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kyle m.

kyle m.

Joined on 09/12/09

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 18
Most Favorable Review

Hands down the best budget power supply. I buy these regularly when they go on sale.

CORSAIR CX Series CX430 430W 80 PLUS BRONZE Active PFC ATX12V & EPS12V Power Supply
CORSAIR CX Series CX430 430W 80 PLUS BRONZE Active PFC ATX12V & EPS12V Power Supply

Pros: Price. Paid $16.00 after rebate. Never missed a rebate from corsair, online rebate makes it easy. Free shipping. Great PSU for budget builds.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Great price on a good budget PSU. I use these regularly for builds for friends/family. I have a 650 in my workstation now going on 5 years with no problems.

Most Critical Review

Great idea falls short on delivery

RAZER Anansi MMO Gaming Keyboard
RAZER Anansi MMO Gaming Keyboard

Pros: Extra thumpad keys below space bar, illuminated keys great for gaming at night, Macro keys

Cons: The only con on this keyboard for me is the fact that the keys are prone to sticking. It happens so intermitently but when it does you need to continue to hit the key to get it to unstick. Keys also feel a little "squishy" both probably a result of not being a mechanical keyboard.

Overall Review: Teamed up with a razer naga mouse this creates a powerful combo. The buttons below the space bar are a great idea as i have one keybound to alt, which gives me another 12 buttons on the naga for a total of 24 on the thumb pad. A little disapointed with the sticking and squishy feel of the keys i expected more for the price i paid. If they are able to fix these two things i think they have a great product. Both of these products Anansi & Naga have definately elevated my gameplay. Thumb buttons may seem minor but has easily added much much more control and ability when paired with the naga

11/17/2011

Good low cost board.

MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) AM3+ AMD 760G USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
MSI 760GMA-P34 (FX) AM3+ AMD 760G USB 3.0 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Price. Paid $36 with free shipping. Size needed Micro or Mini ITX for the case. Build went off without a hitch thats why my go to boards are always MSI. 20+ MSI builds under my belt with 0 problems.

Cons: None. More sata ports would have been nice, but knew that before I purchased.

Overall Review: My first computer was built on an MSI board (MSI 645E Max-U) and it still runs perfectly. Not much you can do with hardware that old, but has made me a loyal MSI customer. Bought this board to assemble a bunch of spare parts I had lying around into a web server. Works great running CentOS 7 as KVM virtual host.

Perfect size for Home network.

NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch, Desktop, Internet Splitter, Sturdy Metal, Fanless, Plug-and-Play (GS308)
NETGEAR 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Unmanaged Switch, Desktop, Internet Splitter, Sturdy Metal, Fanless, Plug-and-Play (GS308)

Pros: Price. Paid $17.99 with free shipping. No problems it just works

Cons: None

Overall Review: Expanding home network and moved away from using ISP provided WiFi router. Custom built Pfsense firewall, NAS, HTPC's, Workstations, power line adapters etc etc. Perfect size 8 ports think I have a couple to spare. Use this for my LAN where everything is wired. Have a separate subnet for WiFi traffic on PfSense using a Ubiquiti UAP-AC-LR for my AP.

Works great for an NFS NAS server on CentOS 7

ECS KBN-I/2100 (V1.1) AMD E1-2100 Dual Core processor AMD Kabini (SOC) Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo
ECS KBN-I/2100 (V1.1) AMD E1-2100 Dual Core processor AMD Kabini (SOC) Mini ITX Motherboard / CPU / VGA Combo

Pros: Price. Paid 17.99 after rebate, which came rather quickly. Very low energy consumption perfect for a file server. Completely silent as no fan is needed, would probably do alright as an HTPC also.

Cons: Bought this originally to build a pfsense firewall. For whatever reason pfsense did not want to boot on this hardware. Tried numerous times.

Overall Review: Built a computer for a family member with an ECS A785GM-AD3 "Black" edition MB 7 years ago and its been running everyday since. I've always had good luck with ECS so thought Id give this a chance. A couple days after I ordered this I found another combo deal with and MSI AM1 board + AMD Athlon 5150 for a ridiculously low price ($25) with the intent of rebuilding my file server on lower energy hardware. Since I couldn't get this board to boot PfSense I ended up using this hardware for the file server and MSI build for Pfsense. In the long run using this board & cpu for the file server was the right decision.

Great affordable chassis for home server + PfSense firewall

iStarUSA D-313SE-MATX Black Aluminum / Steel 3U Rackmount Compact Industrial Chassis - Black Bezel 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays
iStarUSA D-313SE-MATX Black Aluminum / Steel 3U Rackmount Compact Industrial Chassis - Black Bezel 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays

Pros: Price. Bought 3 paid $52 each with free shipping. Solid construction. Rebuilt my NAS and PfSense firewall with more energy efficient hardware decided it was time to go with server chassis. Very happy with my purchase. Screws and standoffs came with the cases as did zip ties for cord management. Build went together pretty easily with no problems other than those listed in cons. Its a very "clean" solution as I had desktop cases before. Looking to potentially move my workstations into similar cases.

Cons: Not really a con but you will need a longer screwdriver as you will need to remove the HDD cage to install Hard drives. They are close together so makes it hard to screw/unscrew them onto the case. I had an 8" ratcheting screwdriver so it was not a big deal. One case came with a faulty power switch, would not depress to turn on the machine. I sent it back (on their dime) and got a working unit back in a few days.

Overall Review: I bought 3 of these, very happy with my purchase. All low energy systems so didn't need to add any fans, but there is definitely room. Knowing what I know now I would definitely make the same decision again. If I decide to move my workstations into similar cases iStarUSA will be the first place I look.