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Julie C.

Julie C.

Joined on 04/30/10

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 17
Most Favorable Review

excellent

SeaSonic Platinum Series SS-400FL2 Active PFC F3 400W ATX12V Fanless 80 PLUS Platinum Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready
SeaSonic Platinum Series SS-400FL2 Active PFC F3 400W ATX12V Fanless 80 PLUS Platinum Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply New 4th Gen CPU Certified Haswell Ready

Pros: fully modular, no lines are forced on the user by the manufacturer, did not advertise overrated wattage, did not skimp on parts (I was unlucky and was missing one of the minor cables which they promptly replaced for me at no additional cost) Only practical 400w PSU I could find with 5yr warranty on the market at time of purchase.

Cons: The extra 4 pins on the main motherboard connector(20pin +4pin) is near impossible to separate and even once separated the unbound potion of the cable is too short and inflexible for the 4pin to be put out of the way (constantly pushing against a capacitor next to the connection on my mother board). Similarly the extra 4 pins on the cpu connector (4pin +4pin) was not flexible/long enough to be tucked out of the way so as to not touch the motherboard. Location of the power cord interface is not ideal, wrong side on my case unless I flip the psu upsidedown, which the manual specifically says not to do. So I guess this unit was designed for bottom mount case or top mount with open top (btw, I never understood the logic of open top cases, seems like an opening for debris to enter the computer and unnecessary risk from spilled coffee to land on psu and fry the computer, yes, my coworker has accidentally spilled their drink before and it overflowed enough to drip onto both computers)

Overall Review: psu’s interface with modular cables only allows you to connect 3 of the 4 SATA/molex cables (not that you should need all 4). The 2 floppy connections is optional at the expense of one of the 5 molex connection(most people will not need these anyways). No switch between 115v and 230v(most people don’t need it anyway unless you plan on taking your computer through TSA to Europe, the switch usually just adds confusion to inexperienced buyers anyways) The line with the 2 molex connectors and the line with the 2 SATA connectors were barely long enough for the longest connection to reach the closest item in my case so the shorter connection on those lines may be useless in many cases. The other lines had plenty of give to reach their targets. Warm to touch but cooler than other PSUs I’ve encountered DOA PSUs from reputable companies like antec and corsair but none so far from seasonic. Athena lasted 10 years and still working Antec, Thermaltake, Rosewill all still working after

12/23/2010
Most Critical Review

junk

StarTech.com MXT101MM15 15 ft. VGA Monitor Cable - HD15 M/M
StarTech.com MXT101MM15 15 ft. VGA Monitor Cable - HD15 M/M

Pros: length

Cons: no shielding whatsoever, causes double/ghost image definitely not worth the price

Overall Review: cmple sells better cable and for much cheaper as well

20% DOA

Link Depot CA6S-7-BUB 7 ft. Cat 6A Blue Shielded STP Style Molded Network Ethernet Cables
Link Depot CA6S-7-BUB 7 ft. Cat 6A Blue Shielded STP Style Molded Network Ethernet Cables

Pros: stiff plastic, tip does not easily break like the ones from (m o n o p r i c e) reasonable price cat6

Cons: stiff plastic hard to unplug 20% of our order was DOA (most link depot orders only have 0-2 bad ones but this order was the exception)

Overall Review: we ordered these in bulk and more than we really needed to plan ahead for future expansion, as we got around to putting each one to use over the years we found that roughly 20% of our order was bad (no connectivity at all) Link Depot needs to do better in terms of quality check(all was in sealed plastic bag untampered) however this was the only order that had such a high fail rate, we also order many other Link Depot cat6 cables of other lengths at the same time and those only had 0-2 bad ones in the whole order which is normal for any brand.

works and more reliable than other nvidia cards

SPARKLE GeForce FX 5200 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Graphics Card SF8834DT256MB
SPARKLE GeForce FX 5200 256MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Graphics Card SF8834DT256MB

Pros: VGA: works reliable (have not burnt out yet despite not having a fan, had 2 other cards with fan burn out on me) 1920 × 1080 compatible no stuttering at high resolution (but runs kinda hot)

Cons: S-vid 4pin: max resolution is 1050 but video is curved at edges with no software options to correct for this no way to adjust margins independently can only move picture in 4 directions or shrink/enlarge

Overall Review: quality product cheap

only VGA port works

Dell UltraSharp U2312HM IPS-Panel Black 23" 8ms Swivel & Height Adjustable Widescreen LCD Monitor with LED 300 cd/m2 2 Million:1 DCR (1000:1)
Dell UltraSharp U2312HM IPS-Panel Black 23" 8ms Swivel & Height Adjustable Widescreen LCD Monitor with LED 300 cd/m2 2 Million:1 DCR (1000:1)

Pros: good viewing angle no dead pixels VGA works matte finish (no glare) swivel works has USB ports plug and play

Cons: no power switch at back (must unplug power cord and replug power cord) power button does not work (sticks, requires mashing or multiple presses, other buttons work fine though) height is not quit high enough still has to put a phone book under it on standard desks height locking mechanism is not that reliable, sometimes monitor slides down on its own useless tilt (it sags to a tilted position requiring frequent restraightening out the monitor when in horizontal mode, vertical mode is stable though) DVI max resolution is 1366x768 only... not true LED (LED backlighting) expensive (can get better more functional monitor for this price...) DVI port is glitchy (sometimes has to choose DVI input instead of auto detect to get it to display) giltichy when switching between VGA and DVI port to same computer USB ports leaves multiple instances of phantom hubs in computer management USB ports sometime does not recognize USB devices (most likely the power supply of the monitor is not supplying enough power to the ports since the devices work fine if plugged into the computer directly) Dell has horrible customer service

Overall Review: VGA: fully functional same as reported specs (ex: 1920 × 1080) DVI: max resolution is 768 anything larger and it goes off screen (auto adjust grayed out) does not play well with my nvidia control panel changing setting sometimes auto resets to 640×480 or changes does not apply or save at all (other monitors on same computer and same graphics card does not have this problem) DVI with 16:9 aspect ratio gives black bars at top and bottom while the horizontally it goes off screen USB2.0 ports not 3.0

not durable

CyberPower CPS1500AVR Smart App LCD UPS Systems - 1500VA/900W, 120 VAC, NEMA 5-15P, Rack / Tower, 8 Outlets, PowerPanel
CyberPower CPS1500AVR Smart App LCD UPS Systems - 1500VA/900W, 120 VAC, NEMA 5-15P, Rack / Tower, 8 Outlets, PowerPanel

Pros: not DOA worked ok for about a year (environment: frequent power outs for a few sec to a few minuets, maybe two major power outs lasting several hours)

Cons: after one year of use the battery no longer charges (only one light on bar/meter at all times) and the fan revs up randomly even though room temp is low (quite noisy) heavy (most batteries are heavy) expensive

Overall Review: other brand is older but is still working without problems...

10/10/2012