Silverstone FP35B USB 2.0 Card Reader with extra silver front panel

Pros: Looks and feels like a high quality item. Easy installation. Tested some of the functions - works great.

Cons: None so far.

Pros: Card reader was useful to me for the past 1+ year of ownership. So was the USB. I recently tried using the power jacks for an external drive enclosure (see below).

Cons: The 5V and 12V *jacks* for external drives work properly. In fact, if you look at the 4pin molex on the back of this card reader you'll find that the pinning lines up the yellow 12V and red 5V lines the correct way. If you then test the jacks on the front panel of the card reader you'll also find the plug labelled 12V indeed produces 12V of juice and the 5V produces 5V of juice.

It's not the card reader, it's the "custom" cable that Silverstone shipped with this unit. The cable reverses the 5V and 12V pins and will fry anything you hook up to it. I went through 2 drives until I figured this out.

Don't use the cable shipped by Silverstone.

Other Thoughts: You might think you can just swap the 12V and 5V barrel plugs and get the right voltage but you can't because the two plugs have a different diameter (which is correct, that's the way it should be for this device). It's not a matter of the manufacturer putting the wrong labels on the wrong ends of the cable either.

I came to my conclusions using careful testing with a multimeter. The card reader itself is 100% functional in my opinion, but you can't ship crummy cables with no QA process. Silverstone fried 2 of my hard drives, hence they get 1 egg.

Pros: -It does look nice and I like the option to go either silver or black. Too bad other companies don't do this so you can really customize your computer.

Cons: None yet. I'll revise it that changes.

Other Thoughts: The 5 eggs is misleading since all I have used is the USB, which worked fine. I don't feel I can take away any eggs since I haven't witnessed any problems, yet I didn't really want to give it 5 eggs without having used it a bit, but I have installed it in a friend's computer so I won't get that opportunity. The reason I am writing this review is to mention that I have measured the voltages on the front panel power pins and the 12 V is indeed 12V and the 5V is 5V. Perhaps this problem is only on older units. Also the front panel cable reached my front panel header on a standard ATX board just fine. My case is a somewhat small mid tower. Unfortunately I forgot to measure the length before install, but I just put a ruler up to it in the case and I guesstimate that the front panel wires are about 18" long. I hope this helps someone with their purchasing decision.

Pros: Good Fit and Finish on this Card Reader. Everything seems to work fine, (am not using power jacks, but would not be afraid to test and use.). The leads on this were plenty long enough for my Mid Tower Lian Li case.

Cons: No real cons to mention from my perspective.

Other Thoughts: I have used another model Silverstone Card Reader in the past, and have had good luck. I am happy with the purchase of this FP35B and I would buy another one if needed.

Pros: This is an update to my last review titled "So Close".
I can now use this front panel adapter as intended thanks to the HD audio extender sold here, item # N82E16812201025
Everything working well now.

Cons: Should not have had to buy an extender for a product in this price range

Other Thoughts: At least I didn't have to spend more and get something completely different.

Pros: Nice Idea. I bought this because I wanted a unit with HD audio jack, card reader and Esata.

Cons: First unit had a short in audio jack due to poor soldering. I removed a glob that was touching its case but it still had a lot of background noise in the headphone jack. I returned it to Silverstone ($11 more invested) the noise in the replacement was worse and the Esata port is non functional.

Other Thoughts: I had a Silverstone SST-FP32-B and it has very clear sound and worked great (No card reader or Esata.) I went with a Rosewill card reader and am using the AC97 jack in the AeroCool fan controller. This thing is a waste of time and money.

Pros: Looks great in my case, card readers work well, good quality construction. Even though the power connector are of a variety that I have never seen before I like the idea, even if they are still worthless without custom cables.

