MSI Media Live - DTS - RAM 0 MB - no HDD - DVD

This is a nice Media Center with all the goodies. I bought three of these from a small local computer store that was going out of business really cheap. AMD 5200+ cpu, 3Gigs of A-Data 800 ram 2x1GB and 2x512MB which works really well, a WD 500GB HD and...

The cpu heatsink leaves alot to be desired. In other words it really bad. I used it on the first one I built and I had to remove the crossbar, etc. to get it on and it took me a good 20 minute of fiddling to get it on only to find that at idle the cpu...

This box is indeed capable of outputting 1080p HD through the hdmi port. AMD x2 5000 cpu and 2 gigs RAM. I have it hooked to my Sony Bravia TV and the playback is flawless. I get 1080p output using linuxmce and XBMC.

It does get hot when playing HD. CPU fan is tricky.

It is a nice HTPC. It comes with everything you would need as HD HTPC: HDMI, 8 channel audio, quiet. With some minor tweaks, it is running very smoothly.

It takes lots of time and work to tweak this platform to work well. First of all, you need to dump the heatsink that comes with the machine. My heatsink failed after just 2 months of running (yes, I kept the machine on 24x7) with the 65W AMD Brisbane...

This is a great little box to stuff the innards of your HTPC into. Not having to search around for cables to connect various types of cameras and media is wonderful thanks to the 7-in-1 card reader. As always the aesthetics are wonderful and I always...

Refraining from repeating the main issues (like the stupid heatsink)... the slot loading DVD-RW is nice, but I'd rather see the inclusion or addition for a faster drive.. slim or otherwise. The display unit was less than I expected. Only displays info...

Perfect size to integrate into a home theater system. Looks like it belongs in a home theater rack. Has every hookup that is required. Very versatile.

System overheats when installed in a home theater rack. IR remote has poor reception. CPU heatsink nearly impossible to get properly installed. Ships with a pre-production BIOS. nVidia driver/chipset doesn't detect TV identification correctly. CD/DVD...

Excellent aesthetics ; looks great. About the same size as the ReplayTV 4500 that it will replace. Love the slot-load drive, the VFD screen, the built-in 802.11g and bluetooth 2.0. The heatsink was easy to install ; see below. The optical/coax digital...

Smart fan keeps the system too warm ; disabled the case is over-ventilated. System is quiet in both cases but more quiet with smart fan enabled. BIOS 1.6 does not recognize the X2 4850e cpu ; the BE-2400 is ok. Confirmed with MSI support: HDMI does NOT...

Looks great, has built in DVD drive

The built in graphics chip is really bad with Vista Ultimate. I loaded XP media center 2005 and it works much better. It also get really hot if I put it in a cabnet with the rest of my equipment. I have to put it on outside the cabnet and on top so it...

I fell in love with the form factor and the many connections. I felt like this would be a great set top box to use. It matches my surround receiver.

The unit shipped with a test bios. Their live update utility is broken so don't buy this unless you have a bootable usb device / media. Their support is also really bad. It's a clunky web based form that is buggy like their update software. I don't...

Looks great and has a good range of video and audio output options built right in.

Not thrilled with the built in nVidia 6150LE, it's a weak graphics card for Windows Vista. You can't really install a separate video card (unless I am missing something) because the PCI slot riser blocks access to the PCIe slot.