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Bruce R.

Bruce R.

Joined on 05/16/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 14
Most Favorable Review

Great Fan

Scythe GentleTyphoon D1225C12B3AP-13 Case cooler
Scythe GentleTyphoon D1225C12B3AP-13 Case cooler

Pros: This is probably the perfect drop-in fan for most people who want a quiet PC and aren't using a heavy hitter video card. I'm putting together a HTPC and using a Lian-Li PC-A05 case, passively cooled video card, quiet CPU cooler and a WD 640 drive. I disconnected the front fan and replaced the rear fan with this Scythe, powered straight off a motherboard header at 12V, and with the case closed all I can hear is the HD from a foot away. At 12v the fan just makes a gentle woosh with no high pitched overtones. It's certainly quieter than the S-FLEX SFF21E I have in another case. If you don't want to mess with any sort of fan control and you want to cool a whole PC with one quiet fan, this is the one.

Cons: May not be quiet enough for the SPCR crew at 12v. Won't cool a hot gaming case by itself.

Overall Review: This will become my standard fan for my quiet builds.

Most Critical Review
MSI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card R4670-2D512
MSI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card R4670-2D512

Pros: Works fine; just like a 4670 is supposed to. Nice big heat sink.

Cons: Fan control is not implemented on the card, so the fan always runs at full speed using Catalyst v8.11. (This seems to be true for most of the 4670 cards being sold.) My 16 yo, who I'm building this for didn't think the noise was too bad. I found it annoying. I fixed it by taking a power lead off an old fan with a 3 pin, MB connector. I soldered a 100 ohm resistor in the hot lead, disconnected the fan from the card's connector and pushed the ends of the wire, from the MB, into the fan connector. This lowered the voltage to under 9 volts and now the fan is quiet, if not silent. With the large heat sink and the low power draw of the card the temps never went above 46C running a video stress test with the under volted fan.

12/10/2008

Great WHS 2011 Server

ASRock AM1B-ITX AM1 USB 3.0 HDMI Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
ASRock AM1B-ITX AM1 USB 3.0 HDMI Mini ITX AMD Motherboard

Pros: I bought the $99 kit to build a WHS 2011. The ability to run any of the current OS's & 4 SATA III ports makes the MB a perfect starting point for a medium to small low power server. Good quality board. I'm using this memory: G.SKILL ECO Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBECO, 2 WD 2TB AV drives an Intel 160 GB 330 SSD and a Pico PS. The server draws about 25w while backing up clients and 14w at idle (when the HD's spin down). Even though the board and drivers don't officially support Server 2008 R2, just about all the drivers work fine.

Cons: The drivers for the rear panel USB 3.0 won't install and the ports don't work. (The ASmedia USB 3.0 ports that connect to the front of the case work fine.) The speaker doesn't beep.

Overall Review: Nice server that runs on little more power than a night light. Didn't dock any eggs for rear USB ports since ASrock doesn't support server OS.

High Quality Card

DANE-ELEC PRO 16GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Model DA-SD-1016G-C
DANE-ELEC PRO 16GB Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Model DA-SD-1016G-C

Pros: Bought a pair of these for use with a Nikon D7000. They work perfect and have a high transfer rate. The plastic shell is very sturdy and well made; unlike some A-Data cards I bought.

Cons: None

Overall Review: This company has made cards for the industrial market for a long time, but isn't well know among consumers.

Poorly made shell

ADATA 16GB Class 10 Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Model ASDH16GCL10-R
ADATA 16GB Class 10 Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC) Flash Card Model ASDH16GCL10-R

Pros: They work.

Cons: Bought 2 of these. They work ok, but the seams opened on the shells. I had to glue them back together. Cheaply made and won't buy any more.

Overall Review: Cheaply made and won't buy any more. The Class 10 Dana Electric and PNY are much better made and transfer faster.

Neat scanner

EPSON Perfection V30 B11B193141 4800 dpi 48bit USB 2.0 Interface Flatbed Scanner
EPSON Perfection V30 B11B193141 4800 dpi 48bit USB 2.0 Interface Flatbed Scanner

Pros: For the $50 sale price this great scanner. 1 - The dedicated buttons for copying and creating PDF files makes doing common tasks quick and easy. 2 - The bundled character recognition software (ABBY) works very:accurate and quick

Cons: The power and USB connections are at the wrong end of the scanner.

Overall Review: The Arcsoft software is unnecessary if you already have any sort of image editing software.

12/13/2009