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Decklin F.

Decklin F.

Joined on 11/23/06

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 15
Most Favorable Review

OK for Linux HTPC

GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4350 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Low Profile Ready Graphics Card GV-R435OC-512I
GIGABYTE Radeon HD 4350 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Low Profile Ready Graphics Card GV-R435OC-512I

Pros: Open source driver (radeonhd) in Linux works great as long as you have an up to date kernel and Xorg. Movies look wonderful at 1080p on an HDMI TV.

Cons: Fan is tiny and therefore louder than either my stock case fan or stock CPU fan at idle speed. Not enough to disturb movie watching, though. HDMI connector is closer than I expected to the top of the low profile bracket; if your cable has a bulky connector, you may find it a tight fit.

Overall Review: Got me to upgrade my Debian stable box to testing. The only "3D" game I play is Stepmania, so I cannot speak to performance in that area other than that it is adequate to move a bunch of arrows up the screen. Have not tried to get audio going through HDMI yet, but it does show up as a sound card in lspci.

Most Critical Review
inland u-Touch 70113 Black 17 Normal Keys USB Numeric Keypad
inland u-Touch 70113 Black 17 Normal Keys USB Numeric Keypad

Pros: It makes numbers. I like numbers. Do you like numbers? And yes, it's just a USB HID keyboard, plug it in to Linux and it works.

Cons: Feels cheap, but then so do all membrane keyboards. Awkward casing and light plastic.

Overall Review: Why don't these things have pluggable USB cords? I don't need 6 feet.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 - Core 2 Duo Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.16 GHz LGA 775 65W Processor - BX80570E8500
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 - Core 2 Duo Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.16 GHz LGA 775 65W Processor - BX80570E8500

Pros: It's fast. Just used the included heatsink/fan, which is plenty quiet. idles at 37, gets up to about 68 when encoding video on both cores.

Cons: I guess the stock cooler could be better. I just didn't feel like tweaking if it was adequate for my usage.

Overall Review: On linux, cpufreq says it supports two speeds: 2834000 and 2000000. In powertop I only see C0 and C1 for C-states. I'm not sure if there's a way to squeeze more energy savings out of it.

hec Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC 7K09 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case with 270W FLEX Power Supply
hec Black 0.7mm Thickness SECC 7K09 Micro ATX Media Center / HTPC Case with 270W FLEX Power Supply

Pros: As another review said, it really does look better in person. Nice and understated. Does not feel plastic-y. Included 80mm case fan is barely audible. Quiet enough for a HTPC. No doors on the front getting in the way of the USB ports or optical drive.

Cons: 3.5" bays are slightly cramped -- I had an external memory card reader lying around, but I decided not to bother. Make sure you have a short optical drive so that it doesn't try to occupy the same space as your heatsink.

Overall Review: I wish they would stop putting molex connectors on cheap power supplies. I've been building SATA-only systems since 2006. You may find yourself motivated to take sandpaper and/or rubbing alcohol to any logos on the front of your optical drive.

Kingston ValueRAM 2GB Unbuffered DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3N9/2G
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB Unbuffered DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model KVR1333D3N9/2G

Pros: It's RAM, and it works, which is all I'm looking for. System has been rock solid for about a month now.

Cons: None.

Worthless for Mac and Linux

TRENDnet TEW-637AP Wireless Easy-N-Upgrader 802.11b/g/n and 802.11e up to 300 Mbps
TRENDnet TEW-637AP Wireless Easy-N-Upgrader 802.11b/g/n and 802.11e up to 300 Mbps

Pros: None.

Cons: Completely useless. The only way to install it is to run a Windows program on the included CD. Come out of the box with an illegal MAC address (presumably for that program to find it.) Did not respond, even to pings, on either the address my DHCP server gave it or the the default IPs on either the PDF manual or the manufacturer website.

Overall Review: I will never buy a TrendNet product again. This is a slap in the face to Mac and Linux users. I wish I could give zero stars.