MSI Wind PC Atom 1.6 MHz CPU Intel 945GC 1 x 200Pin Intel GMA 950 Barebone - Retail (Black)

by MSI

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 2.6 x 9.4 x 11.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001E71IE0
• Item model number: 936-6496-010
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #46 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Desktop Barebones
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

Embedded Intel Atom 1.6GHz Intel GMA 950 chipset DDR2 SODIMM. 6 USB 2.0 ports 7.1 ch HD Audio 1 VGA port 10/100/1000Mb Ethernet. Drive Bays: One 5.25" External and one 3.5" Internal.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for Windows Home Server, November 21, 2008

By 

AK Pilot (Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: MSI Wind PC Atom 1.6 MHz CPU Intel 945GC 1 x 200Pin Intel GMA 950 Barebone - Retail (Black) (Personal Computers)

I bought this to run Windows Home Server and it's been a very good choice for me. The unit is VERY quiet-- it has a single fan in the back of case but it is quiet. It uses little power (under 30 watts under load) so leaving it on 24/7 is not a problem. It runs cool (because the motherboard is really just a low power laptop motherboard) and takes up very little space.

Physically it is about the size of an Xbox 360, with room inside for a SATA 3.5" and a SATA 5.25" drive (the 5.25 can be a exposed via a pop-out panel so it can be a DVD-RW drive). Cables and screws are included for the SATA drives so no cables needed. The built-in Gigabit Ethernet port is perfect for a home server; it also has on-board video and sound. 6 USB 2.0 ports are externally exposed, 2 in front for mouse/keyboard and 4 in the rear (for external USB drives for example). The only thing missing is RAM (it takes a single laptop style 200pin DDR2 533MHz RAM card and you can easily find a 2Gig card for under $25 including shipping), and hard drive(s). In my case I installed a DVD-RW drive in the exposed bay however a USB DVD driver might be a better choice so that you can use that bay for another hard drive, since Windows Home Server has features that make use of multiple drives.

After the Home Server OS is installed you can remove the mouse/keyboard from the USB ports because after that all administration is done remotely and this unit will boot fine without either attached. You can certainly run Windows XP on this unit but in my case I bought it specifically to run Home Server.

Also on the motherboard is a Compact Flash (CF) slot (for OSs like Linux that can run off of a CF card, eliminating the requirement for a hard disk entirely) and a "mini PCI Express" slot (NOT a standard PCI or PCI Express slot!) mainly there to install a wireless network card (remember the motherboard is really just a laptop motherboard in a larger case).

Pros:
- Cool, quiet, very low power requirements, small cabinet
- Includes most everything you need except drives and RAM
- Onboard Gigabit ethernet, video and sound
- Plenty of USB 2.0 ports
- Sufficient drive bays for a typical home server
- Can run XP, Linux or Windows Home Server
- Well made and easy to open the cabinet to get inside

Cons:
- Only 2 drive bays, use them wisely
- No PCI or PCI Express slots so no standard add-on cards possible
- Power-on LED is a very bright blue on the front panel (cover with electrical tape or paint if necessary)

Bottom line: for what this box was intended (small space, low noise and low power requirement) it's a very nice unit. Ideal for running a smaller home server, but probably not your best choice if you plan to install more than 2 hard drives to your server -- although you could add plenty of external USB drives, that would defeat the reason for getting a small low-noise low-power case so you might be better off buying a larger cabinet instead. Very nice choice for Windows Home Server!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great barebone computer, December 29, 2008

By 

Jon Norris (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: MSI Wind PC Atom 1.6 MHz CPU Intel 945GC 1 x 200Pin Intel GMA 950 Barebone - Retail (Black) (Personal Computers)

I got this because I was unhappy with the Asus 20g netbook I purchased.

This beastie came solidly packed in a good, strong box with a handle (which I still use to haul it around). I put in a 160gig SATA drive, 2gig of ram, and a DVD/CD burner, which took about 20 minutes.

I loaded Ubuntu Hardy Heron, which installed on the hard drive very easily, and I'm now in the process of fine-tuning the settings. I haven't had much time to test the system and add all the software updates I would like, but so far it runs very well for basic desktop functions (writing, etc.).

I found the build quality very good, the instructions more than adequate, and the ease of installation of drives very good. (Each bag of hardware for mounting drives is marked for the type of drive. Very nice.)

An extra bonus is that it uses an outboard power supply brick, which means it could very easily be battery powered.

The only problem I had was that Hardy didn't recognize the network port out of the box - but I was using an old copy, and haven't had time to redo the install with that latest version. It is clearly a software issue, not hardware, as the hardware check shows the port working quite happily. I will probably move to Ibex or a dual boot system when I have more time to play.

I am not at all interested in Windows function or performance on this as I am leaving Redmond in the dust and migrating to Linux. Open source is the clear choice for the future of good operating systems and software. This is a great little Linux box for a very reasonable price, and not tied to a proprietary (and kludgy) Linux shell like Asus' machines.

Frankly, I was surprised at the quality. I was expecting much worse, and was extremely happy to see just how good it is. A very solid little machine. MSI has definitely made me a convert from Asus.

UPDATE Jan. 31, 2009

Found the problem, it was a software issue solved by the latest version of Hardy Heron, 8.04.2. Beastie now works great and I have been trying all kinds of wonderful Ubuntu Linux software, including the cool drum machine, Hydrogen. This is definitely an outstanding computer buy. I am starting to make plans for using several of them for different functions.

UPDATE May 27, 2009:

There is now a version of this with a dual core Atom 330 for a few dollars more. I have also purchased one of those and from tests conducted by others, it is roughly 30% faster on most tasks. I would highly recommend looking at that machine as well. These are sweet little machines.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great value; versatile, quiet, & small., December 3, 2008

By 

Nate (Denver, Co United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: MSI Wind PC Atom 1.6 MHz CPU Intel 945GC 1 x 200Pin Intel GMA 950 Barebone - Retail (Black) (Personal Computers)

Pros:

It is what it is, small, quiet, cheap & efficient.. However for a SFF unit it is still hackable, which is very nice. I'm Using it as a net appliance, surf the web/docs... I slapped 2 gigs of Kingston RAM (got it for $28) in and the thing is lightning fast booting from a USB flash disk running Linux. Took about 10 minutes to unbox, set up, place the RAM. Up and running for under $200.

Cons:

~ the CF slot requires you to pull the motherboard.
~ vga only, no dvi.

Other Thoughts: There are so many possible uses for this device. I will get a couple to use as net appliances and media centers.