a POWERFUL Mini PC for your homelab? Minisforum MS-A1

[@apalrdsadventures]

Update on Minisforum dead NIC communication: - Sun 9/15 - Emailed my PR contact about the dead NIC and mentioned possible damage due to the unsecured heat sink - Tues 9/17 - PR contact responds, said "Will send your question to the tech when I get back to the office tomorrow. When the technician replies. I will contact you first." - Fri 9/20 - Video published. No response from the technician at this point.

[@jbauson1]

😢

[@SeanSR]

any update?

[@kiloton5764]

@@SeanSR Guess he doesnt have anything good to say hahaa

[@hainesk967]

So, I just built one of these by getting the barebones version. It’s a lot easier to take apart if you read the manual online. You can just remove the 2 long screws to take the case apart. Once the screws are out, you just slide the whole system out of the case without removing the bottom panel. My system came with screws in separate bags, and a clip to help slide the system out of the case. Also, I ended up using a 7900x as the cpu for 12 cores at 75 watts which worked out really well for a proxmox setup. I would’ve gotten a 7900 instead, but the 7900x was cheaper. The one thing that really drew me to this system is the upgradeability. I can in the future upgrade to Zen 5 or Zen 6 assuming they are still using the AM5 socket. That combined with 96gb ram capacity and occulink for possibly adding a gpu for AI inference or running a remote gaming server is great capability for the size, price and power efficiency. The lack of 10gb was the only real downside compared to the MS-01.

[@apalrdsadventures]

It looked like that should be possible, but I have tried everything to separate my unit without unscrewing the back cover and it will not come apart. I also bent the clip trying to use it to pull the system out of the case. Maybe my unit is damaged.

[@hainesk967]

@@apalrdsadventuresyes, it was a bit tight and the clip was not a great way to do it since it is pulling on the plastic front cover. I started just turning it sideways and shaking it until the unit released from the clips on the back cover where it is secured.

[@0xKruzr]

tbh the I/O in general is a big downside with this system. the Oculink dock doesn't have sufficient lanes to be a big plus graphics-wise. I just don't know who this machine is *for*. it's not really a compute workstation bc of the GPU issue. it's definitely not a homelab box. it's just weird.

[@Will-sc3hw]

Same here i got the barebones with a 7900x and a 96GB ram. I have mine running at 110w sustained with some cooling upgrades

[@nikolajdalsgaard9291]

​@@Will-sc3hwcool. Can you tell more about how you made a cooling upgrade?

[@benjaminwestlake3502]

For the M.2 screws and heatsink, there are two through-hole hex screws to hold down the M.2 drives, you have to unscrew them, install the M.2 drive then secure with the hex through-hole screw. The heatsink then can be secured down into the through-hole hex screw.

[@dab42bridges80]

This is the first real, critical review of this PC I've seen so far. Thank you for all the valid information - enough to convince me to look at other solutions.

[@jocerv43]

Have you come up with another alternative? I like the desktop socket idea but this design is just so poorly made.

[@ewenchan1239]

They hit the ball out of the park with the MS-01 (with the PCIe slot, dual 10 GbE, and dual 2.5 GbE NICs). With this one -- I have NO idea how drunk they were, when they were planning for this product. If they had taken everything from the MS-01 and just changed the CPU socket, this would've been another home run.

[@BestSpatula]

Can confirm. I bought an MS-01 to use as a homelab server. Will be buying another to replace my workstation.

[@ewenchan1239]

@@BestSpatula Hopefully, the issues with the 13th gen Intel CPUs will be resolved shortly, otherwise, picking up a unit with the 12th gen CPU might be a potential alternative. I've thought about it, but the higher power consumption of the Intel CPU (vs. the AMD Ryzen processors) makes it a tougher sell for me, personally. There are a lot of pros, but that is also a huge con for me as well.

[@qbtc]

@@ewenchan1239 Intel says that only socketed desktop 13th and 14th Gen CPUs are affected. Intel claims that 13th - 14th Gen HX/H/P/U mobile CPUs are not affected.

