MSI cards. After that, we can adjust CPU voltage by software. In any case, we shouldn’t have to do it this way and this problem should already be solved. Not only for 600 series motherboards, but also for all other generations affected by this problem.
