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Troy C.

Troy C.

Joined on 12/26/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 15
Most Favorable Review

Great stuff! Non-conductive!

ZALMAN G100 500ml Cooling Liquid
ZALMAN G100 500ml Cooling Liquid

Pros: Its non-conductive! I was horrified when my CPU block blew an o-ring and leaked all over the top of my video card. The computer was on while this happened and never shorted out! (Heart attack aborted) Also, this stuff keeps for a very long time and evaporates slowly. I hardly ever have to add coolant to my system.

Cons: None. I am most pleased.

Overall Review: Distilled water is available at any grocery store. When mixed, one bottle of this coolant should make enough to fill all but the biggest systems.

Most Critical Review

Not robust at all

ASRock K7S41GX 462(A) SiS 741GX Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
ASRock K7S41GX 462(A) SiS 741GX Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Inexpensive, good features

Cons: Very cheap and fragile. The first one I recieved was DOA. Newegg RMA'd no problem at all. The second one I got probably worked but I grounded it ONCE and it fried. If your going to buy this board be very careful not to ESD or ground it.

Overall Review: Newegg's RMA service is the best I've encountered.

Foxconn SFF R50-D4 barebone

Foxconn SFF R50-D4 Intel NM10 Barebone
Foxconn SFF R50-D4 Intel NM10 Barebone

Pros: It works as well as I expected. It has plenty of power for basic stuff like web browsing, email, youtube, etc. Includes motherboard, processor, and power supply so all you really need to get it working is RAM and a hard drive, but I had those lying around anyway. The case is pretty solid and tiny too with a good card reader built onto the front. It also runs pretty cool for having such a tiny CPU fan/heatsink assembly and you can't hear the case fan unless you're right next to it. All in all, a good lightweight server or computer for Grandma.

Cons: Assembly is fiddly. Its good they include an illustrated step-by-step guide or I would have spent hours trying to figure out how to put it together. You actually have to remove the entire front bezel and pull out the drive tray. The cover for the cd-rom is useless. I cannot mount the cd-rom I have in it to work properly. The little plastic button on the front doesn't reach back far enough to contact the one on the cd-rom. If I try to mount it farther forward then I cannot get the bezel back on. The door covering it also gets stuck on the cd tray and prevents it from going back in unless you're holding it open.

Overall Review: I bought this to be a small footprint/low power server. Its got 2x SATA ports, a dual core processor, and gigabit ethernet which isn't bad. It also includes drivers for everything from Windows XP to 7. Any modern Linux distro should find all the hardware automatically. This is not meant to be an HTPC. It simply doesn't have enough power to play 1080p video smoothly, but that's not what I wanted it for. If you're wondering, all LEDs on the front are white. The power button is rather bright too. Its also got an odd looking "tribal" pattern underneath the cd-rom that lights up but serves no purpose.

Corsair Flash Voyager 16GB Flash Drive

CORSAIR Voyager 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive CMFVY3S-16GB
CORSAIR Voyager 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive CMFVY3S-16GB

Pros: Great flash drive! As fast as my external hard drive for copying data around. Plenty of space to transfer movies and such. The rubber casing is very tough and bouncy.

Cons: The rubber casing is a little too big and can crowd out the USB ports around it, but this isn't much of an issue for me.

Overall Review: Maybe a little more expensive than the cheapy ones but you get what you pay for with flash drives. I really wish I had a USB 3.0 port to use with this.

11/27/2011

Cheap Connectland Mouse

Connectland CL-MOU23008 5 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB 2.4 GHz Wireless Optical Mouse
Connectland CL-MOU23008 5 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB 2.4 GHz Wireless Optical Mouse

Pros: Absolutely great purchase! Its the size of a normal mouse, is comfortable to use, and its got a nice rubberized finish. Its got plenty of weight and doesn't feel like its going to break in my hand. The battery life is excellent, I'm still using the cheapo batteries it came with. The receiver for it is tiny which is nice if you're using it on a laptop because it doesn't stick out of the USB port more than a quarter inch. The range isn't bad either, it at least works up to fifteen feet away but I haven't tested it farther. Also, its cheap! Even if it doesn't last a year I would buy a second one to replace it for the price.

Cons: It uses two AAA batteries, would have been nice if it was rechargeable but that would have made it more expensive. The scroll wheel is also a bit stiff.

Overall Review: I've used wireless mice that were 5x the price of this one and not as good. Also, its not a con but you probably wouldn't want to use it for something like gaming because it doesn't have the response time of a higher quality mouse.

Kingston 4Gb CF card

Kingston 4GB  Compact Flash Memory Card (CF/4GB)
Kingston 4GB Compact Flash Memory Card (CF/4GB)

Pros: Its pretty fast for a flash memory card but more importantly, very inexpensive. I'm currently using it as the system disk on my M0n0wall router and its been working happily for a few weeks now.

Cons: None