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Kevin C.

Kevin C.

Joined on 11/16/10

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Product Reviews
Seller Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

Fantastic board for VMWare ESXI

ASRock B365M Pro4 LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel B365 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
ASRock B365M Pro4 LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel B365 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: This board simply worked perfectly in a VMWare ESXI build. I had some concerns in regards the NIC as some people had reported that it might not be supported in 6.7 U3. There was not even the slightest issue - VMWare installed without any tweaking. This board is nicely laid out with ample SATA connectors and CPU / water pump headers. The heat shield for the M2. NVME is a really nice feature although it did have me confused for a moment looking for the connector until realized I needed to remove the heat shield to get at it. Havingextra screws and a standoff for the M.2 slots is a nice bonus. The board powered up with my Intel Core i5-9400F Coffee Lake, WD Black NVMe M.2 2280 500GB and CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 32GB with no hesitations. I did not need to tweak anything in UEFI. I was able to pull out my old board and drop this one with minimal fuss. This has to have been ome of the simpler builds I have done.

Cons: I would have liked a Displayport connector on the back, but I can easily convert from HDMI to Displayport if needed. A minor beef for many motherboards - having the sata connections off the side of the board can be a pain for plugging in cables. Not a biggie and easy enough to work around.

Overall Review: This is a great board at a very decent price. This is the third ASRock board I have acquired. I am really getting to like using these boards.

Most Critical Review

BIOS Update Bricked the motherboard

ASRock J4105-ITX Intel Celeron Quad-Core Processor J4105 (up to 2.5 GHz) Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU Combo
ASRock J4105-ITX Intel Celeron Quad-Core Processor J4105 (up to 2.5 GHz) Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU Combo

Pros: I loved this board as a simple, decent little mini-itx solution until an BIOS update launched from the update facility ion the BIOS bricked the motherboard. It seems this has happened to a lot of users.

Cons: Motherboard bricked on bio update.

Overall Review: Great until you try to update the BIOS.

Great little case with loads of storage options

InWin BL631 mATX Desktop case with 300W TFX PSU/Black/IEEE 1394 - BL631.FF300TB3F
InWin BL631 mATX Desktop case with 300W TFX PSU/Black/IEEE 1394 - BL631.FF300TB3F

Pros: I wanted to find a new case for the motherboard that to run my router software. This case ticked the boxes: * Loads of storage room * Built-in 300W power supply * Simple and attractive case design. My mini-itx board fits great. I love how easy it is to pull out the frame that holds the storage devices and add drives. It was much simpler to do this than some other small cases I have. I was easily able to tuck away two SSDs and still have room for 2 3.5 inch devices and one 5.25 inch device. I simply ricked the levers back into position when done to lock down the frame again. There are ample screws supplied, two sata cables and a sata power splitter supplied. This model does not have the shroud that fits over the cpu that other versions have. I don't need it for my build. The fans are whisper quiet. I did not realize it was hooked up correctly and working as I had the power led in backwards. It just doesn't any sound at all. I'm glad to eliminate the white noise while I work. This is a great value in comparson to buying a separate case and power supply.

Cons: Very minor complaint. I had to snip away a ratchet tie to allow the power cable to attach to the mini-itx motherboard. Even with that, the reach was a little tight. Not a big deal on the overall.

Overall Review: Great small case for mini-itx builds with loads of storage optins.

Simply fast

Western Digital WD Blue SN550 NVMe M.2 2280 500GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) WDS500G2B0C
Western Digital WD Blue SN550 NVMe M.2 2280 500GB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) WDS500G2B0C

Pros: This is a great drive at a great value point when it's on sale. I added it as the second NVME drive in my Acer Nitro 5. Dropped it in, closed it up and all worked perfectly. The data just flew as I copied it from the 2.5 inch SSD to the new NVME. Very pleased with this purchase. It's simply fast.

Overall Review: Simply fast. A great addition to my laptop.

Great value, excellent upgrade

WD Black 6TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD6003FZBX
WD Black 6TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 256MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD6003FZBX

Pros: I managed to get this drive on sale which made it a great value in comparison to other Western Digital drives. Knowing that I would get the better performance in a Black made it a must. I put the drive in my VmWare ESXI server. It really made a difference in seems if performance launching VMs. They are noticeably launching faster and I'm having less issues running them.

Cons: The drive is a little noisy. Not enough to be distracting but enough to provide a low background rattle. I'm not in the least concerned with that.

Overall Review: Excellent value. Great performance.

seller reviews
  • 1

Carefully packed and ready to use

Very carefully packed, factory sealed and ready to go. These were quickly resilvered and brought online in my ZFS array.

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Satisfactory