Joined on 07/30/03
Great Price for the Storage
Overall Review: This card was very cheap as a shell shocker deal and, of course, it has a ton of storage in a small space. I am forever surprised at how much space we can get for a small price.
Doesn't quite work as expected
Pros: 16GB of DDR2 RAM for VERY little cost. I couldn't pass it up.
Cons: This memory doesn't run at 800 MHz in my system. In order to even get into BIOS I had to remove all but one module and step down my memory speed to 667 MHz (changed the multiple from 2 to 1.67). That allowed me to install the rest of the RAM and boot into Windows. However, I still suffered random crashes and system instability until I stepped the speed down to 533 MHz (by changing the multiplier to 1.33).
Overall Review: There is at least one other review that noted the issues with running this RAM at 800MHz. That reviewer found stability at 667 MHz. Unfortunately, I did not. Since this is an upgrade for an older system that used to run with 4 GB of RAM, I'd probably still make the purchase again but, I wouldn't recommend this product for anyone who needs (or prefers) faster memory speed over memory capacity.
They all work
Pros: They're batteries. They were cheap, came quickly, and those I've used so far work fine.
Cons: The AA's came in two ziplock style plastic bags of 15 each inside the box. One of those bags split so, when I picked up the bag batteries spilled out.
Overall Review: Even with the packaging problem I had, I can't complain. I got this one as Newegg Flash deal and shipping was free. I can deal with a minor storage issue in exchange.
Inexpensive but, hit-or-miss
Pros: They were quite inexpensive and even arrived a day faster than expected.
Cons: Out of 25 that I've burned on so far, 4 have failed during the write process.
Overall Review: I received these yesterday morning and since then have burned 25 of them. Unfortunately, of those 25, four have failed during the burning process including one which failed while burning at 2x speed rather than 16x. From the comments here, some people haven't had any issues but others have so my guess is that a small percentage tend to be bad and I just happen to have a bit of a bad run considering the fact that three of the failures were in the first 11 discs. All-in-all, I'd buy these again since the low price compensates for my current calculated failure rate but, I'd definitely make sure to include a bit of overhead concerning how many discs you need just in case.
Good Board, Bad Manual
Pros: Wonderful feature-set at a low price, runs fine now.
Cons: Misinformation in the product manual caused me to chase my tail for over a week.
Overall Review: In the manual for this board, it says (on page En-10) that pin 20 of the ATX 24-pin power connector is 'reserved'. The ATX specification also notes that pin 20 is for OPTIONAL -5 VDC. However, when I connected this board to my power supply that happens to not have this pin connected the board doesn't POST. When I use another PS I the system boots just fine. I could have saved about a week of my life (and one RMA) if MSI had noted in their manual that the -5VDC is required for this board.