MSI Wind Nettop 100 Desktop PC (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Dual Core N330 Processor, Barebone) Black

by MSI

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 2.6 x 9.4 x 11.8 inches ; 8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001R1X0I0
• Item model number: Wind Nettop 100
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #34 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Computer Components > Desktop Barebones
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 1, 2009

Product Description

Intel atom330 (dual core) 1.6g intel gma950, 7 x usb 2.0 ports drive bays: 1 x 3.5 & 1 x 5.25 wifi antenna 4-in-1 card reader & silver foot stand

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barebone Review: Atom dual core performace is excellent and = low watts, GPU is crappy, March 25, 2009

By 

L. ROSA "Sigma" (Quisqueya, Caribbean) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: MSI Wind Nettop 100 Desktop PC (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Dual Core N330 Processor, Barebone) Black (Personal Computers)

>>>> UPDATE! sun 27 dec 2009 <<<<
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For more performance with Youtube videos, and heavy flash sites, install greasemonkey for firefox, and then, install a script that force low quality in flash movies and animations for all web sites that you visit, this will reduce your processor use.
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>>>> UPDATE! mon 20 july 2009 <<<<
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I make a puzzle with tcpmp win32 (or you can buy coreplayer for windows), and now with it you can play even 1080p
videos and others high bitrated videos with the intel GMA !
You can play HD content with it totally smoothly ! for eee pc as well
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This is the best low consuption computer. >>>> UPDATE! sun 27 dec 2009 <<<< NOW WE HAVE NVIDIA ION...

COOL
> There is no hard drive, memory, or disc drive. So you can choose what you want and save money, and choose low power hard disk
> Only 30 W of power are required :-) Earth will thank you
> Atoms dual core performance is great, don't worry about it if you are planning using it like a server 24/7

BAD
> There is no wifi card
> Intel GMA video chip is slowly and crappy. Here is my recomendation:

You will realize, that you actually can't play high definition videos with the wife of the Atom processor, the Intel Graphics Media "Accelerator" (GMA). Frame skipping and audio cuts, will be totally a mess.

Can be frustrating, but there is a solution:

> Deactivate deblocking filter on all the codecs that support it (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC)

How ?

Install klite codec pack, and at the end of the setup, choose deactivate deblocking.

If you use build-in codecs player programs such GOMPlayer, there are options for quit deblocking filters.

This way you can play even 720p hardly encoded videos, you will see some blocks here and there, but no frame skipping or audio cuts.

Alternately, if you need more performance, you can choose 16bit of color depth.

FEATURES:

There is a:
1) cdrom/dvd bay, 2) mini pcie port, 3) wifi antenna -and rear socket for it- 4) rear jacks for 7.1 speakers system -and line-in/out and mic- 5) one frontal speakers jack 6) one frontal microfone jack 7) two frontal usb ports 8) four rear usb ports 9) one rear ethernet jack 10) one rear VGA port 11) one frontal SD/MMC card slot 11) two SATA internal ports -sata only- 12) CF internal port -compact flash port- 13) one DDR2 200-Pin SODIMM Laptop Memory RAM slot 14) 3.5 hard disk bay 15) one power button 16) one power supply 17) one disc with drivers/controllers 18) one vertical stand adapter 19) one multilanguage user manual

There is no:
1) reset button 2) wifi card 3) DVI port 4) IDE ports -sata only- 5) hard disk -must get it- 6) compact flash drive 7) dvd/cd drive 8) ram memory -must get it-

Enjoy your hardware.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gets the job done, low powered, June 20, 2009

By 

CJC - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: MSI Wind Nettop 100 Desktop PC (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Dual Core N330 Processor, Barebone) Black (Personal Computers)

I needed something that could run 24/7 as a file server that could be occasionally used as a Desktop. While I would not recommend this as an everyday desktop, it gets the job done.

Pros:
Size
Solid Build - High quality contruction, feels like a mini business class desktop.
Low Power Usage
Took only 10 minutes to install ram, hard drive and dvd burner.
External power supply reduces heat (laptop type ac adapter).
For much less than $300 I was able to build a 1tb file server that will outperform just about any NAS in that price range.

Cons:
No WDDM 1.1 support for the 945 chipset. This cripples Aero performance when using Windows 7. No linux drivers for this chipset, forcing VESA drivers.

Loud - The single fan is louder than I expected. I'm looking into replacing the fan.

You can not run 2 hard drives at the same time due to power limitations. Not an issue for most people, but worth a mention if somebody is planning on using the ODD sata port for a 2nd hard drive...
___________________


Other thoughts:
After reading rave reviews of Windows 7's performance on netbooks I thought this would be a no brainer. I did not take into consideration the low netbook resolution which is much easier on the graphic chip than my 19" monitor is. Disabling some visual effects like transparent windows and animations helps, but Windows XP may be a better option for everday use.

