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mark r.

mark r.

Joined on 11/07/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Picture Great - Delay from sleep not so

LG 21.5" IPS FHD LCD Monitor IPS 14ms (GTG) 1920 x 1080 D-Sub, DVI, HDMI IPS224V-PN
LG 21.5" IPS FHD LCD Monitor IPS 14ms (GTG) 1920 x 1080 D-Sub, DVI, HDMI IPS224V-PN

Pros: Not a bad monitor for the price. I'd recommend it for the money, provided you can get over some of the relatively minor issues. HDMI nice to have for the money. HDMI Audio port an interesting option for some environments.

Cons: This monitor takes 2-3 times as long as my Samsung and Viewsonic displays to start from sleep. It is long enough to make you wonder if it is working (we are talking several seconds, not mins or anything) The Red power light is bright, you can turn it off, but then combined with the long-restart you would think the monitor was off. The stand wobbles easily (not a big problem, but might speak of build quality). Finally, I think they really cheaped out by not providing a DVI or a HDMI cable. I think they could keep their VGA cable at this point.

Most Critical Review

50% Dead On Arrival

CORSAIR ValueSelect 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model CMV16GX3M2A1333C9
CORSAIR ValueSelect 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model CMV16GX3M2A1333C9

Pros: Price was good if both DIMMS worked (which they didn't)

Cons: 1 of 2 DIMMS was DOA. Return shipping for RMA is $11, which you must prepay. Personally, I think it is pretty unacce3ptable to get a failed DIMM delivered and have to pay return postage.

Overall Review: Looks like another reviewer had similar experience. Maybe Corsair's quality control has gone down the drain.

Great Server, Be Careful of Drive Connectors

SUPERMICRO SYS-2027R-WRF 2U Rackmount Server Barebone Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 DDR3 1600/1333/1066/800
SUPERMICRO SYS-2027R-WRF 2U Rackmount Server Barebone Dual LGA 2011 Intel C602 DDR3 1600/1333/1066/800

Pros: As has been my experience, SuperMicro is fairly high quality considering the price. While not equivalent to a Dell, I built a box for $3k using this case that would have cost over $10k from Dell. Case is well designed with great air flow, although fans are loud. Redundant power supplies, and dual gigabit nics are great. Happy to see that the riser card was included. Cable routing was well thought out and does not interfere with air cooling. Comes with CPU heatsinks that fit nicely in the case. Lots of RAM slots on the motherboard, and it doesn't feel crowded. RAILS were not of poor quality like the old supermicros were. Great for SSD drives.

Cons: First, and foremost, it was not clear that the case comes with only SFF8087 connectors for the drive backplane. There is no way to circumvent this, so you must purchase a reverse breakout cable to use with the motherboard, or purchase RAID cards that support SFF8087. NOTE: Not all cards use the same SFF8087 connector. I mistakenly purchased a card with a SFF8643 connector which needs yet its own adapter cable. It would be nice if SuperMicro at least included one such cable (SFF-8087 to SATA Reverse) for use with the motherboard SATA. The manual could use a lot of improvement, and doesn't exactly match the case or the motherboard. Does not include a CDROM/DVDROM. I wish it included a USB port and monitor port on the front of the case.

Overall Review: The cable needed to connect to the motherboard is at newegg: NORCO C-SFF8087-4S Discrete to SFF-8087 (Reverse breakout) Cable

Cannot beat for money

Synology DS212J Diskless System DiskStation Budget-friendly 2-bay NAS Server for Small Office and Home Use
Synology DS212J Diskless System DiskStation Budget-friendly 2-bay NAS Server for Small Office and Home Use

Pros: Amazing Features for the money. SMB,NFS,FTP support. It is a mini-linux box rather than just a NAS.

Cons: Initial configuration assumes you have Internet/Active X access. I'd prefer just to be provided with the default IP address and configure it directly rather than going to a vendor site.

Overall Review: This has more features than my $2,500 NAS by NetGear. The NetGear is much better professional-grade build quality (rackmount, etc), but for home use, this is really a pretty powerful simple RAID-1 NAS.

Simply Incredible

EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Video Card 02G-P4-2680-KR
EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 SLI Support Video Card 02G-P4-2680-KR

Pros: Unbelievable fast card with max setting on numerous 3d games

Cons: Price Card is fairly large (for an ITX case) but fits

Overall Review: nuff said, it is pricey, but you won't be dissapointed