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Martin W.

Martin W.

Joined on 08/14/08

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 17
Most Favorable Review

Cheap in a GOOD way!

Rosewill R102-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Rosewill R102-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Matte black finish (ie, it's not shiny!). Solid construction yet light weight. The plates all fit and everything fits together well. Nothing feels like it's going to fall off or wobbly. USB and minijacks on front face are solid feeling, not cheap and wriggle. They do not move. Power and reset buttons click with a satisfying solid click, not a cheap feeling `gonna bust' wriggly click. 6 total internal bays for 3.5" disks on such a tiny case. Has thumb screws. Comes with a bag of screws (tons of them, not just a handful). The cone over the CPU to a vent has an extender so you can use low profile heatsink setups for a silent computer. The 120mm fan that it comes with is pretty good and not very noisy. Hold the LED cords inside and shake the case and it doesn't rattle like a cheap tin can. Even though it *is* cheap! No obnoxious logos or lights (ie, no rosewill logo anywhere on the case). So it looks dull black, sturdy and low profile/generic. Great little gem for only $19.

Cons: The front of the case is set so that the optical drives bays will open through it and push open it's own little face. This can be good or bad depending on your needs. For me, it's fine, it means I never see my DVD drive in it unless I open it. When it closes, the little facing shuts and you can't see that there's any drive there. For others that can be very annoying though since you cannot take them off and you can't seat an optical drive with it's face plate all the way flush with the front of the case due to these folding bays. This only applies to the top 2 bays. The 3rd 5.25" bay is a normal bay where the face comes off completely so you can have an optical drive's facing flush. Only a con if you like to see the lights/face of your optical drives. For me, I like not seeing any of that. They do however feel cheap and easy to break (as they're only working due to a spring holding them, which over time will likely fail).

Overall Review: I got this for $19. It has 6x 3.5" bays to house 6 internal HDD's. It's small, low profile, and not shiny. The optical drives are hidden if you mount them in the top 2 bays (not the 3rd) so you don't even have to see text at all on the front of this thing. Makes it a perfect little HTPC and/or NAS case. I use it for this purpose (HTPC & NAS). Light, low profile, small, sturdy. I was totally surprised that it wasn't just a totally rickety little thing. It turned out to be quite a gem. Great low cost case for anyone, but especially great for folk who want a quiet PC with generic/no-text looks that isn't shiny!

Most Critical Review

It's a FD. It works.

SAMSUNG Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model SFD321B/LFBL1
SAMSUNG Black 1.44MB 3.5" Internal Floppy Drive Model SFD321B/LFBL1

Pros: It's a floppy drive. It works fine. Looks like everything else. Solid feeling. Black face plate.

Cons: It doesn't come with mounting screws. How irritating. Hope you have some spare screws around for your case.

Overall Review: They should have bundled 2-4 small screws with this thing. Even at a $1 increase. Come on.

10/24/2008

Noisy

EVGA GeForce GT 520 (Fermi) 2GB DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Low Profile Ready Graphics Card 02G-P3-1529-KR
EVGA GeForce GT 520 (Fermi) 2GB DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Low Profile Ready Graphics Card 02G-P3-1529-KR

Pros: You get this card strictly for VRAM amount and tech capability, not for it's shader speed or it's ability to perform CUDA task. So it's nice that it has 2G of VRAM. It's the wrong speed for games... this is not a gaming card, but it's good for desktop stuff.

Cons: Useless for gaming. NOISY FAN. I got two and at 40%, those fans are audible, they're so small they make big noise. I'm going to rip them off the cards and make them passive, or put a big 120mm over them that is silent, this noise is crazy.

Strong signal, cheap price

Rosewill RNX-N180PCe Wireless Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI Express Revision 1.1 Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates
Rosewill RNX-N180PCe Wireless Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI Express Revision 1.1 Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates

Pros: PCIe is absolutely useless for the data rates these things pull. The reason you get PCIe is because of placement on the motherboard. It's often more convenient to fill up a PCIe 1x slot than to use an old PCI slot where your dual slot graphics cards take up all the space. So a dual-antenna PCIe cheap Wireless N capable card is what Rosewill put out. Solid unit. Strong signal. I'd buy another.

Cons: The only con is that this unit requires it's own drivers (it has software too, but you don't have to use it's software, though I found it's software to be better than Window 7's built in wireless management options). Basically Windows 7 didn't know what this card was. I had to give it drivers. That was annoying, but it's only a download away from Rosewill's website to get drivers that work perfectly fine in Windows 7 x64. This is why it's not a 5 star product for it's price.

11/19/2010

Awesome.

Western Digital WD Green WD10EADS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Western Digital WD Green WD10EADS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: 1TB. Low power consumption. Cheap (and really cheap if you catch it on sale with the free shipping!).

Cons: Not a single one.

Overall Review: I use these in my HTPC/Server. It's on nearly 24/7. These drives stay ultra quiet. They're very cool (less heat). Low power means less money dining while running. Huge capacity for the price. Great $:Gb ratio. The 2TB flavor is already here. I will eventually move to those as competition drops the price a bit more. Currently you spend half the cost of one of these drives (the 1TB) to get a 2TB drive. So while it's nice, it's still pricey. When it's closer to the cost of two drives, I will jump on them. Smaller foot print for same capacity is always good.

Excellent.

CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400 W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400 W ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

Pros: This thing is quiet. It supplies the power you need. It is just rock solid. All those people with 1000watt PSU's better have a reason for it, like tri-SLI or something. Because frankly, you don't need those over hyped wattages. A solid lower wattage PSU will do the same thing. This puppy even comes with appropriate 6 pin PCI-e power connections. You can easily run one of those power hungry GPU's that require PCIe 6pin as well as a quad. Fill her up. Also, she has tons of connections (SATA!) for tons of drives.

Cons: It's a bit pricey for 400watts. But it's QUALITY and that makes all the difference (not really a con then, eh?).

Overall Review: I'm using it in a HTPC/Server. It powers several green HDD's, a Regor 65watt CPU and is on all the time. It stays quiet and pretty cool. Running Server 2008 with balanced power settings. Fantastic.