MSI 1651 under $500?

I need some advises. I've read most of the post and I've found members assembling a MSI 1651 under $400 and $550.

I cannot make the math b/c:

1651 barebone - $260 (WXGA - eBay)
Intel P8400 - $180 (from www.ewiz.com, shipping included)

These two are $440 already. Throw in 2G ram and a 160G 5400 rpm HDD will be over $500 easily. And that's not including DVD drive.

Did I miss anything in my calculation? or there are some "channel" I don't know.

 

Recently the MSI warehouse located in City of Industry had its inventory stolen by unknown people who broke into the facility in the middle of the night. Many of those notebooks you see online on ebay right now are those that were stolen hence why these sellers can list them with only $9.99 starting bid.

The following models including:
MS 163K
MS 1651
MS 1722
MS 1644

were stolen mostly. I'm not sure if other ones like MS171F or the MS1223 did or not.

The thieves quickly liquidated these stolen inventory to their contacts therefore you can see that most of these sellers on ebay are located in southern california.

Of course you are free to purchase these barebones off ebay, warranty wont be covered by the seller anyways so you'll have to go through MSI yourself. They can probably track down that it was one of the stolen units, but you're not to blame since you're just a customer who didn't know about it.

 

any proof? it is a heavy accusations w/o any proof supporting it

 

Yeah. I'm curious myself, as I just got one of them a few days ago. It is going to be stripped for parts anyways, so I'm not sure if they can track individual parts or not. I always figured the unique ID number is on the casing.

 

Proof, YES

I saw these and something did not seem right. Just call MSI directly and they will confirm. Anything selling for less than MSRP is stolen. I was going to buy a few i saw on ebay and something did not seem right so i called the manufacture.

 

lol... i didnt buy my cars @ msrp... therefore I stole them. I mean a robbery this size must be in the news somewhere. tried googling for the news but nothing came up. BTW those techs/ CS reps are as un-knowledgeable as they come. they are contracted and will say anything to get you off the phone

 

Don't beleive me or the other guy, that's fine.

Call MSI.

the least expensive 1651 is about $590, they are selling on ebay and elsewhere for $250-$300, you do the math!

Common sense comes into play here.

 

Yea, he has a point, all the sellers are from CA (mainly southern), and selling WAY cheap, and one guy is/has ONLY sold these...
granted, people may just got them cheap.

 

Quite an interesting discussion so far. Well, anyone cares to answer the CPU question?

 

nothing here can be logically supported. if msi or law enforcement tracked even a single stolen serial number they'd have a lead; possession of stolen property, trafficking in stolen property, grand theft, wire fraud: all serious, federal offences. selling on ebay isn't enough of a foil, maybe out of the back of a van, but who the f would buy a laptop like that?
and if the amount of laptops stolen wasn't enough to warrant an investigation or was just written of as insurance loss then then it should be few enough that the odds of buying one and getting screwed out of warranty are better than the odds that your laptop will actually need to have warranty service done.

more than likely a taiwanese based reseller found out about the new model releases (not exactly a surprise) and got access to a large amount of discounted units to undercut the normal channels of distribution in the states. a few friends bought lenovo t500s a year ago for 1000$ each when they were worth at least 1600$ here, he talked to the seller and the dude had a contact in lenovo in taiwan and was able to get deep discounts based on a bulk purchase. guy had hundreds of one model of t500 in his apartment lol.

 

exactly! that's so true. I mean wouldnt such a big heist be in a news? i mean I googled for such news but no luck so far

 

Yea that sounds logical, the manufacture says "lets drop the price $300.00 so we can unload these???

 

its funny when you say that because i have really had someone try and sell me something out of the back of a white van. I was like 17 and it pulled up to me in a supermarket parking lot. he opened the back of his van wich was filled with speakers offering me a "deal" on speakers. this was in the burbs too not like nyc.

I always used to think it was a joke about people selling crap out of the back of a van but they really do it haha. ive seen it.

 

TROLL ALERT.

 

The problem is IF it is a ROBBERY... WHY isn't it on the news? News like this makes headlines!!!!!!!!!! It's MSI being robbed

 

i'm going to actually call MSI (not now) and see if his claims are real or not...

because if it was small enough, it would be local news, or just on the ticker, because it would not be a big story.
That, and its southern CA, a laptop robbery would not be a HUGE story

 

yeah that speaker van scam is pretty old, i've had them wave over on the highway when i was driving my buddies 300zx (i think they were targeting nice cars) 'we bought too many, our boss is gonna kill us!'

i bet you would find people doing this scam out of the back of wagons back in the day.

 

selling the MSI using a van would be new... let us know what your chat with msi yields, aan

 

this is why i seldom watch the news now...they rather broadcasts britney "cutting" her hair bald than show us some real news that's serious enough to warrant people's attention. Celebs are apparently the news nowadays

 

yep, ill keep ya informed, it most likley will be after 4 CST xD

and one of my father's friends a few years back actually got some van speakers, took them home, and me and my dad were called up to install them... what do you know, empty boxes that looked like speakers...
my dad's friend and all his brains also paid $500 xD

 

out 500 bucks. ouch

 

Don't matter if you believe it or not, you can go ahead and call MSI and see what they say. The cops did recover some that were stolen but they were distributed too fast that only part of them were recovered.

Dont you find it such a coincidence that ALL of the sudden that out of nowhere these vendors from SoCal all have extremely cheap ones to sell all at the same time, same models? And it just so they all started listing a week after MSI had its warehouse broken into?

Sure the $300 drop is a possibility...but for ALL models that are still current and not phasing out yet for whitebooks especially the MS-1644? it's pretty suspicious. They are all still current on MSI's latest catalog. Plus all the timeframe fits perfectly. Ya..MSI decided to drop $300 on their notebooks just shortly after/before they got robbed...

