Pros: I love the all black look. It is at a great price, has enough features and worked upon arrival.

Cons: There is no USB 3.0 header. I had to order an adapter (sent from China) in my order so the shipping is taking a longer time.

Other Thoughts: AMD Athlon 5350
Thermaltake Core V1
Corsair 430 Modular PSU
MSI AM1i
G. Skill 16GB (2x8GB) 1600MHz
AData SSD 120GB

The computer streams YouTube very well at 1080p on a 55" Sharp HDTV. Skyrim runs really well at about 30-36FPS on my 24" monitor at 1080P. Not bad without a dedicated graphics card. It boots into Windows 10 in about 9 seconds.

Pros: Everything seems to work well, with exception of what's noted below. Measured power draw is very good and Athlon 5350 /R3 offers great performance on it. Good layout

Cons: Manual is lacking detail , especially for BIOS settings. Could use more back USB ports.

There is a significant (at least for me) WOL issue that is a show stopper for my application, whereas I acknowledge the for others might not be an issue at all. The issue is this:
WOL works, but waking the PC via WOL magic packet is causing high CPU loading (constant 15%) resulting from Service Interrupts - Deferred Procedure Calls. Waking the PC using USB devices (keyboard & mouse) does not cause this CPU loading, only when waking via WOL. I have tried both Windows 7 and Windows 10 and the same issue is present in both operating systems. I have tried both the drivers that came with the m/b on the DVD, the drivers from MSI website and the latest (Crimson drivers) from AMD for APU and Realtek for NIC - all resulting in no difference with regard to this issue. Because the issue is independent of driver and OS, I believe that there is an issue with BIOS - note previous versions had issues with WOL as well, at least according to the release notes.

No one was able to help on MSI forums, but I did receive the latest beta version (v3.3) from there and after flashing the m/b, the problem still persists. Since I use WOL intensively for my applications, this board isn't cutting it for me.

BTW, no such issues with the Asrock AM1 boards that I have.

Environment: 8 GB HyperX PC1600 ram, AMD Athlon 5350 R3 (Kabini) BIOS: V10.2 12/24/2014 + also tried beta 3.3 received from MSI forum.

Update: MSI tech support, although helpful and responsive, was unable to resolve this issue. Looks like I am out of luck.

Pros: none, doa

Cons: I cant get a display with this board. No display on led monitor. Switched out with ECS motherboard and no display either. Use display for video gaming with xbox. no vga feed. Sent back motherboard to manufacturer. Received used item in big box without shield, cables or owners manual. This one has no video feed also.

Other Thoughts: I am getting an inferiority complex . Am I a pariah

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valuable Customer
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible verify the mothebroard outside of the case to eliminate any possible short or grounding issue.
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Can't get it to post

Cons: I got this for my birthday from a friend for a media server project. When I removed it from the box I noticed a scratch on the bottom, after installing ram and a new AMD 5150 the system would not post/no video. I attempted to RMA the motherboard over a week ago. I was sent an email a few days after notifying me the serial number was incorrect. I clicked on the link to correct it but the page only lets me correct my personal information. Further I compared the serial number to the picture I took of it on my phone and it is exact. I checked again on the motherboard to confirm. I have now tried to edit it two more times with no option. I emailed their support days ago with no response. For me this has ruined my taste for MSI products, I will be buying from other more reliable manufacturers in the future.

Other Thoughts: Given that the support has been awful at best, I recommend a different brand. I'm not sure that I will purchase an MSI product in the future.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Jonathan,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. We do see that you're not a verified owner of the product. Did you purchases through Newegg? What is the motherboard serial number? Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible test system outside of the case to eliminate ground/short issue.
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: - has everything I need (almost)

Cons: - no USB3 for front connection
- no PC speaker connection

Other Thoughts: my build:
- hec Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC (Japanese Steel Metal) ITX ITX200B Mini ITX Media Center / HTPC Case
- MSI AM1I AM1 2 x SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
- AMD Athlon 5350 AD5350JAHMBOX 2.05 GHz Quad-core Desktop Processor
- Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB Single DDR3 1600 MT/s PC3-12800 CL9 1.5V UDIMM 240-Pin Memory (BLS8G3D1609DS1S00)
- WL 6TB 5700RPM 64MB Cache 5700RPM SATA III (6.0Gb/s) 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (Desktop PC, CCTV DVR, NAS) - w/1 Year Warranty

