I love me a good mini PC. Even a semi-bad one will do. I use them for all manner of things, although my favorite use case is as a dedicated sidekick to my main desktop . But, having tested and used a bunch of these little champs over the years, I know full well that the BIOS settings on a new mini PC can be ... sketchy, to put it mildly.
In my experience, the BIOS settings on a new mini PC can be weirdly conservative, or just badly tuned. You might be leaving some serious performance on the table by just ignoring those BIOS settings. Regular desktop BIOS needs tweaks too , but mini PCs err on the side of caution even more.
These are the BIOS settings I always immediately change on a new PC, and I recommend you check them out on yours, too.
Secure Boot, TPM, and virtualization
The quick check that prevents many headaches
Secure Boot, TPM, and virtualization may not sound exciting, or even relevant, for your situation, but they're some of the first ones I recommend checking once you dive into the BIOS/UEFI. On a Windows 11 mini PC, Secure Boot and TPM 2.0 should usually be enabled already, but I never like to assume everything is set up properly just because the PC boots. If either setting is off, you might run into issues with Windows security features, updates, encryption, or even certain apps, so you might as well check these out.
Virtualization is the other one I always look for, especially on a mini PC that might end up doing server-adjacent work later on. If you ever want to run Hyper-V, WSL, Docker, VMs, Android emulators, or some homelab tools, having virtualization disabled in the BIOS can stop you before any of that ever materializes.
iGPU memory allocation
Your mini PC's graphics memory probably isn't real VRAM
Adam Davidson / How-To Geek
If your mini PC is truly mini, it almost certainly doesn't have a discrete GPU, so it also doesn't have dedicated VRAM in the same way a desktop graphics card does. Instead, it has to borrow from your system memory. That's why you might see a setting like UMA frame buffer size, iGPU memory, shared graphics memory, or something along those lines during your journey into the BIOS.
Most of the time, leaving this on auto is fine, but I've seen mini PCs set this weirdly low for no reason, and that can be an issue for graphics-heavy workloads.
With that said, I'm not suggesting you shove your entire RAM toward the iGPU, because the rest of your mini PC will suffer if you do. If you only have 8GB of RAM, taking too much away from the rest of the system can be crippling. But on a more spacious memory config, like 16GB or 32GB, many mini PCs can do well if you bump up the memory allocation a bit.
CPU power limits and performance mode
Conservative power modes can be a problem
Goran Damnjanovic / How-To Geek
Mini PCs live and die by their power limits, and the default setting isn't always the one you want to stick to for the rest of your PC's life. A conservative power mode can keep temps and noise way down, which is fine for a living-room media box or a basic office machine, but anything more than that will need some tweaks. Some power settings can really hold the CPU back, so if your mini PC feels slow, that's one of the first settings I'd check.
Depending on the model, this might show up as a simple performance mode, a balanced/low-power/max performance preset, or more advanced CPU power limit settings. I don't recommend setting everything to the max right away, though. Take it slow and see how your PC performs after each change.
Memory profile and RAM speed
The free performance settings many PCs, big and small, leave off
Bill Loguidice / How-To Geek
Your RAM speed is another setting you should never trust without checking it for yourself. RAM settings are among the most common fake CPU bottlenecks ever, and in mini PCs, chances are that they're not set correctly.
A lot of mini PCs ship with decent memory (both speed and capacity), but that doesn't always mean the BIOS is running it at the best profile available. It might be stuck at default speed, especially if the system uses replaceable SODIMMs, and that can leave free performance sitting there, doing nothing.
Tweaking these RAM profiles is especially important on a mini PC, actually. With both the CPU and the iGPU leaning on that same system memory, you need the RAM to do its very best at all times. But remember: this is technically overclocking, so take it easy and test after each tweak.
Fan curve and cooling profile
The setting that keeps your mini PC in good shape
Andrew Heinzman/How-To Geek
The fan curve is the BIOS setting that can make or break a mini PC. These tiny systems don't have much room to move air, so the default cooling profile has to make a lot of compromises, and those compromises aren't always good. Some mini PCs are too eager and ramp the fan up and down constantly, while others are just as happy to ignore whatever is happening and let the CPU heat up. Both variants are bad.
If your BIOS lets you change the fan curve or pick a different cooling profile, go ahead and play around with it. I usually look for a setting that keeps the fan from spiking every temp change, but also one that's not too gentle, as performance comes first for me.
Default settings are a starting point and nothing more
I won't pretend that tweaking the BIOS is the best thing in the world, but it's a lot less scary than some people make it out to be. The general rule of thumb here is to do only things you're 100% certain about. If you're not sure what a certain setting does, don't tweak it for the sake of it; turn to Google and get your answers first, then get right back to making the most of your mini PC.