[@ewenchan1239]

@@qbtc Do you believe them though? (Or asking the same question in a slightly different way -- does Intel have ANY motivation to lie to you?)

[@qbtc]

@@ewenchan1239 I don't think this is like politics where an orange guy can say anything out of his behind. Intel can't afford to lie in the court of popular opinion or the law.

[@ChrisCebelenski]

By using a similar case, they invited a comparison to the MS-01. In some ways, yes, it's the "AMD" MS-01. But not really. Both the 01 and A1 have strange compromises that I think could have been easily avoided. For the 01, the biggest compromise is actually the case size - just a bit bigger would have made it easier to put in PCIe cards for example. The compromise on the U.2 size is common to both and makes it harder than it needs to be - just increase the case size a bit, and I don't think the target audience for these would have minded at all. They are both straddling that line between Mini-PC and something new, perhaps a mini-workstation. Minisforum needs to go more "workstation" and a little less "mini" IMO. But now the A1 - WTF? This is getting long, so in short form: No 10G?? Not even one?? No card slot?? And why the mix on the PCIe gen? Is there a PCIe switch in there? I need to look at mine. It's also obvious your review unit was a recycle, either from a show or another reviewer - I can't imagine it comes that messed up inside.

[@l0gic23]

Thanks. Nice to see that they didn't send you a special, "perfect" box. Have to hope they are rethinking some of their engineering design choices. Whoever put it together must not like their job? Can't blame them. As a consumer I would not enjoy doing upgrades on this thing so I can't imagine putting them together over and over again... Got to take really good care of people to keep quality on something this complicated

[@timezonewall]

I purchased a Beelink mini PC early this year, and when taking it apart to install an NVMe, I found one of the motherboard screws was completely missing. I had a screw in my stock pile that worked fine, but it does make one wonder about assembly QC of these mini pcs. Other than that very minor issue though, it worked fine.

[@alpine7840]

I just love your videos. Thank you sir!

[@jimholloway1785]

I really appreciate your in-depth trouble shooting and stating your concerns. I am a little disappointed that Minisforum failed to contact you on your concerns of the product. I have the MS-01 and use it as my Proxmox hypervisor, so I don't think I need this MS-A1 even though I would like it because of the better graphics but I don't want to have a oculink video card , I just want a all in one working system with a little expandablity.

[@davidjkemper]

Is it possible that the two long screws you found securing the bottom cover were for the m.2’s, and the two loose screws you found inside the unit were for the bottom cover? It’s an eval unit, so who knows how many hands it passed through. At any rate, definitely some missing QA in their review process.

[@apalrdsadventures]

The two long case screws are a different thread than M.2 screws. Also, they do actually go further into the housing - 6 of the screws secure the back plate to the case extrusion, but the other 2 go through the case extrusion into the 'core' where the PCB is mounted. It looks like it may have been designed to slide off with only removing those two screws, but I cannot get the case apart without taking off the back plate and front trim and the whole case feels tight. The box also felt like a retail box, but not sure if it came from retail stock or not. I don't think it has passed through anyone but Minisforum.

[@MrChrismeenan]

AT around 6:20 you have not installed the drives and the heat sink correctly. you fix the drives in place first by unscrewing the top of those mounts. Then the heat sink goes on top and the little screws go into the top of the mounts. I've just done this and it works fine

[@jwdory]

I was going to buy one until I seen how they handled securing the M.2 drives.

[@jocerv43]

He missed it in the video but the standoff is a two part, you can secure them before attaching the heatsink. That aside don't think I'll be getting one after all, the quality control on a review sample was terrible as is, there's no support for the 9000 series last i checked (stock thermals/power draw is lower) and there's just all around poorly designed. The intel counterpart looks better but it's Intel and not even desktop skus.. I highly dislike their ecore pcore design on top of their already high power draw.

