MSI Wind PC Intel 945GC Black Barebone - Retail

small case/form factor, low power consumption, ability to boot from internal CF card, external powersupply, possible use in projects

not very powerful, no pci-e slots (has a min pci-e however), case is limited to a 5.25 bay and a 3.5 bay (internal)

This thing is perfect as a Linux headless server. I have Ubuntu server upgraded to 10.4 on this with two 2TB drives in software raid 1. I use this for samba, ssh, ampache music streaming, sftp and other things. It runs basically 24/7. The Ampache...

Doesn't cook eggs and bacon

Small form factor, low power consumption. But read my cons

I was given 3 of these over the course of a month from Newegg. The first one had a dead VGA port. The second one had a broken RAM slot. And the third had another dead VGA port. I looked online to see if I was doing something wrong, but I definitely...

compact, not much clutter on desk use in spare bedroom for when company stays over. Come's with MB cpu installed just added some spare parts I had taken out of a defective laptop (Memory HD)and bought a $20 dvd drive from newegg

none

Excellent choice for NAS, primarily for back up. Have had it running for several months now (using FreeNAS on CF card) and 2 WD 1TB drives in non-RAID configuration. Size is perfect, quiet, just sits in the corner and works

Like others say, getting the CF card in was a pain, but I shouldn't have to get to it often, so I'm ok with that

I have two of these and two more on the way. Have one running FreeNAS on a CF card with two 1TB drives in RAID. The second is running ClearOS for a web server. Both have 1GB RAM. They are both quite snappy for what I am using them for

Getting to the CF card is awkward. I've cut slots in the sides for access without splitting the case

Great little box for the price. I boot off a CF card and run Freenas on it. It uses little power as well. Certainly great for a single drive NASappliance

have to take out the motherboard to put the CF card in

Using this as a barebones file/print server. Installed WHS on a 500GB WD green drive and BAM, haven't turned it off it since then. The current uptime = the servers lifetime (55 days). It is normally very quiet, except when doing anything CPU intensive...

I can't think of a use for this besides a file server. The atom is notoriously weak (albeit power-sipping), and this is one of its limited uses ; I didn't expect to have to take the entire thing apart to install the HDD, but oh well, it wasn't difficult

For a linux/windows box, its great for an Atom based barebones kit. Filled mine with random parts from other projects, and was quite happy with the result. Very quiet, easy to get up and running

Cannot get PXE booting to work at all. Have tried multiple switches of different speeds, crossover cables, BIOS flashing, everything I can think of, and nothing works

Decent price ; Small form factor ; CF slot on the motherboard ; SD/MMC card reader ; Tons of USB ports ; Low power draw ; External power supply (less internal heat) ; Quiet ; Gig ethernet ; Ubuntu 9.1 server installed flawlessly on this little gem....

No expansion slots (thus the small form factor) ; CF slot only can be accessed by taking out the mobo. (we all know this, not a big deal if you gave some tech knowledge) ; Power supply plug seats loosely. (not a huge deal for me since its a headless...