cover
Adam S.

Adam S.

Joined on 09/10/06

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 8
Most Favorable Review

Good Duplicator

VINPOWER Black 1 to 5 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW with NEC Drive, 200GB HDD DVD Duplicator plus with Thermal CD/DVD Disc Printer Model VP4690-NEC-5BK-CDP78
VINPOWER Black 1 to 5 18X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 18X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW with NEC Drive, 200GB HDD DVD Duplicator plus with Thermal CD/DVD Disc Printer Model VP4690-NEC-5BK-CDP78

Pros: The duplicator works great for our companies short runs of discs (500 range). An intern runs through them in an afternoon.

Cons: Arrived with one of the drives non-functional. Had to RMA for a replacement.

Overall Review: The u-print printer is usefull for keeping collections of cds from all being magic markered on, but not worth much else. We tried it for one of runs of cds, and it cost us around 27 cents a cd for ribbon and one minute per disk not worth it.

Most Critical Review

Hang and Crash Issues

GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card GV-R785OC-2GD
GIGABYTE Radeon HD 7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card GV-R785OC-2GD

Pros: When card is working I can play games such as Diablo 3 with settings cranked to the max. Card temperature never gets hot so the heat sink is sufficent.

Cons: Some days the card will decide to not work, haven't figured out if it manufacturer or ATI drivers. When playing games occasionally the graphics will hang for several seconds and I get an error Event ID 4101, "Display driver amdkmdap stopped responding and has successfully recovered." Other times instead of just hanging, computer will bluescreen with bugcheck 0xa0000001. Have tried turning settings down to minimum for games, still crashes and disabling all but one monitor, nothing seems to help. Occasionally textures will flicker on and off making objects temporary transparent, does not always happen in conjuction with hang or crash, but sometimes does.

Overall Review: I have tried many different driver versions of the Catalyst Control Center, and am getting extremely mad at this card. Unfortunately I busy when I first got the card and never played games on it so I could find this problem. I wish I had paid attention to some of the other reviewers. It is not too late for me to exchange with Newegg (understandable from their perspective) so I am going to probably have to try and RMA to Gigabyte and hope that it was problem with my specific card.

10/27/2012

Don't go Cisco

CISCO CISCO871-K9 Integrated Services Routers for Small Offices 870 Series 1 x 10/100Mbps WAN Ports 4 x 10/100Mbps LAN Ports
CISCO CISCO871-K9 Integrated Services Routers for Small Offices 870 Series 1 x 10/100Mbps WAN Ports 4 x 10/100Mbps LAN Ports

Pros: It will work great if you ever get it configured and don't want to change anything.

Cons: Impossible to configure and set up.

Overall Review: I recently bought eleven Cisco871s for remote locations and a Cisco 2901 as the termination point at my headquarters. Simple VPN configuration with everything coming back to my main site, even got a CCNP (he also has CCVP, CCIP,CCDP, CS-CIPCCES, Security+, A+) to configure them for me. I wasted two weeks of trying to get them working with the contractor before I got them working. The money I thought I was saving over buying an easy to configure Checkpoint was quickly lost on the contractor, not to mention the pain of working on them for two weeks.

Good PowerSupply

XIGMATEK MC NRP-MC651 650 W ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V Ver. 2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
XIGMATEK MC NRP-MC651 650 W ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V Ver. 2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: It has modular cabling, it looks nice, and it powers my computer. What else do you need.

Cons: Non that I've found

Overall Review: It is powering my system with E8400 Wolfdale on EVGA board and a 9800 NVidia graphics card just fine. When I was running a burn in test using passmark and really working the system it kept up on the power needs just fine.

Good Cooling

Sunbeam Silent Storm IC-SS-SVBK Black/Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Sunbeam Silent Storm IC-SS-SVBK Black/Silver Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Pros: Toolless drive bays work great. The three 120mm fans are nice and the noise level isn't very high on this case.

Cons: With high end graphics cards installed at the bottom of this case they don't get very much airflow so they are running slightly warm for me, will probably get a fan to fill in one of the pci slots to move more air. With the front as one solid door you are not going to want this sitting on carpet, because then it rests on the floor and rubs when you are opening it.

Overall Review: The front door probably won't matter much since most computers end up on a hard surface, but I know my computer for my theater setup is sitting on carpet, but the case has feet that pick it up off the ground.

Runs Great

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Core 2 Duo Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.0 GHz LGA 775 65W None Integrated Graphics Processor - BX80570E8400
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 - Core 2 Duo Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.0 GHz LGA 775 65W None Integrated Graphics Processor - BX80570E8400

Pros: Fast processor, survived my BurnIn test from PassMark for 30 minutes.

Cons: I will probably replace the fan and heatsink it came with before I start overcloaking it.

Overall Review: Installed on an EVGA board and it is running fine after my stress tests.