Edit: After trying everything from Ubuntu to Windows 7, I've found that Windows XP runs better than anything else on this. Everything works the way you would expect it to in XP, while everything else either suffered from less than full hardware support or inconsistent performance. (end edit)

Built in CF slot is perfect for a permanent ready boost solution.

Performance is exactly what I expected. A quieter fan and a chipset that supports WDDM 1.1 would have earned it a 5th star. No regrets here...

___________________


Notes on Amazon:
My first order was dead on arrival. Amazon got a replacement to me less than 17 hours after I submitted the return request. They paid for the return shipping and overnight shipping for the replacement. I can't say enough good things about Amazon.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a good thing made better - UPDATE April 2010, April 20, 2009

By 

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

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: MSI Wind Nettop 100 Desktop PC (1.6 GHz Intel Atom Dual Core N330 Processor, Barebone) Black (Personal Computers)

I purchased one of the single core models like this for personal use, and was so impressed, I got one of these dual core models to use in my "day job." I wanted to experiment to see how well these beasties stood up against the other full sized PCs we use. I started out using Ubuntu Linux, but plan to try XP on it as well.

This barebone computer is NOT complete; minus RAM, a hard drive or Compact Flash card, an optical drive, monitor, keyboard and mouse, and operating system. Adding all those items can easily cost more than the basic machine, depending on how much you have sitting around. Since I had plenty of monitors, keyboards, and mice, I only needed to add RAM, hard drive, and optical drive to be ready to install Unbuntu. (I actually had a spare new SATA hard drive as well.)

Installing the parts was about a 20-30 minute task. The case and motherboard are quite well made and solid. I haven't installed a Compact Flash card on the motherboard, but that would require removing the motherboard due to the case size and positioning of the connector. Installing, updating, and running Ubuntu on it is a breeze. The wired network connection works quite well. I rarely use wireless, so haven't tried that.

While some people like to complain about fan noise, I come from an era where computers were a lot more noisy than they are today, and that doesn't make much difference to me. I don't find the fan to be a problem.

Benchmark tests I have seen rate the overall average performance gains from the dual core model at about 30% over the single core Atom. I can say that I noticed a very clear difference in how the Flightgear flight simulator worked on the different models. The dual core performance gain with that software was very apparent.

This is NOT a game machine or a 3D rendering machine, so don't compare it to those. It is a small, low power, basic computer that works well for most desktop uses, as well as many media uses. I have run photo slide shows while also playing WAV files (not smaller mp3s) with no problems at all on the single core machine. This beastie and a 17 inch (or larger) monitor would make a great digital picture frame.

This is the only computer I have seen using the dual core Atom chip, and I am surprised that more aren't using it. It would probably create some heat issues for tiny netbook-style cases, so this might just be the ideal format for it.

This is a sweet little computer, and you can hardly go wrong getting it for most daily uses. It is one of the most cost effective computer solutions available. I am currently using it in a small TV control room for monitoring online video conferencing recording, and it does just fine with that.

I have not tried playing DVDs or HD video files on these machines, since a DVD player is far less expensive. At some point in the near future, I will try a DVD in the dual core machine and update this review.


UPDATE: April 2010

Finally got one of these dual core versions for home. Running Ubuntu 9.10 on it and very happy with performance. I've heard of people running Windows XP as a virtual machine with Ubuntu as the basic OS, and I intend to try that, rather than do just an XP machine with this. I will be upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 shortly, and will try the virtual XP box with that. (And before you ask, I am running XP because of ONE Windows-based program for which I cannot find a Linux substitute. I am also going to try it with Wine.)

While visibly faster than the single core version, these are still not multimedia machines, and do not fill a 19 inch widescreen monitor with smooth video. They can do smaller windows on the desktop pretty well, and I watch all manner of video from the web (YouTube and such) without any trouble (unless it is a strange format video file).

I am looking forward to the Atom 510 dual core version with an upgraded video chipset (the DE500 and 550, I think), minus the Windows 7 OS. While the performance boost from the 510 over the 330 is not huge, I will be interested in seeing it. I have also been looking at different vendors' machines with the Atom 330 dual core and NVidia Ion chipset. This level of machine is more than adequate for most tasks, and is so affordable that one can have more computers available (back-up, special tasks, etc).

These are very nice little machines, and you cannot go wrong putting together an Ubuntu machine with one of these. They do the basic computing tasks very nicely. These make sweet little machines for someone who just wants the basics, and with Ubuntu they are fairly safe and easy to use for tasks like digital photo management, word processing, etc.

MSI did really good with these, and I hope they continue to follow this line.

UPDATE April 30, 2010

Just upgraded this to Unbuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. It runs both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions, and the performance is crisp. I am looking forward to putting it through its paces.


UPDATE JAN 2011:

There are now new models, no longer called the Wind, but 6676 and such, which have newer processors like the Atom 510 and Ion graphics - still great machines!

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