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Lee E.

Lee E.

Joined on 10/10/01

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 16
Most Favorable Review

2 month in and doing what it should

EnGenius EAP350 N300 High-Power Wireless Gigabit Indoor Access Point/WDS/Repeater
EnGenius EAP350 N300 High-Power Wireless Gigabit Indoor Access Point/WDS/Repeater

Pros: Strong signal. Not a single hiccup in 2 months. Despite what other have said, I like the no non-sense interface.

Cons: not really a con, but you have to remember that as you change things in the interface, you have to commit them...not a big deal. Just something to get used to. I think I actually like this better than immediate changes - helps with the "shoot - didn't mean to do that" issues I sometimes have.

Overall Review: I took a really long time deciding on what to replace my old WAP54g. It served me well for years and finally started needing to be rebooted every month or so. A replacement was in order and first tried an ECB9500 and was not impressed. But, wasn't ready to call it quits on EnGenius...and I'm glad I didn't. This is a home application where we have a couple smartphones, a tablet and a wireless wdtv. I like how much faster our phones establish a connection and certainly the distance is a plus - even though the WAP54G was pretty good...this is definitely better. Streaming Netflix to the wdtv via wireless isn't much different than wired for me. I had plans to use the PoE and run it up to the main level, but I actually have it laying on it's back pointing up from the basement (about 5 feet above the concrete floor) and it easily covers the basement and the other two floors above. And it works further out in my yard than my previous wap. Was just about to pick up one of these for a client and realized I hadn't shared my thoughts from the original purchase. Now I have.

Most Critical Review

eh. ok. pricy as pure AP

EnGenius ECB9500 Wireless Access Point / Bridge / Repeater / Router with Gigabit & 802.3af PoE
EnGenius ECB9500 Wireless Access Point / Bridge / Repeater / Router with Gigabit & 802.3af PoE

Pros: VLAN tagging per SSID Simple web interface Played with it a lot in the few days I had it and it was solid - nothing strange happened. Can see client strength 0-100% from web interface - nice touch.

Cons: Signal strength is no better than my old wap54g which I was looking to replace. Even with all of the new bells and whistles it wasn't worth the upgrade, so I am returning it.

Overall Review: This was the first experience with EnGenius. The device and web UI felt solid. I may go with one of their longer range devices and see how that goes. As a pure AP, this device is too expensive. If you need another mode, that may be a different story. I see folks complaining about documentation. It's adequate enough. Not overly verbose, there is an expected level of user knowledge. If you are messing around with settings and don't know what it's for, leave it as the default or look for more details on bing or something.

ASUS VS Series VS247H-P 24" (Actual size 23.6") Full HD 1920 x 1080 60Hz HDMI VGA DVI-D SPLENDID Modes Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor
ASUS VS Series VS247H-P 24" (Actual size 23.6") Full HD 1920 x 1080 60Hz HDMI VGA DVI-D SPLENDID Modes Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor

Pros: LED, HDMI, 100x100 vesa, very decent picture, no dead pixels, good price with instant rebate.

Cons: If I paid more for this monitor these cons would probably remove a star or two. The stand is weak, but I'm mounting on an arm, so nbd for me. Menu navigation is a test of will - but I've yet to find a flat panel monitor that isn't - and once I get it adjusted, I don't use the menu much after that. 31 languages all next to each other in the quick start guide - which is a bit absurd. I usually don't look at these, but some of the menu options needed a little explanation and I had a good laugh. Never did find what I was looking for, resorted to the web.

Overall Review: Spent a couple days with the first and decided to buy a second. I've bought plenty of Asus motherboards and some notebooks in the past, but never a monitor. On the rare occasion I had a problem, their support is decent enough. From low power state it takes about 4 seconds to display. From off, it takes about 6 - which includes the Asus logo for some of that time.

Good first SSD

Intel 320 Series 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDSA2CT040G3K5
Intel 320 Series 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDSA2CT040G3K5

Pros: Packaged well and comes with everything you'd need to get it working. Came with latest firmware. Shows Ave Read of 210.1 MB/s on an Intel ICH9R sata controller using HDTach. And a random access time of 0.1ms. Good warranty.

Cons: None

Overall Review: I first ran the SSD on a jmicron controller and it only gave me ~125 MB/s. Plus SSDToolbox didn't have all of the options available (optimizer) until I moved the SSD to the Intel controller. Not sure what that means for other controllers or if that's even important to you. The optimizer is your defrag replacement since you aren't suppose to defrag SSDs. I bought this 40GB model to use as my smart response SSD when I get my Z68 board in another week or so. Since it was my first SSD, I needed to kick the tires as a simple drive before using it for caching purposes. With the HDD drive prices spiked due to the floods in Thailand (prayers to them), I will be getting a 320 80GB as the OS drive for another system. I suspect others are making similar decisions right now.

11/18/2011

No problems. good value.

LITE-ON Black 4X BD-ROM 12X DVD-ROM 32X CD-ROM SATA Internal 4X Blu-ray DVD ROM Model DH-4O1S-08
LITE-ON Black 4X BD-ROM 12X DVD-ROM 32X CD-ROM SATA Internal 4X Blu-ray DVD ROM Model DH-4O1S-08

Pros: Worked without a hitch right out of the shute.

Cons: None

Overall Review: This was my first experience with BD-ROM. Needed the upgrade for my HTPC. Any issues I had were more to do with understanding the limitations of software BD players and my sound card, and getting that all to work with my pre-amp. The PowerDVD software is just 2 channel, but if you are good with google, there is actually a way to enable it for 6 channel (hint: LG patch) I recently updated the firmware when I was having a problem reading a BD movie. The movie would stop about 7 minutes in. Couldn't rip the movie either, so I updated the firmware to see if it would help. It didn't...it was just a bad disc. So far I've ran into 2 bad BD movies out of 14 that I've rented. Just be aware of this before blaming the drive.

No complaints, does the job.

BFG Tech GS-550 550 W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V V2.8 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply
BFG Tech GS-550 550 W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V V2.8 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Power Supply

Pros: Good all around value PSU. Good price, power, effeciency, low noise.

Cons: None

Overall Review: I like BFG Tech. I like their video cards and have never been disappointed with them in the past. I've been using this GS-550 in my HTPC for a month to replace a dead PSU from a much bigger company (who I've lost faith in...starts with an "a"). The HTPC has 6 HDDs, 4 fans, tuners, discrete audio, nVidia 8600GTS, E6600 cpu, BD-ROM....plenty of power to run it all and stays pretty cool.