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MERLE M.

MERLE M.

Joined on 03/26/06

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Product Reviews
Seller Reviews
product reviews
  • 11
Most Favorable Review

Shadow of TR quite different from the two previous.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition [Online Game Code]
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition [Online Game Code]

Pros: Quite different than what I'd come to expect. Lots more climbing and searching rather than shooting, etc. At first I was mildly disappointed but took it for what it was and enjoyed it. The story took more time with filling out the characters as people. I liked that. Crafting took on a larger role, but I was slow at understanding what some of it was all about (except healing). I liked the introduction into other people cultures.

Cons: The game crashed a couple of times for unknown reasons, but it does save often on its own. It seemed to me to have more than enough 'blind' jumps and a place or two there was no getting out of. I had to go back to a previous save more than I would like. That didn't occur in the previous games. Swimming under water provided air openings to breathe, but seemed to be a ploy to disorient the player rather than get you through the area.

Overall Review: A good game. Maybe too much running back and forth. Lots of side quests. Do them to help level up. Even the ones that aren't that interesting. I got satisfaction from completing them. I had great difficulty in solving the 'what to do next and die too many times' theme but all in all it was OK. I played on normal mode and was glad I did the first play through. I will play this game again in the future.

Most Critical Review

Twice burned

ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Professional Gaming i7 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Second board works well in Win 7. Has good specs for the price, came with rebate (which I'm told is on its way). This is my tenth build and never had so much trouble.

Cons: First board would not boot because ram slots A1,B1 were bad A2, B2 were good with both ram modules, but of course will not work in dual channel that way. RMA'd that board. Called Asrock in California. Was promised RMA slip but that was the last I heard from them. Newegg came through very well and I received the second board. Initially it worked well for the first day. All mb drivers loaded, MS updates, programs loaded, etc. Second day my mouse cursor would not move in the UEFI so I used the arrow keys. Days three and four the UEFI slowly went away and in the last two months I've been entirely unsuccessful in booting into the UEFI. The computer boots into Windows very nicely and no complaints there. Not getting to the UEFI will be problematic at some point if and when the system crashes since I will not be able to boot from the disk to repair. I am unable to run Mem Test. I cannot update the BIOS. You get the picture. Within a week of the build I emailed Asrock tech support and was give a solution that sounded like a Win 95 troubleshooting guide involving taking the whole computer apart to test with a barebones system *to see if that fixes the problem*. I have gone to Google many times and spent hours trying to see what else might be done. Not much help there, it is always assumed I can't boot into Windows and will start with 'go into the BIOS'.... The Asrock forum was more informative about the problem as many people complained of freezes after they got into the UEFI., but there seems to be no solution as yet. A forum moderator gave the best explanation of why, having to do with American Megatrends Inc., the outfit that builds the BIOS/UEFI gives mb manufacturers the BIOS and leaves the mb makers to deal with the problems. (My take on his explanation.) So I have three options if I HAVE to get into the UEFI. First I will try the dual BIOS push-the-button option. Deal with taking my whole computer apart to see if that works. Last would be to junk the board and buy another brand.

Overall Review: I can not recommend buying this particular board because of my own experiences with it (twice). I would not buy it again myself. I have built several computers using Asrock motherboards quite successfully and believe they do quite a good job. They give more options for the user in the BIOS/UEFI than some others I've tried, so I will not give up on Asrock because of this one experience. If you have read through this entire review, thank you for your patience and for allowing me to vent. I hope this was informative to some of you.

Packaged well.

ASRock Z690 EXTREME LGA 1700 (14th,13th,12th Gen) Intel Z690 SATA 6Gb/s DDR4 ATX Intel Motherboard
ASRock Z690 EXTREME LGA 1700 (14th,13th,12th Gen) Intel Z690 SATA 6Gb/s DDR4 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: The motherboard seems in fine shape. I haven't installed it yet. I've installed many Asrock motherboards and have only had a problem with one. Did an RMA, the replacement for it had a BIOS problem but the backup worked and no problems since. I game, but don't get fancy with lights, lots of RAM, etc. This motherboard is to be paired with an i7-12700K. Making this compatible with Windows 11. If I have a problem worth mentioning I will revise this review.

Cons: No cons.

Overall Review: Should do everything I expect. I'll have to get my wife to get my full-size desktop to where I can work on it. Thing is heavy.

