Taking a Look Inside

The barebone can be dismantled without a screwdriver. The top panel is held at the corners by two thumbscrews which can be unfastened with bare hands:

After the two screws are undone, you shift the top and face panels forward:

And access the barebone’s insights. There’s nothing on the plastic front panel – the connectors and buttons with LEDs are fastened on the chassis:

We’ve got one 5.25” bay, one 3.5” bay for a hard drive, some interface connectors and vent holes here. The HDD rack can be pulled in and out. A rather sonorous system speaker is located on the front panel of the chassis, too:

This speaker proved to be capable of reproducing the Windows system sounds normally, so you can save on external speakers for an office computer.

A fine exhaust fan from Sunon is located on the left panel (which becomes a bottom panel if you put the system case upright).

The growth of raw materials prices in the world markets must have affected the fastening of this fan: it is secured by two screws instead of four. This is MSI’s contribution to the world’s resources preservation cause. I think tons of metal could be saved this way if other manufacturers follow the suit. So, if you don’t like to have a fan in your system case fastened by two screws only, you can purchase the missing two separately, but do not criticize MSI’s attempts to save our planet!