Joined on 07/05/06
Good Enough - Not for Non-Techies
Pros: Small, and white (blends in with the woodwork on my 100 year old house). We interface is nice, clean, and fast.
Cons: Instructions are a bit confusing even for myself (an IT Support Specialist for 5 years). The printed instructions don't tell you how to secure the PLC, and the address listed for the web interface is wrong (and wrong in two different ways in two two spots its printed). I had to look at my router's web interface to figure out what IP it was pulling to get at the web interface. This web interface then took me though an entirely different set of setup instructions that conflicted with the first. I ignored them (because they didn't seem to work), and just poked around the web interface until everything was set up the way I wanted.
Overall Review: Instructions neglect one important thing: you should go into the PLC settings and set the network type to private.
Solid Construction - Hard to Work With
Pros: Very solid construction and very clean look (which I'd expect for the price). It has a nice hotswap SATA backplane, which is nice for my NAS build. Removable air filters on fans. Airflow layout is very good (such cold air from the bottom and sends the warm air out the top).
Cons: Extremely difficult to work with. For starters, the motherboard comes right up against the 3.5 inch hard drive chasis. The power and data connectors for the backplane are somewhat difficult to get it. This all could have been avoided if the 3.5 inch drive chasis was removable.This could have been accomplished with the simple addition of some thumb screws. Instead, Lian Li decided to be cheap and rivet it into the case. There was also an extra sheet of metal riveted into the middle of the 3.5 inch drive chasis, almost obstructing one of the SATA ports. The bottom right motherboard standoff was 1 mm out of alignment with spec, making it difficult to get a screw in it.
Overall Review: If this were a $50-60 case, it would have gotten 5 stars. However, its a $130 Lian Li. Lian Li is supposed to be the Porsche of the case world. I expect more from them. And no, contacting tech support won't fix either of these problems, as they are all engineering issues. Plus, I refuse to talk to tech support not based here in the US and staffed by native US English speakers. Not enough wrong with it for me to return it (it is still a decent case). I just expected more for the money.
Shoddy Build Quality
Pros: Small.
Cons: The remote is horrible. Buttons are small and impossible to read. Separate off and on buttons. Really, who does that?! It also takes watch batteries. Fortunately, it works with a Logitech Harmony remote. Unit reboots after watch TV for two seconds (even though the network tuner is getting full bars). Mini USB connector on the back of the unit fell off just from unplugging the power. I suspect shoddy soldering.
Overall Review: For $180, I expect a lot better build quality, not some cheap, made-in-you-know-where, plastic toy.
Died After Two Months
Pros: Cheap and small.
Cons: It died after two months. Its stuck in write-protect mode. Tried using diskpart to clear this attribute, but it won't clear. There is no physical switch on the disk either.
Frequently Locks Up
Pros: 6 tuners, allows me to not have to rent a DVR from Cox
Cons: Locks up about every 7-10 days and needs a reboot.
Overall Review: I've isolated the problem to the InfiniTV 6 by: 1) Disabling all firewalls. 2) Trying 2 different routers. 3) Swapping cables. 4) Having a new cable line line run. 5) Having just the InfiniTV 6 and a computer on the network. 6) Having nothing but Windows, Media Center, required system drivers, and the InfiniTV drivers installed on the computer. 7) Using both the latest stable firmware/drivers and latest beta firmware/drivers. 8) Using two different computers. 9) Swapping all network cables. Problem is with the InfiniTV 6. It just locks up every 7-10 days. Expected more for $300. I refuse to call their support after the horror stories I have read above (I'm convinced they will just insist the problem is with something else and close the ticket.) I bought this at another site, which NewEgg's stupid filter won't let me name here.
DOA
Pros: There are none.
Cons: Both sticks dead on arrival. System booted fine with my old sticks. Put in these Wintec sticks, and I got the BIOS post code for bad memory. Put back in my old sticks, and it booted fine. Wintec probably didn't even bother to test the RAM. First and last time I buy from them.
Overall Review: I hope this review steers people away from Wintec and costs Wintec money. I now have to return these sticks to NewEgg and wait longer to get my NAS up and running.