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Al B.

Al B.

Joined on 12/07/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review

Pretty Good

RAIDMAX APEX ATX-802BP Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450W Power Supply
RAIDMAX APEX ATX-802BP Black SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450W Power Supply

Pros: 1. They arrived undamaged in reasonably solid packing. 2. Clean simple design. 3. Nice size fan. 4. Very quiet. 5. Roomy interior. 6. Included plenty of screws and even a small piezo "speaker" (unmounted - just hangs from the wires off the mb).

Cons: 1. Sides are kind of flimsy. 2. The paint used to finish the case makes fingerprints and smudges very obvious, so I find myself wiping the case down often. 3. The plastic front is made from extremely soft plastic and scratches if you even look at it wrong.

Overall Review: Overall, it's a good case for the money. I bought two of these to build a couple basic work machines and I'm going to get two more for a couple more machines I have planned.

Most Critical Review

HORRIBLE support

XFX GeForce 8400 GS 256MB DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Graphics Card PVT86SWHLG
XFX GeForce 8400 GS 256MB DDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Graphics Card PVT86SWHLG

Pros: it didn't catch on fire (yet)

Cons: CD contains badly outdated drivers (and none for win2k3) and they make you register and wait for confirmation activation email just to get current drivers. I will never buy anything by the manufacturer again. Totally clueless.

WORST. MOTHERBOARD. EVER.

ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 + SB 950 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 + SB 950 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: None.

Cons: fake CPU fan errors on boot annoying bios documentation for annoying bios nearly worthless WIN7 DRIVERS REFUSE TO INSTALL ON WIN2008R2 (basically same OS with a few flags set to enable different features)!!! Oh, and the kicker: their support page for this board is a freakin' blank page!

Overall Review: Run. Run as fast as you can away from this board.

No support for Win2003 or Win2008

ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Didn't catch on fire when turned on.

Cons: Doesn't support Win2003 or Win2008. Can't get OB video to support 1920x1200. Doesn't support X6 CPUs without bios update, which means you need a spare CPU in order to upgrade. Very finicky about memory chips. Alsmost sent back as DOA before swapping out the GSkill memory with ADATA and suddenly it worked. Poor build quality -- I just built three boxes. One with this board, one with a cheapo Biostar, and one with a Gigabyte (same price range as this board). This board is on par with the Biostar in terms of quality. The Gigabyte leaves this and the Biostar in the dust.

Overall Review: The only good thing I have to say about this board is that the support was good. I called and got straight through to a competent live person. But if the board didn't have issues, I wouldn't have needed to call, so can't really consider good support for a bad board a pro.

Piece of junk

Argosy HV676 TV HD MediaPlayer
Argosy HV676 TV HD MediaPlayer

Pros: Cheap.

Cons: Nearly useless.

Overall Review: Plays practically no formats and only accepts USB input, so cannot be connected to network.

Don't buy for X6

ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Don't know. Doesn't work.

Cons: No video. No piezo speaker included, so no way to debug. I assume my problem is that I have X6 CPU, but can't upgrade bios when I can't see anything.

Overall Review: Don't buy this for X6 unless you have a spare X4 of below sitting around to boot into to upgrade MB bios.