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Eric R.

Eric R.

Joined on 01/28/07

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 8
Most Favorable Review

A hardware modem that works w/ Linux

Rosewill RNX-56USB - Modem - Conexant Hardware-Based 56Kbps USB (Plug & Play) V.92 Data / Fax / TAM – Windows 7 Ready
Rosewill RNX-56USB - Modem - Conexant Hardware-Based 56Kbps USB (Plug & Play) V.92 Data / Fax / TAM – Windows 7 Ready

Pros: Finally a fully functional modem that works (almost) with Linux, with the cdc-acm driver (see Other Thoughts.) I needed a modem to use with NCID to extract caller ID on my Linux server, and PCI Winmodems are nothing but grief. This modem worked just find for my purposes with one small driver tweak.

Cons: Not quite compatible with the upstream Linux driver, yet, but will be.

Overall Review: A small tweak to the quirks table was needed to get the driver to recognize the modem - it needs to be added with the NO_UNION_NORMAL flag. I've sent the patch upstream so later Linux kernels should work fine.

Most Critical Review

Not too pleased

GIGABYTE GA-D510UD Intel Atom D510 BGA559 Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU Combo
GIGABYTE GA-D510UD Intel Atom D510 BGA559 Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU Combo

Pros: Small

Cons: Surprisingly -not- terribly low power; main 2 SATA connectors are in IDE mode?!

Overall Review: I bought this board specifically to lower the power usage of my main server, and because it had 4 SATA connectors, somewhat unique on the D510 boards. However, I was disappointed to see that the power usage was no less than the motherboard it was replacing in my 5-year-old Compaq system with an AMD Athlon 64 3400+, even though it did seem much slower. I haven't measured the mobo alone, but the swap did nothing to reduce power usage. Other reviews say 27W, that sounds about right if I subtract the drive power back out of the system 50W draw. Further, the main SATA interface is: 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA IDE Controller (rev 02) (pci id 8086:27c0) ... IDE? Not ACHI like the Intel D510 board? Geez ... 1996 called, they want their motherboard back.

Great motherboard for a low-power server

JetWay NF9W-2930 Intel Celeron N2930 SoC, 1.83GHz - 2.16GHz Burst, Quad-Core, 7.5W TDP/4.5W SDP Thin Mini-ITX Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo
JetWay NF9W-2930 Intel Celeron N2930 SoC, 1.83GHz - 2.16GHz Burst, Quad-Core, 7.5W TDP/4.5W SDP Thin Mini-ITX Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo

Pros: 4 SATA ports, up to 8G memory, and super low power makes this a standout mini-itx board.

Cons: I have had no issues at all.

Overall Review: I built a home email/web/media server with this board, using 8G memory, two EVO PRO 850 SSDs in a mirror for the OS and user data, and two spinning 3T drives for media storage. When the spinning drives are spun down, the whole system pulls only 10W from the wall, even while actively handling email for a dozen users and a reasonably active webserver. Very pleased with this board. Currently running Centos7.

Wobbly

ASUS VS Series VS228H-P 22" (21.5" Diagonal) Full HD 1920 x 1080 HDMI VGA DVI-D SPLENDID Video Intelligence Technology Asus Eye Care Flicker-Free Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor
ASUS VS Series VS228H-P 22" (21.5" Diagonal) Full HD 1920 x 1080 HDMI VGA DVI-D SPLENDID Video Intelligence Technology Asus Eye Care Flicker-Free Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor

Pros: Price can't be beat, very energy efficient (ranked #8 on the toptenusa dot org website for energy efficiency), big, pretty.

Cons: Wobbly! I'm surprised at the 5-egg reviews that mention the wobbliness and don't dock an egg. Ok, my desk maybe isn't made of granite either, but it's disconcerting for this thing to wiggle when I type. A little more attention to the base design might have helped that. Maybe I can rig something

Overall Review: If your desk is going to let typing vibrations transmit to the monitor, you may want to look for one with a sturdier base.

JetWay JNC9C-550-LF Intel Atom N550 (1.5GHz, dual-core) Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU Combo
JetWay JNC9C-550-LF Intel Atom N550 (1.5GHz, dual-core) Intel NM10 Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU Combo

Pros: Pretty low power, nice feature set, seems well made. The mobile atom CPU on this board has better power management than the normal desktop atoms.

Cons: I can't make it boot with an 80W or 90W pico-psu, for optimal energy efficiency. It boots ok with a standard ATX power supply, so I don't yet know what is wrong. Newer brazos boards may be even lower power, too.

Overall Review: For the other reviewer: this board -can- do poweron after powerfail, but it needs to have that option exposed in the bios; here is what I got from Jetway about this: The NC9C mainboard can support power lose funciton (or Power failure function) . Please go to BIOS setup --> Power management setup , disable the "EUP function" first . then go to BIOS setup --> Integrated peripherals , set the "PWR status after PWR Failure" function to "Alway On" . this worked for me!

Great with my Samsung TV

Rosewill RNX-N1 Wireless-N 2.0 Dongle (2T2R) IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB2.0 Up to 300Mbps Data Rates/ WPA/WPA2 (AES, 64,128-WEP with shared-key authentication) Cisco CCS V1.0, V2.0 and V3.0 compliant Vista/Win7/MAC
Rosewill RNX-N1 Wireless-N 2.0 Dongle (2T2R) IEEE 802.11b/g/n USB2.0 Up to 300Mbps Data Rates/ WPA/WPA2 (AES, 64,128-WEP with shared-key authentication) Cisco CCS V1.0, V2.0 and V3.0 compliant Vista/Win7/MAC

Pros: Inexpensive alternative to the LinkStick which seems to work flawlessly with my Samsung UN46C6300 TV, connected to a Linksys E1000 in N-only mode.

Cons: None that I can see...