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Justin W.

Justin W.

Joined on 06/15/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 14
Most Favorable Review

Great for the money

PLANTRONICS Explorer 320 Bluetooth  Headset
PLANTRONICS Explorer 320 Bluetooth Headset

Pros: Works great with my HP PDA phone. detected it from the start. Charge time is short. Volume is good. For me, its comfortable in the ear.

Cons: None thus far

Overall Review: Why spend more for the other big name M****rola. Plantronics is the industry standard when it comes to commercial headsets.

Most Critical Review

Bad design

SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DTL-i-O Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5500 ATX Dual Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series Server Motherboard
SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DTL-i-O Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5500 ATX Dual Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series Server Motherboard

Pros: Cost, dual Nehalem CPU support, ATX form factor, Supermicro tech support (every time I called, I was on the phone with a real life person within a minute, not only that, they dont spend 20 minutes with ret@rded, useless questions like your name, number, email, address; they get right to the point. I like that) Newegg customer service

Cons: 1st one was defective. When both CPU's where installed, it wouldn't post. SuperMicro support said it's bad and to RMA it. Got the second and and it worked for a couple days, then socket #1 went dead. SM said to update the bios which I did and it didin't help. RMA'd The northbridge chipset heatsink is useless as it would get up to 130-150 degrees idle (checked with a temp-gun). It does not do a good job at keeping the chipset cool and you can't put a fan on it because it would impede the ability to install any PCIx cards RAM slots are up against the the CPU heatsink when they are installed, and if you turn the heatsinks 90 degrees so the fans would push air parallel to the RAM, they would be blowing hot air on eachother (BXSTS100A heatsinks). It's an ATX form factor, but the location of some of the screw holes on this board are covered by the RAM slots and other things. You only get about 2/3 of the screw holes available. No IMPI LAN!! :(

Overall Review: I bought this board to run ESXi. ESXi installed just fine on this board, but without reliable dual CPU support, I am returning this board and going with an Extended-ATX SuperMicro board. Spending a little more money, but I think it'll be worth it and hopefully it'll work this time.

Great case

Fractal Design Arc Mini Black High Performance PC Computer Case w/ USB 3.0 and 3 Fractal Design Silent Fans
Fractal Design Arc Mini Black High Performance PC Computer Case w/ USB 3.0 and 3 Fractal Design Silent Fans

Pros: The construction of this case is fantastic. It's heavy and sturdy. I was shocked when I pulled it out of the box. I was skeptical buying a case from a company I wasn't familiar with but will be buying more of these. The hard drive trays are metal, not plastic and hold the drive very nicely. They also support 2.5 drives without any adapter. The hardware was nicely organized in packages The floppy drive bay can house a hard drive or a floppy drive. You pick 6 hard drive bays for a micro atx case? Unheard of. I decided to remove the top bay and utilize only the bottom 3 opening up airflow of the front fan Quiet. My stock 970 fan is louder. Also supports the quiet functions of the motherboard which help a lot The power supply mounting location is on the bottom and has a vent to allow for the PS hot air to be pushed out the bottom instead of through the case. Has a PCI slot fan speed control and the PCI slot is in a location that doesn't take up your PCI slots on the mobo. It's located in it's own little area. I hate it when you get those fan speed controls but end up taking up a PCI slot

Cons: No ESATA up front. Not really a fault of Fractal, but the USB3.0 ports up front are that of a header cable and I just so happen to buy a mobo without a USB3.0 header (ASUS Rampage III Gene LGA 1366)

Overall Review: I think I'll be buying these cases from now on

Awesome Card

HIS H585F1GDG Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity
HIS H585F1GDG Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity

Pros: Great card overall. I upgraded from my 7800GT which I have had over 6 years, but I couldn't play COD MW2 on it, so this was my upgrade. Running anywhere from 35-75FPS on highest settings. Runs fairly cool when the fan is cranked up, probably around 50-55c.

Cons: -Long, I am going to have a hard time fitting a second one on my board/case because of there my SATA ports are -Fan doesn't seem to adjust speeds on heavy load / high temps, so I have to set a manual fan speed every time I game to keep it from overheating -Could be a little cheaper.

Overall Review: Running on W7 64bit Asus P5Q3 Q8300 8GB 1333 Thermaltake V9 Case 550w PS Soon to have a second one of these cards in XFire

Awesome Case

SUPERMICRO CSE-743T-645B Black 4U Pedestal Chassis w/ 645W Power Supply 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays
SUPERMICRO CSE-743T-645B Black 4U Pedestal Chassis w/ 645W Power Supply 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays

Pros: Bought this to house my E-ATX SM board. Everything just "fits" as it should. For everyone who complains about the fan wires being too short, if you had a SM board which this case was designed for, you wouldn't have any issues. Very solid construction; hotswap backplane; air shourd; My Intel BXSTS100A fan/heatsink fits under the shourd; easy to retrieve any component in the case like the CD ROM drive without needing to take apart the entire case

Cons: Non-modular power supply; only a single 8 pin CPU power plug (had to use the 4 pin plug with an adapter to power both CPU's); no SATA power connectors or adapter plugs; SM offers the exhaust fans as options, they should be included.

Decent

TomTom 4.3" GPS Navigation with Live Services (3 Months Included)
TomTom 4.3" GPS Navigation with Live Services (3 Months Included)

Pros: Gobbles of features. It's a TomTom. I like the dial suction cup better than their older style suction cups, this holds better and it's easier to travel with because it folds up nicely

Cons: This is my 3rd TomTom now, and it requires more pressure to push buttons on the screen. The Live services are only a 3 month trial, then you need to pay. Wish TomTom still offered the 1yr current maps they used to offer.