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Paul A.

Paul A.

Joined on 04/28/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

So far a stable fast champ

EVGA E758-A1 3-Way SLI (x16/x16/x8) LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
EVGA E758-A1 3-Way SLI (x16/x16/x8) LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Well laid out had just the slots in the configuration I needed. Fit very nicely in Lian-Li P80. Running 920 at 4.2Ghz with recommended OC tutorial and 6GB of Dominator DDR3 1600 mem/ x21 multiplier /QPI 200. EXCELLENT overclocker so far no BIOS issues whatsoever, Vista U/64, havent tried any higher speeds with Monsoon III LT, my temps are a bit higher than old C2Q, OC'ed. but that is H2O cooled.

Cons: None really, I just need to work on lowering temps although it doesn't seem to be effecting the performance in any way but more for my piece of mind

Overall Review: I will work to slowly lower from the recommended OC CPU voltages and start to drop them down and see how that effects temps. I still haven't decided on my video cards and running on a single 8800GTX from my old SLI rig.

Most Critical Review

Defective

THRUSTMASTER RGT FFB CLUTCH
THRUSTMASTER RGT FFB CLUTCH

Pros: The wheel has good feel and FFB is strong but only on some games with correct driver installed (from disk date 2009). The clamp holds pretty good so far and hasn't moved as some report but I have solid desk.

Cons: The drivers are minimal and technical or web support is practically non-existent. The driver settings as well as windows calibration without the driver indicate that only the brake input and wheel controls are progressive, meaning it slides up and down in up and down values or left to right. the gas pedal acceleration function is either on or off, no progression. So you either have full gas or none. Not that noticeable with some cars with low power but with high power autos throttle control is disastrous. The pedal pod slides around, this is true and the paddle shifters are creaky and cheap flimsy plastic not inspiring confidence they will last.

Overall Review: I am sending this back. I will give Thrustmaster another chance but I do not have high hopes judging by their website they do not want to be contacted.

No prob in Alienware m17x R3

Team 16GB (2 x 8GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 Laptop Memory Model TSD316G1600C11DC-E
Team 16GB (2 x 8GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 Laptop Memory Model TSD316G1600C11DC-E

Pros: Price, the least costly DDR3 1600 mem at the time I bought. It's CAS11 but I checked factory memory and it was CAS11 also. No problems so far with anything, can't tell any difference in performance of apps other then now I have 20GB instead of just 8GB. The laptop came with 4 - 2GB sticks. Comes with factory profiles that show a little headroom for OC but I don't plan to OC.

Cons: Not cheaper or tighter CAS settings would have been nice.

Overall Review: I don't care about super expensive low latency modules because all tests I have ever seen when overclocking memory never yields more than a few seconds off any given synthetic tests which mean nothing for real world performance. You are better spending on faster CPU or GPU then faster mem. which is why I bought the fastest CPU and GPU available for my m17x.

11/26/2012

Gets extemely HOT

Hauppauge 1195 WinTV-HVR-1500 Notebook Express Card
Hauppauge 1195 WinTV-HVR-1500 Notebook Express Card

Pros: Works as advertised. I use it in conjunction with an Alienware M15x R1 laptop that has 9800GTX video option and Windows 7 Enterprise Windows Media. It works fantastically with Windows Media no drivers and channel quality is good overall.

Cons: The major problem is the card gets way to hot on its own and sits close to the video card which is warm as is. This drives the thermal temp of the video card to around 70C causing the fan to kick up to prevent damage making it noisy. Without the card the GPU video stays around 63 and fan speed is normal. The card creates much heat even when not being used and undoubtably is also drawing lots of power through the Express bus. It also has trouble tuning some over the air channels and sticks out to far from the laptop in my opinion.

Overall Review: Does the job but could possible burn out or destroy your other components if you do not keep an eye on it.

Large Capacity but kind of chunky

Patriot Xporter Magnum 64GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) PEF64GMNUSB
Patriot Xporter Magnum 64GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) PEF64GMNUSB

Pros: Large Capacity, no problems formatting NTFS, easily recognized by all workstations, aluminum casing.

Cons: Its wider than average by about 50% of standard thumbdrive. This is not necessarily a bad thing just something to keep in mind. It is much slower than expected. Write speeds are about average and read speeds are very slow. I tried testing by booting to VM's from the device and it was like watching paint dry.

Overall Review: The cap easily falls off in your pocket and will be the first thing to disappear making the usb plug susceptible to damage. I modded mine with a military grade metal lanyard that keeps the cap from being lost even if it falls of. I posted a video to youtube on how to do this. Do a search for 64GB and Magnum and it will show up

Newegg needs to quit selling all Seagate drives

Seagate BarraCuda 7200.11 ST31000333AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate BarraCuda 7200.11 ST31000333AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: they work fine for the short time they work

Cons: My drives where the firmware SD17 which were supposed to not be effected by the shut down "brick" syndrome. Nope, it doesn't matter folks, SD15, 14, whatever, sooner or later, most likely sooner your drives will will quit and you will lose 1TB of Data. Is that what you want in your drive?

Overall Review: Seagate is no help and has refused to help countless people stricken with this fault across several models. Your data is most likely still there but the firmware is "stuck" and you have no way of getting it. There only solution so far is we will replace the drive and thats if you can get of hold of them. THey don't respond to emails or online service requests.