Gigabyte 4080 graphics card

GIGABYTE Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 x16 ATX Video Card GV-N4080GAMING OC-16GD
GIGABYTE Gaming GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 x16 ATX Video Card GV-N4080GAMING OC-16GD

Pros: Works as advertised. Am able to play Witcher 3 with ray tracing turned on but had to back off from the full-on setting to the regular setting as the game would buffer too often. May be due to an older i7 6700k processor that can't keep up. How would I know without spending all the money to find out?

Cons: So, I put this into a full tower Cooler Master HAF 932 case. Turned out I had to use a Dremel tool to cut out the top three drive bays where hard drives would go. The card was about half an inch too long and the support bracket took even more space, so I had to cut about an inch horizontally to accommodate. Had the card been an inch shorter it would have saved a lot of time and trouble, Per the above Pro comment, even setting the ray tracing back did not provide an entirely smooth play but I can live with it. The GeForce Experience program did change the settings in some of my games. I won't know until I play them if it makes a real difference.

Overall Review: The cost is breathtaking. The size is enormous. So far, I don't see a difference enough to justify the expense, time and trouble of going from the capable GTX 1080 I was using (which I gave to a friend so he could play Halo Infinite without spending money). This updates my build until the Microsoft enforced change to Windows 11 in a couple of years and a few hundred more dollars for a new motherboard and processor. Shouldn't this be a choice we get to make? Just saying.

8 Gb Flash Drive from Team Group

Team Group 8GB C171 USB 2.0 Flash Drive (TC1718GB01)
Team Group 8GB C171 USB 2.0 Flash Drive (TC1718GB01)

Pros: I wanted this to make a recovery drive of my Win 10 desktop. Speed and reuse were not important. On sale and inexpensive, small so does not take up much room to store and it worked as expected. I bought another with it for my daughter's computer. Her computer would not create the recovery drive, but I don't believe it had to do with the flash drive. Instead it appeared to be a program which needs to be uninstalled. No problems transferring or deleting data and it formatted as expected.

Cons: Fairly small making it somewhat difficult to manipulate and label.

Overall Review: I recommend this to use as a recovery drive and to back up small files. Large files would be best on a faster flash drive.

TurboTax 2020 Federal and State

TurboTax Deluxe 2020 Desktop Tax Software, Federal and State Returns + Federal E-file (State E-file Additional) [PC Windows Download]
TurboTax Deluxe 2020 Desktop Tax Software, Federal and State Returns + Federal E-file (State E-file Additional) [PC Windows Download]

Pros: Works as expected. Easy to use with exceptions.

Cons: Product is so clamped down for security it is difficult to finally get to use it. We have used TurboTax for the last several years and still have problems getting into it to use it. Problem with getting passwords to work though they have worked before, then the same password does work after a few tries. Product did not recognize last years returns only to later bring them up. I don't know what gives with it, but it is frustrating. Once it does get started it works very well.

Overall Review: We will use TurboTax again next year. Maybe we will figure out what is wanted to make it work the first time.

seller reviews
  • 4

As expected

No problem with seller. Packaging was good . Price was pleasing. Both devices worked well. Screws at either side are difficult to manage. Both did the job.

On-time
Delivery
Product
Accuracy
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Satisfactory

Difficult to rate.

This fan seemed exactly what I wanted. It came packaged very well. Box was not crushed and fan wrapped in bubble wrap. Screws, etc. included. No problem there. One blade of the fan was completely broken off. This could not have happened during shipping. I can't imagine this could not have been noticed. The delivery took sixteen days to ship from China.. That seemed excessive to me, but maybe that is the usual time frame for other people's experience. I had to take a picture of the entire delivery including the broken blade. Newegg immediately refunded the money.

On-time
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Product
Accuracy
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Satisfactory

Orico 3.5 to 2.5

Yes, I would recommend. SSD fit into well just fine. It had a bit of a problem fitting the contacts of the SSD with the device and I had to pull it back out to reseat it. I recommend testing the SSD before closing the case, else you may be sad if it does not make contact. The screws fit fine. Inexpensive compared to others. Did this for a friend and it made me feel better than the zip ties I had used to do his build.

On-time
Delivery
Product
Accuracy
Customer Service
Satisfactory