Joined on 07/29/01
best box to reuse old laptop parts

Pros: - Neo L325 much faster than ATOM. - Opening the box is much easier than FoxConn. Very easy assembly. - Cooling and access to ports is much better designed than FoxConn, but see firmware issues. - Box feels more solid than FoxConn. - Video plays back perfectly even w/o GPU acceleration, but enabling that makes the CPU work less. (XBMC supports DXVA). Note that I don't use wifi, it is connected to a ethernet cable. Also note that I haven't tried HD playback. - eSata, optical out, HDMI. - sips very little electricity.
Cons: - 1 DIMM slot. - BIOS lacks option to disable wake-up on keyboard/mouse events. - when returning from sleep the fan is at full speed and can not be quieted. I believe this is a BIOS issue too. - Drop-in HDD holder is easy to install, but is not very stable. I would have preferred good old fashioned screws. - Box is bigger, even if so slightly, than FoxConn. - More expensive than FoxConn design (but much better!). - somewhat overpriced. - ATI video is not supported by XBMC under Linux, you have to run Win7. Would have been a great Linux media player if ATI had decent support. - This is just some laptop hardware w/o the screen/keyboard/dvd/memory/hdd/os. It should be cheaper. You can get a full laptop at $400 and that includes battery. Even a cheap, small battery works as an UPS.
Overall Review: - I use it with Win7 for general browsing and for playing back media running XBMC (also under win7); - I could not get 'sleep' to work as I'd like to, so the machine is on 24/7, but it only sips only 16W electricity even when running. - I have the HDMI output connected via a HDMI to DVI converter to a DVI KVM and drives a monitor at 1900x1200 just fine. - The package was not boxed in a cardboard box. VERY BAD, Newegg! - The package was not even taped and it was clearly opened by someone. This should have been sold as refurb, not as new! VERY BAD, Newegg! - The unit itself had all the original shrink-wrap, so it was probably not used, only opened. - This is pretty much the last gen of DDR2 mini boxes, so if you have some old DDR2 so-dimm at home, get it while you can. If you have laptop parts that you can use here or if you must have a mini-box, this is probably the best one (for now). But if you can use a little bigger machine you can get much more performance at around the same
not all 3.5" mounting holes are provided

Pros: Solid material; Probably even cools the SSD fine; SSD install looks correct;
Cons: Only 4 of the 10 standard 3.5" mounting holes are provided, so if your case wants to use something else, this will not work. (A 3.5" drive has 3 mounting holes on both sides and 4 more on the bottom. This contraption only has 2 mounting holes on the sides, none on the bottom, that is a total of 4. So unless your case / cage lets you install the drive with exactly those 4 holes, you are out of luck.)
Overall Review: This is like playing a game of chance. It might work, if your case uses those 4 holes, or not. Your chances of winning is less than 50%. Newegg (which owns Rosewill) should be ashamed for this product.
Froze up on me

Pros: Cheap, Fast, Metal case, Quiet, no powerbrick (internal PSU), rack mountable (if you care), fast uplinks (if you need it). It is measurably faster than the 5 yrs old Rosewill Gbit switch it replaced (about 10% faster).
Cons: It froze up on me. After a few weeks one day I found I could not reach anything from anywhere. Eventually I found the switch was hanging, had to power cycle. This NEVER happened to me before with any switch. I run a simple home network, nothing major. No serious load, some video streaming from home server. Bummer.
Overall Review: I REALLY wanted to like this switch, but reliability is KING when it comes to dumb home switches, so beware. YMMV.
Good, not great

Pros: - all screw based mechanics, no push pins, buttons, etc. This is more solid and stable IMHO. (But requires access to back of MB.) - very light, does not bend the MB - still comes with back plate so screws press on that, not MB - not crazily expensive (even at full price) (I paid $25) - quiet - does not block memory slots (unlike freezer 7 pro) - does not require extra large (wide) case (unlike most 120mm coolers, but look at COOLER MASTER GeminII S524 for something novel) - cools better than factory default cooler
Cons: - one of the nuts was mis-threaded. Got replacement from local HW store (for free!) - manufacturer does not have support. Their contact people did not bother responding to my e-mails. - you will never see your rebate - a bit too expensive, again, rebates are not paid out - does not cool as well as something twice the size and price
Overall Review: - even with the rebate not paid, this is not an expensive cooler. - this is not meant for hard-core overclockers, but it sure performs better than the factory cooler and so is good enough for most of us. - if you don't mind using push-pins, Cooler-Master (i.e. hyper 910) is cheaper (after rebate, which they actually pay out).
incorrect holes make it a pain

Pros: Cheap; Plastic, so you can drill your own holes, if you need them right;
Cons: The side mount holes to put it into the 3.5" bay are slightly off, meaning you have to drill, at least extend them, if your case has exact mounting holes;
Overall Review: This is a piece of cheap plastic that should be sold at $2 with free shipping. To make matters worst, the tooling in the Chinese factory was off a bit creating mounting holes that are incorrect. Shame on Newegg (which owns Rosewill) to sell this junk.
Good basic card with PWM fan

Pros: The ONLY low end card with a PWM fan; Solid build quality; Does everything a basic card needs to do and more; Runs cool; Does not need any special power supply (this is a basic card, again); Distinct video card, so does not load memory bus like chipset or cpu build-in video (no UMA);
Cons: The fan is noisy even after the fan control slowed it down; Not a high performance piece (obviously); Rebate is a game of luck; Too expensive w/o the rebate; Card is slower in many operations than the i2500K build-in graphics;
Overall Review: Zotac had a specialty of making low end cards with 4 wire (pwm) fans that are controlled by the card bios. This is the last of that, even they switched to 2 wire constant speed buzzers in their newer (cheap) cards. Sadly, this fan is noisy even after the controller spun it down to a lower speed. Zotac rebate has a bad rap. I first went to register the card, but the SN was not accepted. Opened ticket with customer support, sent scanned of paperwork to them, got the card registered. THEN I logged the rebate on their website and sent the rebate paperwork by mail. I got my money in about 2 months, so at the end the card cost me $10. It does worth that much, but probably not more.