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Drew S.

Drew S.

Joined on 06/03/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

keeps the CPU cool

Cooler Master Seidon 120V - Compact All-In-One CPU Liquid Water Cooling System with 120mm Radiator and Fan
Cooler Master Seidon 120V - Compact All-In-One CPU Liquid Water Cooling System with 120mm Radiator and Fan

Pros: This CPU cooler does a great job at keeping the CPU cool. I have a very small case and even when blowing in fresh air directly to the stock CPU cooler, I was getting temps in the 80s-90s when playing games or transcoding videos. After switching to this cooler, my temps are now in the low 30s at idle and mid 50s at load (Celcius). No worries about over-heating CPUs anymore. Another Pro about this cooler is the reason I got it instead of just getting another Cooler Master 212. I didn't have enough room in my tiny case to fit a big tall air cooler, but this thing was able to fit just fine, with room to spare. Unexpected Pro #3: There is a little blue light that indicates if the pump is on. This is a simple thing, but it helped me figure out a problem I had. Last week, I suddenly noticed that my temps were skyrocketing and, as I looked in the case, I saw that the light was not on, so I knew the pump was not running. I was able to quickly identify the problem because of that simple power indicator light. My fan header to molex adapter had a short in it so the pump wasn't getting power. If it wasn't for the little blue light that indicates power to the pump, it probably would have taken a lot longer to track down the problem.

Cons: I took off one egg for the noise level of this cooler. I am being super picky here, but this thing is not silent. Most people I heard complain about this cooler talk about fan noise, but nobody talks about the sound that the pump makes. There is a distinct tone that comes from the pump. It is a quiet tone that I only hear when the house is quiet and the fans are not spun up, but it would be noticeable if you were watching a quiet movie. Most of the time I don't notice it at all because there is ambient noise in the house, or I am playing games and the computer's fans are all spun up. The noise is not the noise of air bubbles in the pump or anything like that, just a quiet tone. I thought it might be comming from the blademaster fan that came with it, so I put a different fan that I know is quiet on there and the tone didn't go away, so I'm pretty sure it is comming from the pump. (The blademaster fan is just fine, its not one of those ultra quiet fans, but it's not one of those hair-dryer loud fans either.) When the GPU or PSU fans are working it drowns out the quiet tone comming from the pump, so most of the time I can't even hear it. I think most people probably won't care, but those who must have a silent computer will definitely notice. If I could I would probably only take off half of an egg instead of a whole egg. The instructions that tell you how to install it are terrible, it's not even as clear as an Ikea furniture instruction booklet. Luckily, they made it in such a way that you can't mess it up too easily. It would have been nice if the instructions were more clear about how power can/should be connected the the pump and fan. The fan and radiator mounting screws didn't leave you with any alternative mounting orientations. It basically only lets you mount it so that the fan blows air out of the case through the radiator. Also, your case wall had better be thin because there is not much room to spare on those screws. I did not want to use it as an exhaust, so I had to go to the hardware store and buy some screws that I cut to the right length so I could mount the fan as an intake to blow fresh air from the outside through the radiator. All of these cons are pretty minor. I only take off one egg for the combination of all of them.

Overall Review: Overall I am pleased with this CPU cooler. I have not tried overclocking yet. All of my results came from using it with core i7 4770K at stock speeds. GA-Z87N-wifi mini-ITX mobo crucial ballistix sport very low profile 8GB x2 @1600 ncase M1 mini-ITX computer case silverstone 450W SFX modular PSU MSI GTX 770 (reference style card)

Most Critical Review

This printer's wifi doesn't play nice

Brother DCP-L2540DW Duplex 2400 x 600 DPI USB/Wireless/Ethernet Monochrome Laser MFC Printer
Brother DCP-L2540DW Duplex 2400 x 600 DPI USB/Wireless/Ethernet Monochrome Laser MFC Printer

Pros: makes nice prints prints fast

Cons: I have to re-enter the wifi name and password every time I have to use it. The input method us super annoying and it takes forever to cycle all the way through to the letter or number you need. I have not been able to get air print to work at all. I haven't been able to print from my phone at all Edit: I have since given up on it's wifi abilities and just plugged it in to my router with an ethernet cable. Now that it is hard wired to the router, I can finally print from my phone, and the computers don't have any problems finding the printer anymore. I put another egg back on because it is at least working now. I'm not sure why I had so many problems when it was on wifi.

Overall Review: Why don't they make printers so that they can just hold a whole ream of paper? We all have to buy paper by the ream, why can't they just make the printers hold that much?

10/17/2016

great ssd

Toshiba OCZ TRION 150 2.5" 480GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) TRN150-25SAT3-480G
Toshiba OCZ TRION 150 2.5" 480GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) TRN150-25SAT3-480G

Pros: I got this on a great deal and put it in my wife's 6 year old macbook pro. Now she feels like she got a new computer. That beats dropping $2000+ on a new apple!

Cons: none so far.

