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William Z.

William Z.

Joined on 06/01/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 12
Most Favorable Review

Great Camera, Built to Impress

Canon PowerShot SD940 IS Blue 12.1 MP 4X Optical Zoom 28mm Wide Angle Digital Camera
Canon PowerShot SD940 IS Blue 12.1 MP 4X Optical Zoom 28mm Wide Angle Digital Camera

Pros: Very Small, beautiful design, 28mm lense, all the best exposure options, great auto mode, clear movies, bright LCD screen, easy controls, fast on and off, clear pictures, good low light pictures.

Cons: None

Overall Review: This is replacing my now old S400. I waited for this camera because of its 28mm lens, not trusting anything smaller for low light photos. I wanted a replacement camera that did everything my old camera did, but smaller. This Camera does everything far better than that, which is a pleasant surprise. Pictures are clear and the 720p movies are very nice. My low light pictures all came out without grain, so the higher ISO settings really do work (my old camera only did ISO400 and still took decent low light photos). This camera seems to take in even more light than my old 28mm camera, which is great! Other than light gathering, everything else just plain works and I'd say the navigation to options has improved too, which was already really good in my S400. Lastly, the wife wanted blue, I was apprehensive, but the camera is impressively beautiful. The color is much more subtle in person and I immediately liked it upon opening the package.

Most Critical Review

Freezing Issues

MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard
MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Looks good on paper

Cons: Freezes in Windows 7 OS would freeze constantly when using NVidia 7800 or 7900 GPUs. Replacing with an ATI card keeps system freezes to weekly.

Overall Review: Phenom II 955 3.2 G.Skill F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ ASUS Radeon HD 8550 Corsair 750W PSU A number of forums support that this issue has been identified by other users. The Mother board can also freeze if you allow it to use auto memory timing with certain types of memory. Issues like this are hard to troubleshoot because no error messages are available with a system freeze and all memory and cpu tests check out.

Works

MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard
MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Tons of features and slots

Cons: Not sure.

Overall Review: I've only had one issue with this board and it came with trying to use an nvidia video card. Windows 7 would freeze without report on both a 7800 and 7900 I had lying around. It would run fine in safe mode. However, when I used an ATI card (4870 and 3???) it would run just fine. I am assuming this was a compatibility problem due to some forums I read about the same issue where someone replaced their 9000 series nvidia with an ATI on the same MB to fix this same issue. I did not try a different OS. The issue could have been between those nvideo directx9 cards and windows 7, but I couldn't find any chatter about that. I kept the board because I have the intention of installing an ATI 5850. Other than that one odd issue, the board runs perfect and has tons of options with a nice layout.

Didn't meet expectations

HIS Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card H487QT1GP
HIS Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card H487QT1GP

Pros: Fast and Nice Looking

Cons: Runs hot, may have been defective.

Overall Review: This card was intended to run two 1080p monitors cloned. However, the bottom port was incapable of producing 1920x1080 resolution @60hz without image corruption. One TV would display the signal with artifacts, while the other would refuse to recognize it. The bottom port would only display clean image at a lower refresh rate or a lower resolution. The top port of the card worked perfectly fine at all the same settings. The card was quiet, but ran incredibly hot even at idle. Holding you finger on the heat pipe for more than 4 seconds may well have caused a first degree burn. My cpu sink could have been a fridge in comparison. The heat coming out the back of it was very obvious. HIS support was unresponsive for days and thus prompted me to return after no response was given. I still do not know if I simply had a defective card or if these were inherent issues.

Solid Processor

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition - Phenom II X4 Deneb Quad-Core 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 125W Processor - HDZ955FBGIBOX
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition - Phenom II X4 Deneb Quad-Core 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 125W Processor - HDZ955FBGIBOX

Pros: Runs fast and cool.

Cons: None

Overall Review: The processor runs a cool temperature of 40c and the heat sink it came with is more than enough. I may replace the CPU fan as it is the loudest fan in my case by a small margin, but no louder than any other stock CPU fan, so maybe it will stay. It scored a 7.3 in windows experience index on win7 running at list speeds.

Nice Case

DOLICA 4GBWB10189 2-in-1 4GB SD Memory Card & Small Case bundle
DOLICA 4GBWB10189 2-in-1 4GB SD Memory Card & Small Case bundle

Pros: Sturdy Nilon. Double velcro easy on belt strap. Seperate inner compartment to keep eccessories away from camera. Battery/ memory card pouch. Small Size and Price. Memory card works good.

Cons: None

Overall Review: I purchased this case in a bundle with my new Canon SD940. The 940 fits perfectly inside and there is enough room to store a spare battery and a cleaning cloth in the separated front area. The battery perfectly fits in the small pocket in the front compartment away from the camera. If I wanted to really force it, I could fit the charger, but it would get pretty tight. I prefer it the almost minimal size it is though.