My purpose was HTPC for another several years, low wattage, high HDD capacity for movies, enough power to play and/or serve a couple of Plex transcodings at 1080p
I don't need 4k video at the moment but this MOBO can play that, too, at 30fps (according to specs)

Some tips:
- make sure ALL power is connected to MOBO before calling support :)
- install win7 with bootable UEFI USB, fat32, with UEFI binary copied from existing x64 installation, use USB2 socket at boot !!!
- boot to install windows, hit shift-F10, run diskpart.exe convert HDD to GPT and create 200 GB partition 0 (system)
- install win7 to that partition
- now always boot your win7 from hdd in UEFI mode to "windows boot manager"
Minor tips:
- download all drivers from MSI website (now you have NIC and USB3 :))
- install your proc/heatsink before putting your MOBO in place, so that it won't bend/break

Pros: it is easy to use

Cons: no usb 3.0 header on board

Other Thoughts: I would recommend this product but i wish it had a usb 3.0 header. It has worked great for my kabini build that i did in october 2014 and it is still going strong. I have 8gb of ram installed. I am writing this review on my kabini pc now. It is an overall good product. It is reliable. The only con was that it did not have a usb 3.0 header.

Pros: Well its all good :-) My system was returned from MSI in working order. Not only that they sent me an email in advance showing my system connected and in operation. They even called me - who even does that kind of outstanding customer service anymore - MSI does. I was actually able to talk to the Tech who worked on my machine.:-) Could not be more happy with the purchase and has since been given to my wife as her primary computer.

Now don't expect this computer to play the latest games. However, it does just about everything else just fine - email, web browsing, youTube and facebook stuff. More than fast enough since my internet connection is only 50 megs. Does Google Photo editing, Google drive, Google Docs and everything else just fine. Excellent Cloud computer. Am seriously considering buying another AMD/MSI Processor and Motherboard for a home theatre build as soon as I understand what I need, ha ha. My sincere thank you to Newegg, AMD and MSI, well done gentlemen.

------------------------------------------------------- original posting -----------------------------------------------------

Small board, good layout, easy to connect, with enough ports to meet my needs. In the end it just didn't function correctly

Cons: Latest update 01/22/2016 Received a phone call from MSI today and they told me they were able to get the chipset drivers loaded. They also sent me an email showing the system up and running. Now that is what I call exceptional customer service. For some history or background information I recommend you read the below initial review.

You will find two MSI AMI motherboards under my name - only this one has my review comments and they apply to both boards since both boards had exactly the same problem. I have probably built and modified and/or improved at least 10 computers from newegg over the last 10 years or so but i FAILED at building is one. Or should I say the motherboard failed to function correctly and I have no idea at this point in time if it is my fault or someone else's fault. I worked with Newegg, AMD and MSI technical support teams and we couldn't get either the original board or the replacement board to function correctly. The board works perfectly fine when the VGA port is used. Windows 10 Pro loads and functions just fine. However whenever I tried using the DVI-D port, Windows 10 would crash, the boot sector of the SSD drive was destroyed and Windows 10 needed to be reinstalled. I have Windows 10 installed on my other computers and it runs really well. My gut feeling is that this is an AMD Catalyst Control Driver issue since I could never get the Catalyst Control Drivers loaded when using the DVI-D port to drive my monitor. My monitor would just go dark when about 75% of the drivers were loaded. My version of the MSI AM1 motherboard is Ver. 2 with a current bios installed just 3 days before I received the replacement board from Newegg.

Other Thoughts: So here is why I like to deal with GREAT companies like Newegg, AMD and MSI.
1. Newegg sent me a new AMD processor [as recommended by AMD Tech. Support] and a new motherboard but neither fixed the problem.
2. MSI Tech. Support stayed with me on the phone for over a 1/2 hours while they walked me step by step through the driver installation process. We could not identify the problem over the phone.
3. MSI recommended I sent the entire computer system to them for analysis. I received my RMA authorization yesterday and today my complete computer system was packaged and sent to MSI by FedEx. I paid for the shipping to MSI and they agreed to pay for the return shipping and any costs needed to get my system functioning. Great Customer Service.