I'm not advising you not to purchase on ebay since...it doesn't really matter who you buy it from. Customers who really don't know are just innocent, but im just not sure whether MSI would provide the 1 year warranty. Who knows...maybe these sellers on ebay just claim they dont know either they just got an extremely good deal from their "channel"

 

I did it this way:

$260 - barebone
$35 - T5550 CPU from a user here
$50 - 2 GB RAM and 160 GB hard drive from another forum
$15 - wifi card from eBay

That's a total of $360 so far. I did a Windows install off of a USB drive, but I'm still looking for the actual MSI drive so I'm expecting the total to be slightly above $400.

 

MSI optical drive costs whitebook sellers like AVAdirect around $40

 

For the record I have purchased 22 different barebones for a decent price but not even as low as the new people on eBay are being sold at.

The buyer I purchased from was an eBay power member with quite a reputable history (over 900 sales all positive) who was located locally to me (about 35 miles) and let me do a local pickup.

At no time did he seem shady or like a thief.

Also did you guys happen to know that MSI themselves are based out of SoCal? Probably a big reason the "new" sellers are local.

A large heist of laptops should have made the news or at least online.

 

Apparently in the US now according to a court decision OEMs CAN enforce a minimum price that re-sellers can sell a products at.

Assisnine? Yes I know, but blame the courts.

As to product ID, mine was int he battery compartment unlike what MSI documents show...

@TRF-Inferno: should a regged it then maybe wormed around some warranty things maybe...

Theft of notebooks making the news, unlikely unless it was worth a considerable sum of cash, i.e. in excess of millions of dollars... few hundred thousand or less is chump change.

 

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

 

I find it hard to believe that with the sheer amount of sellers on ebay and a known, big robbery, the local or feds wouldn't be all over it and even local news like this would have some trail on the Internet to track down.

Then again, bottom line wise, a good ole robbery would be a nice write off for some serious excess inventory.....almost like a fire, but you're building is still intact.

 

Well, after sitting on hold for like 25 mins...
i got through and said about the cheap bare bones and specific models and prices, and the guy said "i don't know how they can be that cheap, but if you see they have good ratings, then they should be legit"

so, no robbery here...

 

Glad you followed up on it Aan!!

 

Hi, I contacted MSI to find out how to get logos for the ms-1722 that I purchased off Ebay. The guy from sales says that it's 'very likely' that I purchased stolen goods! ! What I am supposed to do with this thing if it's stolen? He says they are working with the FBI on this.

 

Thats odd, maybe i got a rep that just diddn't know?

EDIT: hmm, this is your first post.......

 

guys i heard that if you buy a computer from ebay it seems fine, but then it turns into a cute animal like in sonic the hedgehog!

 

Yes, it is my first post. I've been a longtime reader of the forum though. Because of this situation, I felt that I had to register a tell what I went through today in my discussion with Michael Hou from MSI. It was unnerving. I'm not sure what to do with this thing. I had ordered a hard drive and memory from Newegg for it, they are coming in tomorrow. I ordered a CPU from Amazon for it.
After finding out that it may be stolen, I have lost my enthusiasm for it. I'm going to refuse the package from Newegg tomorrow and sell the CPU when it comes in.

 

either that or you could just be a teenager without quite enough money to get one and are afraid they will all sell out. not saying you are. just seems kinda unlikely. i know if i just ripped off a huge laptop plant the last thing id do is put it on ebay the next day

 

lol... yada yada yada... no news on google. no real defenitive confirmation by even the MSI reps... and newly registered members who just came in to share with us these "robberies" go figure LOL

 

We have recently dealt with a series of thefts and are now working with Law Enforcement and the FBI to resolve this.





Blessings,


Michael Hou
Account Executive
MSI Computer Corp.
901 Canada Court
City of Industry, CA 91748
Tel: (626) 913-0828 ext. 157
Fax: (626) 913-0818


This was an email I received today. Call him tomorrow if you don't believe me.

 

i'm thinking some one is saving up to buy them "all" then resell them 2 weeks later...

 

i'm done calling and sitting on hold xD
some one else can do this one

 

HAHAHA it's hilarious... I mean who the hell uses the word "blessings" in a professional business email. This is total BS.

 

this guy does;

Michael Hou <[email protected]>

 

http://forums.msiwind.net/general-d...ng-your-ram-will-void-your-wind-t1112-60.html

Here is his exact 'blessings' in the MSI forum

 

Agreed, can you give the guy a call tomorrow?

 

I am stuck in class from 11am-6pm tomorrow... i am going to try just for the hilarity factor. Blessings LOL

 

they are in CA, so you should be able to get in before close (assuming you are not on the west)

and that is quite unprofessional, but this is just getting weirder and weirder xD

 

If you believe me or not, I do not care. I am stating the truth. I showed you where that is the guys way of addressing people in email. The link I provided was from July, 2008. I'm sorry that I registered and tried to help people
know what I went through today. Instead of thanks, I get treated like a liar.

 

Like I said earlier if it warrants the FBI's investigation. there should be a news archive somewhere (at a local level). I doubt a heist of this quantity goes away quietly without the press writing up about it. It's the FBI being involved dood. Until i see an article, sorry, but it's hard to believe

Even a 200,000 pesos robbery has news about it on the net.

Link: http://www.electronicpulp.net/2009/...ver-200000-pesos-worth-of-macbooks-and-ipods/

 

every time someone spreads a rumor about msi god kills a kitten

 

I'm not going to write it off 100% as a lie, because he DOES have a few points (all in southern CA, all hundreds under retail, all at same time) BUT, this can be explained by liquidation.