I took a risk with this one, ordered this unit 3 weeks ago and struck it lucky, this is one of the newer models of the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro and it comes with bios 0401. Why is this important? Well if you caught my review of the Mi Notebook Pro the SSD slot was only running at x2 speed on both SSD slots, so it never let the Samsung PM961 256GB NVMe run at full x4 speed. Limiting reads to around 1800MB/s and not the 3000Mb/s plus the SSD can do.
There is a fix here, flashing bios 0300 or 0502 will fix this SSD port speed issue so one of the main SSD slot will run at x4 speed and the other x2 speed PCIe. However, Xiaomi locked out the Power Limit and Voltage control of the CPU in these later bios versions. Maybe to stop anyone cooking the laptop or crashing it? Still, it’s a stupid move if you ask me. However, there are two versions that has the best of both worlds, for now and that is bios version 0401 and 0301. (0301 is rarer and 0401 is common from current stock) Also, 0502 with a locked TDP is now in the hands of a lot of users in China..
Unfortunately, it seems there is no flashable version of this bios (yet), it’s down to luck if you get 0401 or 0301. If you’re not worried about unlocked power limits and don’t plan on increasing them or undervolting then this isn’t an issue as the main thing is to have the SSD slot speed fix. But people like myself, I like to have maximum performance and really push that CPU hard it’s now a lottery as to whether you’ll get this bios or 0502 on the new models. So there you have it I can confirm that bios 0401 does have the SSD fix plus the unlocked Intel XTU advanced tab as seen on my quick video above.
I managed to grab this Mi Notebook Pro for $829 / 670 euros, before the Chinese New year price increase from Xiaomi. The best price I’ve found now for this is sadly a bit more expensive at $849 with this link here. If you’re in Europe the slower free postage methods normally arrive without any taxes. I went with EU priority shipping, it took 15 days but no import taxes to pay.