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Douglas G.

Douglas G.

Joined on 04/26/02

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 17
Most Favorable Review

Works well enough

Cooler Master Blade Master 120 - Sleeve Bearing 120mm PWM Cooling Fan for Computer Cases, CPU Coolers, and Radiators
Cooler Master Blade Master 120 - Sleeve Bearing 120mm PWM Cooling Fan for Computer Cases, CPU Coolers, and Radiators

Pros: I have purchased 2 of these as case fans to go along with the CM Hyper 212 + that I put in my wife's computer. I wanted the fans to be similar so their noise signature would be the same. The motherboard fan headers all support PWM fans. This is one of the few that support PWM. They move a lot of air at full speed, but run nice and quietly at slow speeds where they run at most of the time

Cons: A little on the expensive side for what I consider to be an average fan. Noisy at full speed.

Overall Review: A good choice if your system supports PWM fans and properly slows them down. May not have the best airflow/noise ratio out there, but moves a lot of air even when slowed down.

Most Critical Review

No dents from shipping

Rosewill - FBM-01 Micro ATX Mini Tower Computer Case with Dual Fans
Rosewill - FBM-01 Micro ATX Mini Tower Computer Case with Dual Fans

Pros: Very cheap, smallish, quiet fans. Has all the screws and standoffs necessary. I like that it has normal brightness power and hard drive activity LEDs instead of the common bright as a laser blue that seem to be common in my cases.

Cons: Wow, I have used cheap cases before, but nothing like this. I think it is one or two gauges thicker than tin foil. It would be easy to think that the case was missing from the box. 80MM fan? I haven't had one of those in a case in years. It's what I get for wanting the thinnest case I could get that would still accept standard height expansion cards. Panels can be dented by looking at them incorrectly.

Overall Review: You get what you pay for. I needed a case to go in my server closet to handle a new router. I needed it to be as cheap as possible as it wasn't a planned replacement. Does the job and won't be touched/moved rarely if ever. Wouldn't consider if for a build that was functioning as a regular desktop. Very sad that the Rosewill case I used to buy for this same price, but had space for a back and front 120MM fan, and is MUCH heavier, is no longer available.

Excellent board

ASRock Z97M Pro4 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
ASRock Z97M Pro4 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Very stable, capable of high overclocks on Pentium G3258 (4.4Ghz in my case), reasonable set of features, quality construction

Cons: The audio output from the front jacks is very noisy. I'm reusing an existing case and didn't have the issue before.

Overall Review: This board is a joy to work with. I've been purchasing bottom-end systems as I haven't needed much power. I've cut the cable and am using two HDHomeRun dual over the air tuners (4 tuners total) along with Windows Media Center to record shows. I use Media Center Buddy to encode them to .m4v and remove commercials. I needed more processing strength as my old Celeron wasn't able to keep up with the demands. MCE Buddy can use Intel's video encoding engine which the Anniversary Edition Pentium supports. I was also able to achieve an immediate overclock of 4.4 Ghz at 1.275 volts only changing the cache ratio. I've never overclocked before and this system is rock solid. Runs 24/7 recording anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours of TV per day. I really appreciate the feature of in the BIOS firmware updates. No need to load up a USB stick or anything else, just have the network connected. I purchased two other boards for this processor, one of which didn't work, and the other needed a BIOS update before it would post with the G3258. This board booted fine with it and I was able to apply the update to support the processor within 5 minutes. After having very low end boards, this has been a real pleasure to work with. It's met all my expectations and more. If you don't intend to crossfire or SLI, this board should meet your needs and for an amazing price.

Chicken and the egg

ASUS B85M-G LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS B85M-G LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Inexpensive, should offer overclocking for K and Pentium G3258 processors

Cons: Cannot update BIOS (apparently) without a currently supported processor

Overall Review: I bought this to go with the G3258 I ordered. The board powers up but won't give me any video output. I tried all of ASUS' suggestions including installing a speaker to hear any post codes (there weren't any). I suspect that I have to update the BIOS, but I don't have a supported processor to use to do the update. Another issue is that this board is smaller than standard M-ATX, and the standard m-atx mounting location at the bottom right corner (near the SATA connectors) doesn't exist. On my case, it has permanent, molded in mounts. I didn't even try mounting it seeing that issue - I would have to put a couple layers of insulating tape to make sure it didn't short any onboard components. Seems to be a relatively well built board, with obvious cost cuts - cheap low-end Realtek sound and network, 3-phase CPU power, only 2 fan connectors. I wish it would have worked, as I have now had to purchase a Z97 board which should work out of the box for this processor. Manufacturers really need to figure out a way to update the BIOS when a processor isn't supported.

Very good

Rosewill RX-C202 3.5" SATA Trayless Hot Swap Mobile Rack for Dual 2.5" SATA SSD / HDD
Rosewill RX-C202 3.5" SATA Trayless Hot Swap Mobile Rack for Dual 2.5" SATA SSD / HDD

Pros: Bought this to replace another enclosure that didn't have drive activity lamps. This is very solidly built. The drives are easily removed and installed.

Cons: As others have mentioned, there ends up being quite a lot of cables, however it isn't difficult to manage. There isn't a lot of difference between the bright blue "on" LED and the color change, purple it seems, when there is activity. Wish I could disable the default on and only have it show when there is activity. I'm using drives in RAID1, and have had lockups, so I really wanted to see which drive was hanging as it isn't passed to the OS. It's easy to open the trays, so if this is where little kids might have access, it can be a con.

Overall Review: Really like this for the price. It was less expensive than my previous purchase. The build quality is very high. Yes, the cables are a mess, but it's not that big of a deal. Do wish that companies would stop the trend of using ultra bright blue LEDs.

Works well

Vantec Portable Hi-Speed USB 2.0 58-In-1 External Card Reader/Writer - Model UGT-CR920-BK
Vantec Portable Hi-Speed USB 2.0 58-In-1 External Card Reader/Writer - Model UGT-CR920-BK

Pros: Small and fast

Cons: None

Overall Review: I bought this to replace a internal card reader on my wife's PC as it was moved to a closed cabinet and would no longer be accessible. This reader is faster than the internal, giving performance higher than the cards I've used are rated at.