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Michael B.

Michael B.

Joined on 08/06/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 20
Most Favorable Review

Excellent Cooler

Rosewill RCX-Z940-SL 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler
Rosewill RCX-Z940-SL 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

Pros: Keeps my overclocked 7750 BE idling at 19 degrees! Currently running at 3.2Ghz. I could go higher but my motherboard has now become the limiting factor. This fan is quiet and very effective. Easily worth twice the price.

Cons: Flimsy mounting clip and no way to optimize fan direction. The mount twists and buckles when installing so you have to be careful. The fan can blow up or down but not to the rear which is probably the best direction in most cases.

Overall Review: My system: ECS A780GM-A motherboard, AMD x2 7750 BE CPU, MSI HD4830 OC Video Card, 4Gb OCZ Fatality 1066 Ram, WD 250Gb HD

Most Critical Review

Follow-up

APEVIA WIN-500XSPX 500 W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
APEVIA WIN-500XSPX 500 W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

Pros: Works now in a lesser machine although it should not have had a problem with mine.

Cons: Would not work in it's intended machine. Bought a Rosewill 600 watt power supply and it runs my machine without a hiccup.

Overall Review: It was purchased for the following: Athlon x2 4000+, 2Gb 800Mhz Patriot Ram, LG 16x DVD+/-R/RW, HD3850 256Mb, 160Gb WD SATA drive, 80Gb Maxtor SATA drive. Wouldn't power it reliably. Now in this system: Athlon x2 3600+, 2Gb Corsair 667Mhz Ram, 80Gb Samsung E-IDE drive, LG 16x DVD+/- R/RW drive, X1900GT Rev. 2. Seems to handle this one okay... go figure.

Capable Unit

Original Launch X431 Creader 6S EOBD/OBDII Generic Code Reader Scanner
Original Launch X431 Creader 6S EOBD/OBDII Generic Code Reader Scanner

Pros: At the ($43.99) sale price it can't be beat Full color display Streaming data Freeze frame function OBD code database built in

Cons: Flimsy Hit and miss on compatibility beyond basic OBDII small display

Overall Review: If you purchase this with realistic expectations you won't be disappointed. I took advantage of a $43.99 sale price and at that price it is the best available. The full color display is small but sharp and legible. It has some limited OE specific capabilities and will stream data and allow for freeze frame. My car (Lexus) was not compatible with O2 sensor testing and some of the other additional functions and that was a bit disappointing considering the popularity of Toyota products. This is not a professional tool and it isn't built like one so you won't be dropping this or slamming it around like you can a factory scantool. It does not appear to be sealed against liquids either. It is a bit on the slow side but it's not awful at all. At the $99 normal price it's a good value, at the $43.99 sale price it is untouchable. If you need more than a basic scantool I recommend you consider this one, especially if it is on sale.

Excellent drive

Corsair Force Series F40 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (CSSD-F40GB2-A/RF2) Manufactured Recertified
Corsair Force Series F40 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (CSSD-F40GB2-A/RF2) Manufactured Recertified

Pros: Exceedingly Fast insane performance for the price ($35 shipped) Quiet of course Vendor did ship quite fast

Cons: Poorly packaged (shipped in a padded envelope!) Small (40GB)

Overall Review: Great way to speed up a laptop. Mine uses DDR2 which has become far too expensive to upgrade without a good reason - I have 4GB so it would cost me $140 at minimum to double it while total cost of a storage upgrade was $100 which netted me a considerable speed increase and 290GB of additional storage space.

12/26/2012

Terrific Bargain

Lenovo 15.6" AMD Athlon II M320 3GB Memory DDR2 800 Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit 087325U
Lenovo 15.6" AMD Athlon II M320 3GB Memory DDR2 800 Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit 087325U

Pros: Tremendous performance to cost ratio. Lots of bloatware... yeah I know but bloatware is what made the relatively low cost possible. I consider it a pro because it lowered my cost of purchase and I can still nuke it with a little time investment and ccleaner. It's pretty fast even with all the bloatware and considerably faster without it. The display is crisp and bright. While I would not classify this a gamers rig, it is plenty fast for a modestly priced laptop. The HD4200 chip is pretty good for an integrated chip. It will easily handle older games. Nice having a 10-key on relatively small laptop.

Cons: No recovery discs. I know this keeps costs down too and you have one-key recovery but if the drive dies you are in trouble, even with warranty you will be without your machine for weeks. If it's out of warranty you are stuck purchasing OS software even though technically you already paid for it. While it has a reasonable amount of typical ports it lacks an HDMI or even a S-Video port.

Overall Review: A bargain, especially at the sale price. You can complain about the bloatware but just remember it lowers your purchase price and only costs some time to remove. I would buy it again in a second, worth every penny I paid for it.

Good Budget Board

ECS BLACK SERIES A780GM-A AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
ECS BLACK SERIES A780GM-A AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Nice integrated graphics if you go that route. Stable board, worked well out of the box. Can use AM2+ and AM3 CPUs. Compatible with 1066 ram. Have not utilized the home theatre features but understand they are very good. Website support seems good.

Cons: Not good for overclocking even after bios update. Mediocre onboard sound. Instruction manual leaves much to be desired, it is both incomplete and confusing.

Overall Review: A good board for a low-cost, general purpose system. Not good for overclocking.