[@stephenreaves3205]

why no 10Gb on AMD stuff?!?!

[@bskull3232]

You can get anything from USB4 or OCuLink.

[@v0ldy54]

Speaking of toolless M.2... I recently bought a new drive and I found out it didn't come with the mounting screw... I guess my motherboard should have had 3 of them (one for each slot) but I only had 2 already in use. I was kinda frustrated since the price of those screws is just stupid (I mean, it's not huge but it's insane for what they are) but somehow I found a comment suggesting that I could find one in an old GPU. I disassembled my old GTX 460 which I kept and there actually were 4 screws holding the fan to a small frame which were actually usable to lock an M.2 drive.

[@andrewliu309]

If I want to connect speakers to the rear i/o, can I use a USB Type C to 3.5mm adapter?

[@JamesJosephFinn]

Thank you. Great work.

[@timezonewall]

If one is the sort of person who will just buy it and use it as is, these sorts of mini pcs are okay, but doing upgrades can be a real pain, with a very real possibility of damaging something taking it apart. The small "1 liter" HP PCs (and others) are much easier to deal with than what Aalrd had to go through with this one.

[@safarin82]

even with a mini-PC from ASRock, in my opinion, there will be significantly fewer problems. And the build quality is higher. (in comparison with Minisforum MS-A1)

[@pandaDotDragon]

The thing is they missed the design of that mini pc. They wanted to recycle some work done for the MS-01 and do a workstation (whereas the MS-01 is more for networking). But there are too many red flags (like the multiple M2 slots with different standards). They wanted to pack too many things without having the good layout for that. Checking items on the wish list is one thing, having a well designed layout is another story. And you start to dig in you find more and more quirks. It's not the first time they do that, the NAD9 was also supposed to be the perfect mini pc...

[@jackipiegg]

Does 12V work on it? Would love to power this using a regular sfx psu + hdds.

[@brianmorgan7207]

You only need to remove two screws to remove the case. Those two long screws are the ones. After removing the screws, use that clip thingy to pull the back panel, RTFM!

[@apalrdsadventures]

I bent the clip trying it that way, mine is not made very well.

[@AzNcRzY85]

Exactly. 2 other tech youtubers did exactly the same thing. IMO you're point about how to reach the system is fauly. Getting the system out of the shell is super easy. 2 screws and the pincet thingy and its out. Not as easy as the MS-01 but defo not rocket science. I do agree abiut the 10Gbit ethernet ports aswell as the 2x thunderbolt USB-C ports. I see it as a gaming mini pc which has NAS capabilities.

[@XtianApi]

The a1 doesn't seem to slide apart, it doesn't have the 2 10 gig and the two 2 1/2 gig ports, all of which arent Intel, like on the 01 it doesn't seem to have all the usb-c ports, two of which are Thunderbolt, which is nice on the 01 because you can do a daisy chain Network in proxmox. It just seems like a way less refined product. The whole thing seems physically like a pain. The 01 is so well designed. Honestly it looks almost like a different company built it

[@apalrdsadventures]

Apparently it is designed to slide apart, but you have to use a metal clip tool to pull it out of the case. I was unable to get mine apart this way without bending the clip, so maybe mine is just dented or out of tolerance enough that I have to take it apart the hard way. Even if it wasn't bent though the metal clip is a really stupid design.

[@XtianApi]

@@apalrdsadventures interesting. Yeah in the 01 I'm sure you know the most you have to do to add RAM and nvme is is lift up the fan and duct. Basically the same price without the 10 g nics so maybe the CPU I guess is costing them more? I wonder if the Intel is socketed? Not that that matters to me at the moment. I have a new Asus zephyrus g16. I would love if that was socketed because I have the first generation core Ultra 9 and the second gen that came out shortly after has an npu that's like 20 times the teraflops

[@Tntdruid]

What is the max ram size?

