Software Installation

There is nothing interesting here, in fact. The MEGA comes with two CDs. One of them contains CyberLink PowerDVD, which is of course a useful program, but rather widespread. The second disk contains drivers, a couple of utilities and a user’s manual. The manual is a thorough description of the MEGA, including the assembly process and the hints to using it as a music box.

The drivers are installed like that: throw in the CD, it autoruns, and the Setup program checks the hardware and offers to install all necessary drivers.

If the drivers have already been installed, the menu items appear in dark-gray rather than white.

Just like it was in case of VIA’s Epia system (see our Epic Platform: VIA EPIA M10000 Review), I don’t quite understand why the manufacturer doesn’t include an «Install All» menu item.

The utilities coming on the CD are MSI MEGA Radio (as you may have guessed, it works with the integrated radio-tuner) and MSI Live Update 2. That’s all about the software.

Part IV, User-Concerned

Now, that we’ve learned the theory about the internal structure of the MEGA and its components, it is time to see it in action. Plug it into the power supply, and its «music box» part wakes up. Well, on the first run, you will be asked to set up the clock. It is of no practical use, however, as the MEGA cannot record anything. You may even skip it - when the computer part is loaded, the clock is set to the BIOS time automatically. So, having done with the clock, press the «Hi-Fi» button to turn on the MEGA’s musical part.

First Avatar: Music Box

This incarnation of the MEGA cannot surprise anybody (if you don’t remember that it is actually a computer in the first hand). It is all standard: radio and CDs. You can listen to ordinary CD-DA disks and play MP3 files.

The radio is implemented in the most user-friendly way. You can seek for radio stations manually (that is, by setting the frequency in numbers with a precision of up to 0.01MHz) or automatically. Six stations can be «remembered» as presets. I don’t know where they picked this number from, though. Why not five or seven? On second thought, it’s better than three. :)