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Dvonne B.

Dvonne B.

Joined on 10/11/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 4
Most Favorable Review

Best budget full-ATX motherboard currently.

GIGABYTE GA-Z170XP-SLI (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-Z170XP-SLI (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Fast, tough, and not too crazy looking to mis-match too many builds. A CRYORIG H5 Ultimate will fit with Corsair Vengence memory. The fan must be moved up a bit, but it's part of the cooler's design and not too difficult.

Cons: Documentation is lacking a bit. It could be more in-depth, covering at least the ins and outs of UEFI, GPT partitioning, etc. I believe this is what is tripping everyone up.

Overall Review: THINGS TO REMEMBER: This is a new motherboard that supports UEFI. Basically this is what you need to know: If you don't know how to implement a GPT disk partition during installation, go into the BIOS and disable everything that says UEFI. Load windows like you're used to, and you're good to go. If you do want UEFI, make sure you format the drive as GPT, and don't use the windows installer to format afterwards. Just install on your previously created GPT partition and go. If you don't follow these instructions, you will not be able to boot to your windows drive after installation. This took me nearly a week of dedicated, intense troubleshooting to figure this out. Most would give up before I did, and I must patch up things with the wife... she hasn't seen me much! Secondly, update the BIOS. Some have suggested it fixes certain errors with SSDs. I updated from F3 (provided) to F6 and saw great gains in boot performance and stability. Laastly, put windows 10 on this thing. It definitely moves a bit smooth

Most Critical Review

I would be warned

Western Digital Blue WD800AAJS 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Western Digital Blue WD800AAJS 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Low cost and the SATA interface I need.

Cons: First purchase was RMA'd within 2 months, and replaced. Now it seems the replacement is starting to cause the system to freeze, and infrequently not boot at all.

Overall Review: Western Digital is an excellent brand. I would reccomend them to anyone. I would just steer clear of this specific model.

Rock Solid with Peace of Mind

NETGEAR GS108T-100NAS Smart Gigabit Smart Switch
NETGEAR GS108T-100NAS Smart Gigabit Smart Switch

Pros: I've owned this thing for over two years, and it finally died. But that's not a problem with the LIFETIME warranty that comes with it. RMA'd with Netgear and a new one should be on its way. For the past two years we've been running at full gigabit speeds gaming away with this thing. Looks awesome in my LAN closet. She's been working side by side with a DLink GamerLounge flawlessly.

Cons: Not really any. How many pieces of network hardware can you say you've had for over two years, and not have to invest over and over in a new one.

Overall Review: Seriously, do the math. A managed gigabit switch that, yes, costs 100 bucks, but you will never have to buy another one again. It is a main staple in my home infrastructure! If I were to do it all over again, it would be a definite buy, and a serious consideration for Netgear to supply my gigabit router!

10/17/2010
Logitech G5 7 Buttons Tilt Wheel USB Wired Laser 2000 dpi Mouse
Logitech G5 7 Buttons Tilt Wheel USB Wired Laser 2000 dpi Mouse

Pros: Absolutely wonderful buy. My choice of weights was pretty random, but the performance is top notch. I can't tell you how useful the instant track speed adjustment is for swinging a tank turret around at an instant. The extra buttons work great for voice comm's. Very attractive, and has held up quite well!

Cons: None.

Overall Review: Doesn't work well on glass (clear) surfaces, but seriously, what does an optical mousepad run these days? This one replaced a cordless model that kept losing power in the middle of a game. Let's just say I'm a fan of wired mice now.