Cons: I wanted to add front panel audio to my older Antec mid-tower case and found this front panel adapter which I thought would fit my needs and then some. Unfortunately the audio cable is too short to connect to the audio header on my standard ATX motherboard. Really!? Standard mid-tower case and standard ATX motherboard and it won't reach! Obviously not much QA went into this product,

Other Thoughts: I really do like this product and want to use it and don't want to give it such a low review but the fact remains that sole reason I purchased this product for it is unable to perform. I would have given more stars if it were not for the fact that I have very standard components in Antec and Asus. Looks like I'm off to try and find something better.

Pros: The card reader works with Ubuntu Linux. It reads my xD cards. I like the looks of the silver face plate. Makes good use of the 3.5 inch bay that would otherwise be empty.

Cons: The fire-wire connector is designed for motherboard headers. Doesn't connect to the the regular fire-wire socket on my add-on fire-wire card.

Pros: Has extra features that few panels do, like a a full sized 1394A port, ESATA and CF card slot.
Ample cable lengths, and connectors.
Not a bad price for what you get.

Cons: You can only use one SD/MS/XC type card at a time, because it's a single multi-use slot.
Trying to insert and remove MS-DUO cards into this one is an exercise in patience. You have to jiggle it until it exactly hits the right pins, because there is no guide. Removal is difficult without tweezers, because almost nothing sticks out, and there's no push-to-remove.
The light for the SD/MS slot can only be seen if you remove the panel - apparently the OEM who manufactured this for Silverstone forgot to drill a hole for the LED.

Other Thoughts: That this panel comes with a silver front panel was a major purchasing decision factor here.
Newegg: why don't you have a SINGLE dvd/blueray drive with anything but black panels? Sure, they may sell better, but you may lose a few sales too.

The CF card reader uses USB instead of SATA, so it's rather slow. It also can't read the serial number off a CF card (this shouldn't matter for most users, but if you depend on it for e.g. backups, it won't work).

Pros: The design of the card reader is undeniably attractive and stands out from nearly all others available due to the (so-described) 12V 3.5" drive power jack. Assuming it's not the source of the power issues, the best feature you might not see in the pictures/description well enough is the included power cable, which really stands out as a highly versatile cable - one you may even carry back and forth to the office, coffee shop, or whatever, for a compact 3.5" external, if paired with the right adapter tips. Having found the product and reviewed the comments several months ago, I grabbed this opportunistically from a B&M that was willing to give me a price match to burn a small store credit - have to admit I thought I had a real winner on my hands...

Cons: Header cables should all be 3-4in longer. USB & eSATA should be closer. Contrary to the other negative reviews' conclusions, the issue w/ the power jacks IS NOT JUST A SIMPLE REVERSAL of voltages - I know that because, had they just been switched, my 3.5" 7200rpm Barracuda would be functioning right now instead of wafting up smells of torched circuitry. Conscious of the alleged 'switch', I specifically chose that drive for an initial test (using my USB 3.0 Siig dock, which I was really, really looking forward to using w/ the MIN4P connection on the included cable, ditching the std adapter), figuring that if hooking up the 12V cable to the 5V jack resulted in a spin-up and drive recognition, then I'd have switched voltages, and if not, I'd have a perfectly normal unit. No spin up on power-up, so I connect to the 12V thinking I'm 100% in the clear, then immediately hear an out of place 'crackle' that launches me back at the dock switch a half second after my drive is toast. So wth???

Other Thoughts: After finding the nice power cable, I was all set to review w/ apologetic thanks to the other users for the nice 'heads up' - right until it basically blew up in my face. Not only do I have to shelve the thanks for now, I'm even more confused about what everybody else w/ glowing reviews here is thinking. Don't get me wrong - I know my beef is w/ Silverstone, and it's certainly possible my setup/lack of technical knowledge/underdeveloped power-testing toolset are all largely involved, but why give 5 eggs while nearly all admittedly steering clear of the supposedly-faulty power jacks? - ie, the only feature that even slightly distinguishes the product from alternatives? And what's w/ the one reviewer stating so generally/definitively that the power jacks are as they should be, w/out at all qualifying that statement? Does s/he work in QA @ Silverstone to be in a position to so-confidently defend every single unit of the product?? This is just strange - I thought better of the Newegg crowd