Koutech IO-FPM421 5-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader with USB 2.0 / Firewire 1394a / Audio Ports / eSATA (3.5")

Pros: Lots of ports, and they all work.

Cons: Internal cables have no insulation. They pick up Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) from hard drives, fans, and who knows what else? Very noisy if you plug high quality head phones into the audio out.

Other Thoughts: Solution is to insulate your internal cable with a continuous wrap of foil (tin or aluminum). Make sure each layer is unbroken, continuous. Ground the foil to a good contact point on your chassis with a washer and screw. I have 14 hard drives in my case, and 4 high end server fans, etc etc... so I used two layers of foil. For some people 1 layer may be all that is necessary. Make sure the foil is UNBROKEN. rips/tears will allow EMI into the cable. Why HDD's and fans? Because electric motors throw off a lot of EMI. Electromagnets (for the Read/Write arm) inside the HDD do too.

Pros: Works well, Fairly easy to install, relatively cheap

Cons: USB cables still installed backwards on the 2 I just bought. Have to take card reader apart and flip one usb cable around. Has conflicts with some software when installing. See below.

I think I got the last of these. Now will have to start looking for a replacement for future systems.

Other Thoughts: I have had one of these for 2 1/2 years and have had little issue except for two things. 1: Both usb cables are onlly 4 wire, most newer computers need at least one 5 wire, two grounds, or they turn off the usb header. Had this issue on IBM M50 and HP DC7600 models. So you eather have to jump the 2 pins on the header or you can take the card reader apart and flip one of the usb cables. As the cables have five pins where they plug into the card reader and passthru usb port. I usually just flip the one on the usb pass thru port to plug into the motherboard header. Do this and it should have no issues. I had one other issue when I tried to install it on a computer with Acronis TruImage home. If this program is installed the card reader will not install. You have to remove Acronis TrueImage Home from the computer. Install the card reader and drivers then reinstall Acronis True Image Home. I have 3 of these readers now. 2 in IBM M50's and 1 in a HP DC7600.

Pros: fits in the otherwise-useless floppy drive hole in my case.
direct connect card reader, so I don't have to use the usb adapters

Cons: the headpone/mic interface is simply a the 3.5mm stereo plug. It does not allow for both a speaker out & a heaphone out at the same time. If you want to have a speaker/headphone simultaneous, this will require a splitter- Which has its own set of drawbacks.
My work around is to switch the speaker/headphone plugs in back when I need to use headphones. NOT IDEAL, but works.

Other Thoughts: I have not noticed any instability since putting this in.
I have only used the SD, USB, headphone jacks, not the eSATA, 1394 or CF jacks.
I wanted to make use of the space in my case and to have an onboard SD reader + headphone + front access slots. It works for me for ~$20

Pros: beats crawling behind your machine to plug in stuff. sd card reader is good. compares to my usb sd adapter running at 18-25MBps. firewire requires header on mobo. easy install. looks nice. a must for a box without front ports.

Cons: audio is hooked up to rear audio ports, instead of header. esata is just plugs into sata. not worth egg.

Pros: External USB port works

Cons: card reader can't be found by windows. Tried different headers and different machines.

Other Thoughts: I don't have the patience to return this rugged piece of junk. I'll just get a different brand and never buy Koutech again. That was easy.

Pros: I bought this for the 1394 port.

Everything else works fine.

This think is made solid with a sheet metal housing. All the front connections are solid.

Cons: Strange audio input configuration. Must run the wires out the back of a card slot and then plug into your audio ports. Why not just make a board header connection?

Drivers are old from 2007 and do not work with Win 7 64 bit. No problem though since Win 7 automatically recognized the ports.

Other Thoughts: This is a must have if you have a camcorder with a fire wire. (you must have a board to run it though). This is also a must have if you you need to transfer photos easily from your camera memory to your computer.

Pros: Works just fine with Windows 7 64-bit. I like how the flash memory slots aren't assigned a drive letter until there is actually a card in the slot.

Cons: The audio and Firewire cables were just barely long enough for my case, but mine is pretty deep anyway.

Other Thoughts: Decent card reader that actually works.

Pros: One of the few that reads CF cards. Very good price.

Cons: None that I can think of.

Pros: For the record, I do not/yet own this product.

Cons: .

Other Thoughts: Why can't anybody get one of these units right. Since this has audio hook ups I was thinking of replacing my cases stock 3.5 bay with this one, as it contains the same connections + adds a card reader & e-SATA. Since it won't connect via headers, I have no use for it though. I mean come on, who isn't already using their sound cards external connections? Also, IMO, if you're going to include e-SATA, put a power jack in the mix as well.

Pros: Isn't it nice when somthing work?

Cons: NA

Other Thoughts: I did not test all the features. But, I can say that this product was just what I was looking for. It is installed in an older case that did not come with front audio, usb or card readers. W7-32 detected all the ports. I did some file tranfer testing on the CF, USB and SD card without any problems. The front audio is convenient. The kids can now put their personal files on cards if they want to.