The lesson learned here is that when you deal with well established businesses, look for and strive to resolve a problem, companies that provide outstanding customer service MATTER. Even though my system doesn't work at the moment I believe that in the end these companies will work together to make it right. Thank you Newegg, AMD, and MSI.

Pros: Using as a VM machine for pfSense / other low end VM needs. I really do like the footprint, low power usage, very quiet. I have it setup using AMD 5350 @ OC at 2.1GHz. Mushkin DDR3LP 8GiB (@1600 - 9-9-9-24) memory, 120GB SSD, 4 port used IBM NIC card built by Intel for IBM (~$30). Running latest Ubuntu server. I am really tempted to run this headless and use serial port. I putty into the machine from my other machines (mainly laptop) and serve X11 windows back it. Running VM's (using Virtualbox) can be a little herky-jerky for response when using xterm. I have not spent much time looking at it, as I go directly to VM to get smooth performance. Runs Ubuntu w/o any problems. Boots up easy in either UEFI or BIOS. pfSense(BSD) in VM works without a problem. Debian in VM also works fine. MSI Fast boot evens make booting faster. I run the fan at 37.5% @ 40 C as the base line for he fan to be elevated to faster speeds. I could run it at 25% but CPU would run hotter (25C - 30C) with a little load.

Cons: The BIOS has not been updated for a while.
I had to play with memory settings a little bit to get it working.
With it had 1 or 2 more SATA ports - but beggars cannot be choosers.
CPU is a little expensive for price point (not MSI problem).
OC gets you 2.1GHz from 2.05GHz.
I had older spare memory and this machine was not liking multiple sets very much. I got the Mushkin 8GiB DDR3LP memory because of that and it works fine at 1600 (800MHz). The faster speed does not gain you that much unless you are using the shared video memory in game or possibly TV, etc. For game playing this machine is not that great - OK for low end games, but then make sure you get memory that runs at 1600 - that is the only time faster memory is going to gain you much of a result. The difference between 1333 & 1600 for my usage is not very noticeable.

Other Thoughts: Boot/shutdown up speed is excellent. I was not expecting it to run as fast as it does. Figured it would be like a slow windows machine, but does not act like that at all. The noise from the fan is very minimal - even at full load. Hardly can hear it. When compiling code you notice it is not the fastest machine on the block.
If the CPU was cheaper I would buy another one just to mess around with. Great little machine to run Linux/BSD on.

Pros: 1. Low power needs
2. Fast system for e-mail and general surfing (Netflix works well)
3. Easy to assemble and power up

Good inexpensive system when on sale as a combo, best processor in the AMD Athlon 5350 Quad

Cons: Junk heat sink attachment system. Picky about memory, suggest using MSI recommended memory to avoid new assembly boot problems.

I exchanged memory twice to get one system to run, other motherboard must have an error in manufacturing. Will replace when I see this on sale again.

Other Thoughts: I have one of these with a 2650 CPU running MX-15 Linux. It is is speedy low cost build, surfs and video is great on-line with Nexflix, Youtube, and yahoo's Tumblr.

Does well with CD, or DVD video playback, and this system will boot easily to Legacy, or UEFI Linux.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear James,
Thank you for feedback. We suggest you refer to MSI website for the motherboard latest BIOS and list of compatibility hardware's for best result. www.msi.com If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com or contact our support phone number at 626-271-1004 M-F 6am to 6pm pst. and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Wish there was, but I cant tell if the board arrived DOA twice.

Cons: At firsts it looked good, then 3 weeks later, wouldn't power on
troubleshooted, got support, got a replacement.

2 weeks later, DOA!!

Other Thoughts: I guess it was expected to be cheap and a cheap price.

Love MSI, just don't go cheap..

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Francisco,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Based on the symptom you reported, we suggest you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected correctly and firmly (JPWR1 and JPRW2), clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com