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MSI Media Live AM2 Barebone - Silver With Slot-In DVD-RW Drive Card Reader LED Display HDMI output Integrated WiFi Bluetooth
- £233.12ex vat
- £268.09inc vat
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- manufacturer #: MS-6421-020
- quickfind code: 128368
- 0 in stock
41 reviews
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Product Reviews
Current Owner
os:
Windows XPBought this on Friday, paid the £15 for the Saturday delivery and watoosh, 8am it was here and i was (although hungover) ready to get building.
I took the bits out of my old system, it was only 6 months old, but i was sick of it and wanted something smaller and quieter. So it consisted of the following:
AMD x64 3800+ Dual Core Processor
2 x 1GB DDRII RAM Modules
2 x 250GB HDD (1x SATA, 1x PATA)
And that was all i needed to install, i did, however, have some trouble with my PATA HDD, as the supplied power unit has no PATA power leads, although had a spare IDE connector on the motherboard. I pondered this for about an hour and had a bacon butty, before coming up with a bit of "DIY home fixing."
I rummaged through my old parts, i knew i had an old, broken power supply in there, my plan was to cut the ATA power off the old PSU, cut the new PSU before the second SATA power plug and joint the old cable to the new system, using a simple block connector (B&Q and the alike). However, i couldn't find the old PSU, so i used my last PSU (still working, 750W with 8 ATA power plugs on it, i reckoned i could spare one). I picked one that had ATA, SATA and floppy power to it, just incase i needed any later on in my Media Center's life. A cut (or four) late and i stripped the wires half an inch from each end on the supplies, jointing and screwed it up nice and tight. Gave it another go, voila, a nice working ATA HDD on the system.
Hope this helps some of you who may require ATA power to HDDs. :)
Bryan
Superb
os:
Not ApplicableMine came this morning (I only ordered it at 18:30 last night) :)
To answer some of the questions raised:
Yes it does have both Bluetooth & Wifi built in (And both work superbly well, especially as the Wifi doesn't seem to have an external Antenna)
This comes with NO operating system, you have to supply that yourself. I put Vista on mine without a hitch.
It makes less noise than my Sky+ box, in fact the noisiest bit about it is the DVD drive when it's reading a Data CD (Even that is quite though).
A very impressive piece of kit, that looks good under my new TV.
If you do want to put Vista on it, drivers for all of the devices are available on the MSI site.
Windows MCE Remote
Hi
Just finished putting the pieces of this barebone system together... Need to get some DDR2 RAM, but all ready to kick off... just wondering if anyone could recommend a TV Card... and also if the remote that comes with the barebone package needs any receiver or anything to make it work?
Plus, I am building this system in the hopes that it will work well through the SCART-OUT plug on the back, playing through a normal TV.. Has anyone tried this yet?
Oh yeah, if anyone has problems with the heatsink... there's a knack... but be careful not to bend the components on the motherboard! I found it easier to take out the PSU to do it..
Thanks!
Great little MC
os:
Windows VistaOrdered yesterday, delivered today. Ebuyer excellent service as usual.
This is now shipping with Vista 32bit driver cd (no more downloads), but was disappointed to receive a US two pin plug and not a UK 3 pin one.
Just want to change the VFD so it displays the date as we know it and not in US format.
Off to trawl the internet.
If you're thinking of a media centre, then buy this, it is the easiest PC I have ever built.
First thing to do is to install the CPU and cooler, and as a previous poster said, remove the PSU and its a hell of a lot easier to get on.
Happy building
No DVD sound via HDMI cable
os:
Windows VistaBuilt this and its absolutely excellent, but when I play a DVD I get no sound through my tv. I have connected the media centre via a HDMI cable, and get sound from cds, videos on the web etc etc etc but just not when I play dvds.
Can anyone offer me any advice???
Great product
os:
Windows XPVery fast delivery (next day) for this unit. Also got the Corsair PC6400 memory suggested in the reviews and a AMD 65nm 5000 CPU. Agree with other comments that CPU heatsink is very difficult to fit, however it is doable. Internal cabling is very neat. Worth mentioning that this unit has onboard RAID capability via Nforce 430/6150LE chipset. Works very well with my Maxtor SATA 300GB drives in RAID 1. It's very quiet in operation, but does get hot. BIOS Upgrade (MSI website) / Driver (Nvidia Website) upgrades necessary . The DVD drive supplied with mine was a Pioneer K06 with v1.06 firmware - about 4x on rip speed for DVD. Vista Ultimate x32 runs very well.
Do get the Keysonic keyboard, and remember to switch off the Numlock setting in the BIOS.
Vista gives machine over 3.0 on performance (due to poor 3D scores) however its over 5 on every other index. Overall its very quick.
HDMI Full length (15m)
Hi! I have a question i already asked MSI and some resellers with no good answer.
Is it possible to use a full length HDMI cable? (15m)
Maybe any of you that already bought this machine can test it?
Does it also work with FullHD with that length?
Thanks Andreas
andreas.selguson@se.cisv.org
DVD HDMI Issue
The no sound from DVD when using the HDMI cable has now been fixed with the latest bios release.
As for the 1080 HD playback, I have 2gig of ram and an X2 4200 CPU and can confirm that 1080 mkv files don't play well at all. They might with a better CPU though.
Quality unit, great service!
os:
Windows VistaThis is a great little machine, and delivery was spot on. Went for the free 5 day delivery and arrived 2 days later!
I agree with other reviews about the difficult fitting of the fan. You just need to move the PSU slightly and also remove the riser card for the PCI slot to get a clear view of the catches that hold the fan in place.
Another thing worth noting is that the motherboard in this machine has a PCI Express slot! I haven't tried installing a riser card for it yet so not sure if a card will fit as snug as the PCI, but looks like its do-able.
Put in 2Gb memory in (1.8v) and a 500Gb HDD and AM2 5600+ chip and all is running fine.
Will keep you posted about my PCI-E card fitting.
Excellent kit - tricky heatsink
os:
Windows VistaFantastic bit of kit! Very straight forward to set up.
Only thing I would say about it was that heatsink was really difficult to fit. Took me over an hour of trying. The knack is to remove the PSU and the middle bar (there's a screw under the front panel - so be careful not to pull or bend it). Once the PSU was out I had a clear view and more hand space. The problem with the heatsink is that one of the cooler pipes makes contact with one corner of the socket. Be careful not to put too much pressure on the top of the heatsink as the heat distribution grill can very easily be dented.
Apart from that - top piece of kit.
