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Jonathan O.

Jonathan O.

Joined on 11/23/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 12
Most Favorable Review

Simple and works

BYTECC DVI-HM DVI Male to HDMI Female Cable Adapter
BYTECC DVI-HM DVI Male to HDMI Female Cable Adapter

Pros: Basic adapter, does what it should.

Cons: None

Overall Review: My friend game me a Radeon 6870 card, however, the HDMI outs weren't working properly. I wanted to connect this card to my home theater projector so I got this adapter and a 25 ft HDMI cable, and it works great.

Most Critical Review

Another 8-core victim

MSI 970A-G46 AM3+/AM3 AMD 970 + SB950 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
MSI 970A-G46 AM3+/AM3 AMD 970 + SB950 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: *IF* if worked, it would have been packed with a nice set of features and outputs.

Cons: ...*BUT* it doesn't. Either it's DOA or I'm yet another victim of the supposed FX 8-core support that, as has been reported by others, is either poor or prone to catastrophic failure, often taking the CPU with it. Even if I got a replacement, I'd be stupid to risk a $200 chip in a $80 motherboard, and forget overclocking, so the $50 I spent on an aftermarket HSF is also wasted.

Overall Review: All they had to do was state the boards didn't support FX series and offer a coupon or something to people who already purchased, but they took the lying route. Now I'm in a position where I have a CPU (FX-8350) that may or may not be dead with no practical way to test it as a result of this awful board. I'm going to try and return both the CPU and Motherboard, purchase a new CPU and never buy a MSI Product again. Thanks for wasting 10 hours of my life testing and troubleshooting your worthless product.

Tempermental

TRENDnet TEW-726EC N600 Wireless Dual Band Adapter IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n PCI Express 1.0
TRENDnet TEW-726EC N600 Wireless Dual Band Adapter IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n PCI Express 1.0

Pros: Basic, no-frills adapter. Decent size.

Cons: Schizophrenic behavior would basically define this NIC. It connects, but pings go from 20ms to 500ms in fits and spurts. All over the place. A laptop right next to it pinging google on it's built-in wifi is rock solid. Seems to have trouble maintaining a connection with certain brands of consumer routers. So far with two different brands of Comcast router it just decides to call it quits. Included software is useless and redundant.

Overall Review: Why WHY can't one company make a competent internal N wireless adapter? We don't need your included garbage-ware wireless util, we just need it to work consistently and for more than a month before it goes into a landfill. Suck less hard. Really. Please.

Disposable

TP-LINK TL-WN722N Wireless N150 High Gain USB Adapter, 150Mbps, w/4 dBi High Gain Detachable Antenna, IEEE 802.11b/g/n, WEP, WPA/WPA2
TP-LINK TL-WN722N Wireless N150 High Gain USB Adapter, 150Mbps, w/4 dBi High Gain Detachable Antenna, IEEE 802.11b/g/n, WEP, WPA/WPA2

Pros: Better-than-average wifi reception.

Cons: Like nearly all USB wireless, heat and time will eventually kill it.

Overall Review: I'm on my second 722N and as I type this that second one is beginning the long, downward spiral to eventual uselessness. The first lasted about two years as my primary NIC. The second has only managed around six months. Heat is the enemy of these USB cards. The problems manifest themselves as occasionally slow performance. Occasionally the card will lose its connection the router, but a reboot or disabling/enabling the card fixes it temporarily. Interestingly enough, I removed the plastic case and I got better coverage, but it didn't help much with the heat-related performance issues. Just know that you're buying a disposable card. If it's for occasional use you will probably get a few years out of it. If it's your main interface, not so much.

Solid, affordable combo

Microsoft 5SH-00001 Black USB RF Wireless Standard Desktop 800 for Business
Microsoft 5SH-00001 Black USB RF Wireless Standard Desktop 800 for Business

Pros: - sensor worked fine in the rear of my machine as long as I otherwise had line of sight - Keyboard is lightweight and easy to handle for surfing or gaming on the couch. - mouse tracks well on my black futon - came with batteries (duracell even!) - good price

Cons: The keyboard keys are bargain quality but what I expected at this price point. Still, if you're particular about the feel and clickiness of your keyboards this is probably not for you.

Overall Review: Wireless is about a thousand times less reliable than wired, but regardless, it does have its uses. This KB/Mouse combo works for games so long as it isn't twitch gaming, like demanding platformers and FPS games. It's great for most RPG and Adventure games, and some RTS games.

Range is lacking

TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless N900 PCI Express Adapter, 2.4 GHz 450 Mbps / 5 GHz 450 Mbps, IEEE 802.1a/b/g/n, WEP / WPA / WPA2, Plug & Play in Windows 8
TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless N900 PCI Express Adapter, 2.4 GHz 450 Mbps / 5 GHz 450 Mbps, IEEE 802.1a/b/g/n, WEP / WPA / WPA2, Plug & Play in Windows 8

Pros: Installation was straightforward.

Cons: RANGE! Don't be fooled by the three antennae into thinking this is a long range card. I have a TP-Link WN722N USB adapter with a single antennae that outperforms this card when positioned in the same location. By "outperforms" I mean that both report 3 bars, however, the USB consistently delivers sub-5ms ping to the gateway compared to 10ms - 1500ms (essentially timeouts) using the WDN4800 card. The difference is quite noticeable both in initial connect time and real-world browsing/downloading. I went with TP-Link because the USB stick is so good. The reality is there are just no solid consumer network brands anymore. Quality is always product-by-product these days. Why replace the USB? The USB adapter performs great (and throwing it on a USB extension cable for better positioning, even better), but unfortunately when my computer is under heavy load (gaming) or when I have another 'hungry' USB device connected, such as my TV tuner, the TP-Link USB stick likes to crash, which is highly annoying. I guess my next step is to look into range extenders, a bigger antennae or go the good old cantenna route, but now I'm wondering if I borked myself because there's probably issues making a cantenna for a three-antenna card. Sigh.