Overall Review: Switching from an hdd to an sdd is always going to make the ssd seem like it is the most amazing technology ever made :)

10/17/2016

great card

MSI N770-2GD5/OC G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 770 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
MSI N770-2GD5/OC G-SYNC Support GeForce GTX 770 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: Amazing card. Completely overkill for the game I usually play (WoW) but you never know when you are going to play something else that may need a little more power right? I have heard a lot of people complain about the noise of "blower" style cards, but this thing is waaaay quieter than the old Galaxy GTX 460 (non blower) that it replaced. I don't hear it at all because if it gets hot enough to spin it's impeller up, then the other fans in my case are already making even more noise. I have a tiny case (ncase M1) but this card is able to keep itself within normal operating temps even though my case is so small. It's just barely keeping up (mid to upper 70s), so I think I will eventually switch to a full cover water block sometime. I think that it's running hot because there is just no room in my case for the heat to dissapate. Speaking of full cover waterblocks...I have read online that this card uses the reference PCB design, so finding a full cover waterblock should be pretty easy. This is definitely another important "Pro" for many people. The Price! I got it when it went on sale for $299! and it came with a game. (I'm not interested in that game, but maybe I can sell it to someone who is)

Cons: It is operating pretty close to it's maximum temps, but I am not taking off an egg because I think it would be much cooler in a normal case with standard air flow. (my case is really small and does not have standard airflow)

Terrible service from Razer

Razer Kraken Pro Over Ear PC Gaming and Music Headset- Green
Razer Kraken Pro Over Ear PC Gaming and Music Headset- Green

Pros: Good bass response. Soft ear cups. Good voice reproduction from mic. Mic can be stashed inside earcup.

Cons: Too heavy, hadband padding is not very soft. mic cannot be swiveled up out of the way, does not work in front audio jacks on some computers. Razer customer support is slow and they use a 3rd party company to handle returns. They make you pay for return shipping even though the product was defective on arrival.

Overall Review: I bought this pair of headphones from woot. Big mistake. Woot will not provide any customer service and instead just refer you to the manufacturer. If I had ordered it from Newegg, I would probably already have a working replacement. The headphones were supposed to be factory refurbished, but I guess Razer's idea of refurbishing is just sticking it in a generic cardboard box and shipping it out without trying to fix it first. When it arrived I found teeth marks on the plug! Also there was some stuff on the mic that looked like ear-wax! On the extension cord there was some mysterious white residue. Not only did they not repair the defective/damaged portions of these headphones during the "refurbishing" process, they didn't even clean them! After 2 weeks of sending emails back and forth to Razer "support," they determined that the headphones might need to be replaced and they referred my case to the RMA department. A full 2 weeks later, after sending another email asking what is taking so long, the "RMA department" (some external company to Razer that Razer has hired to deal with returns) finally contacted me and asked me to send them the email chain with "Razer support" and a copy of the proof of purchase. Now they expect me to pay to ship the headset back. It has been about 6 weeks since I ordered these headphones and I still don't have a working set. Razer is probably going to post some comment saying they want to fix this problem. I'll let you know if they actually do anything to fix it. As far as the heaphones go, the sound is okay, if you like club music. The bass on them is very good. The treble is very mushy, so bad that I wouldn't like them even if they weren't broken. Sound leaks out a lot with these headphones, so you will annoy people near you unless you keep the volume very low. It is okay at isolating the sound from outside sounds, so if you have the volume turned up, you probably won't hear anything else. The mic is good. Mine was broken, so it would only work if you bent the mic boom just right. but when it worked it worked well. The people I talked to said they could hear me loud and very clear. Many people say that these headphones are so comfortable you will forget that you are wearing them, even after long gaming sessions. I did not find this to be true. They are heavier that other headphones and the padding on the headband isn't that soft, so the top of your head starts to hurt after a couple hours. The ear-cups are nice and soft and give your ears a lot of space, but my ears stick out a little too far so they also got tired after a few hours. I suspect that many people won't have problems with the ear-cups. These heaphones don't work in the front headphone/mic jacks on all computers. I tested them on 2 computers. They worked on 1 but not the other. (the mic didn't work, but headphones were fine in both) I tested another headset in both computers and the other headset worked fine (sound and mic) in bot

10/15/2013

good looking case

nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum / Acrylic / Steel HTPC 6000B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case
nMEDIAPC Black Aluminum / Acrylic / Steel HTPC 6000B ATX Media Center / HTPC Case

Pros: Looks great, blends in with my home theater setup. Most people don't even know it is a PC. Nice and quiet fans vent directly adjacent to CPU so you can vent outside air directly to the CPU cooler great price lots of front panel connectors room for many hard drives

Cons: The drive bays are a pain to work with. You have to rotate the whole drive cage out to get access, which is a tricky process because of how close it is to the Power Supply, and any long graphics cards. It has 2 fan holes in the back, but it only came with 1 fan to put there. HDD light is so dim you can't see it.

Overall Review: It's an HTPC case, you buy it to look pretty and that is what it does. Once you get it built you will like it because it looks good. While you are building it you will curse it for its cramped space and cheap feel. When it is built, you will be glad it isn't any bigger. (it barely fits on the TV stand shelf)

11/20/2010