[@Hack3r91]

96GB AFAIK

[@AzNcRzY85]

96GB DDR5 max 5200MHz. You can use higher mem speeds but it works max on 5200MHz. I'm using 96GB 5600MHz

[@treyquattro]

considering one of these for firewall etc.. Jim's Garage already dinged it compared to the MS-01 but I prefer homogenous cores for virtualization. The haphazardness of screws in the device itself was not entirely encouraging! I see interesting stuff on your channel so added a sub. ETA: Would have been interesting to see what the M.2 drive/heatsink situation is like in the barebones unit. They can't be attached together if there's no M.2 drive?

[@apalrdsadventures]

I actually didn't assemble it right because the assembly is unusual. You are supposed to unscrew half of the standoff (it's two standoffs on top of each other), then screw the top half onto the m.2, then screw the heat sink into the threaded hole on the top standoff. So you could have the heat sink properly assembled without m.2s installed. That said, the heat sink is supposed to come pre-installed and mine was loose with two loose screws, so that was also not correct.

[@JoeStoppinghem]

So, there’s no manual to at least show which screws go where?

[@bazookerman3870]

Hi and thanks for the video. How did you test the Ethernet speed? Was it local? or was it another server on your local network?

[@apalrdsadventures]

I have a 10G switch and I can speed test to the box PC at 10G.

[@shephusted2714]

the intel version is actually better? they need to revise both versions - this is a good example of mini pc hell basically - builders will want to wait for x3d chips and build in nice case for more ease of use and expandability plus better cooling

[@henderstech]

I am still using sky lake. I think I am due for an upgrade soon.

[@lievdorfman4817]

As always, great video. Quick question: In the beginning of the video, you touched on being a mentor at a (probably) FRC team. Which one? I just started FRC, and it's awesome.

[@apalrdsadventures]

VRC 3333

[@Levent_Ergun]

This would have been a decent choice for a proxmox backup server. Oh well.

[@treyquattro]

it still can be! Just have to get high density M.2, a low profile U.2, or a "hat" for the device.

[@fasti8993]

The Minisforum MS is receiving quite a bit of attention on KZbin. Given the price, this doesn’t seem justified to me. For about 200 bucks more, you can build a machine with ECC RAM, decent front-to-back airflow, 2 x 10 G Ethernet, and enough space for larger PCIe cards. Additionally, in this case, it’s easier to reuse the components for other projects in the future

[@Andy-fd5fg]

It's like the car Homer designed. Why could they not have kept the same IO as the 01, but just with an AMD CPU.

[@bungorogers7067]

I'm still scarred from my time tearing down ps3 and 4's lol. I'd rather have a fridge-sized box with 90% wasted space than this little nightmare!

[@666Maeglin]

the m.2 are screwless, there are only screws for the heatsink

[@franzpleurmann2585]

Does the RAM runs at 5600 or 5200?

[@brianmorgan7207]

The unit ships with 5600 crucial memory, but reports in the bios as 5200 mhz memory. BIOS update anyone?

[@AzNcRzY85]

5200MHz max working speed.

[@xiaoytv]

This 8700G combo is too expensive. For the same graphics a Beelink Ser8 feels more worth it.

[@EkiToji]

I could maybe justify it if it was a Pro that you could use ECC memory with.

[@treyquattro]

only 1 net port on the SERs

[@DSDSDS1235]

The pcie topology makes it difficult to pool storage, and the 2.5GbE is just a turn off. Far worse than MS-01.

[@vaidkun]

seems to be messed up, maybe you're not the first person who's testing it, maybe it was tested/reviewed by someone else then returned and sent to you. or is it this messed up from factory.

[@apalrdsadventures]

I never really know if review units come from retail stock, but in this case the box was still sealed and looked like retail packaging.

[@terrygolightly1865]

Designed on a Friday day after Saint Patrick's Day.

[@zyghom]

I count 4 different t-shirts...

[@TheRogBG]

This dude is the living embodiment of neck beard.

[@estusflask982]

Wow. This machine is awful