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Maksim K.

Maksim K.

Joined on 03/06/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 6
Most Favorable Review

High expectations paid off

ASUS WL-520gU 802.11b/g Wireless Router up to 54Mbps with All-in-One Print Server/ DD-WRT Open Source support
ASUS WL-520gU 802.11b/g Wireless Router up to 54Mbps with All-in-One Print Server/ DD-WRT Open Source support

Pros: Very nice looking router. Detachable antenna. Small power supply. Can not beat the price after rebate.

Cons: none that I am aware of.

Overall Review: Out of curiosity I checked out original 2.xx firmware that the router shipped with. It was nothing to talk about. Then upgraded to 3.xx, and the UI is much improved. It actually "looked" pretty great, but thats not what you buy this router for! Next step DD-WRT! With little reading flashing took all of 2 mins. Set it up as a repeater bridge for my network and it works great.

Could not believe my ears :-)

SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card 100269VXL
SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X Radeon HD 4890 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 CrossFireX Support Graphics Card 100269VXL

Pros: Great build quality. Display connection options. Non stock design. Quite fan.

Cons: none

Overall Review: Let me describe my experience with ATI 4890 purchase. First bought a HIS card (OC edition), good looks, works good, that is until I started a game. Immediately I heard what seemed to be a capacitor whine. It was annoying and loud. I decided to RMA the card. Same thing happened to the second card. At this time I started reading online about this issue and it seemed like people take it for granted in their video cards, and that it is a widespread issue with all sorts of high end video cards. After checking out other designs I settled on this card. Imagine my surprise when this card worked without any kind of electronic noise! Don't settle for garbage designs. Get this card!

12/15/2009

Happy so far

ASUS Radeon HD 3450 256MB GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Graphics Card EAH3450/HTP/256M
ASUS Radeon HD 3450 256MB GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Graphics Card EAH3450/HTP/256M

Pros: Low profile, no fan, component out.

Cons: none that I can think off.

Overall Review: I bought this card with specific purpose of putting it into HTPC machine I am putting together. My older HDTV does not have a digital input, so I had to have a card with component out. The card works like a champ with no issues and no noise.

Happy so far

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250(WinTV-HVR-2255) Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner w/ IR Remote PCI-E x 1
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250(WinTV-HVR-2255) Media Center Kit Dual TV Tuner w/ IR Remote PCI-E x 1

Pros: small, dual tuners, works great in Vista MC.

Cons: Beta drivers crashed Vista. Somewhat expensive.

Overall Review: Overall I am very happy with the card. I am using it with OTA antenna, so no QAM experience here. I put together an HTPC from existing dell chasis I had around. I wanted a card that I could later put into a small HTPC case. I wanted a card that uses newer technology (PCI-express), but since I only had one PCI-x slot, I wanted a dual tuner. This card delivers on all 3 points. I started with Vista Ultimate sp1, added TV Pack + hotfixes. Put the card in, but used latest beta drivers at the time 27091. Everything worked until I tried watching TV, then Vista would crash. I downgraded the drivers to latest non-beta 27086 and it has been perfect since. I dont use included software and fully utilize VMC for all my HTPC needs. The card is not perfect, since you cant have QAM and OTA at the same time, because of the single antenna input. I used an ASUS 3450 pci-express without fan as main video card and component out, since my HDTV does not have DVI/HDMI.

Happy with the drive

Seagate BarraCuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate BarraCuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Great price. Seagate warranty. Lots of space.

Cons: Had to upgrade firmware after reading about raid issues.

Overall Review: This is another great seagate drive I bought that I hope lasts me longer than the warranty. My previous purchases include 80gb, 200gb, 2x 300gb Cuda drives that still run great (knock on wood). The firmware on the drive I received was one of the ones effected by the freezing bug, so the first thing I did was upgrade it. It was a small hassle, but everything went smoothly. For now the drive is serving as a secondary, to make sure I have no issues with it. Don't want to risk data loss.

Good product

macally PHR-250CC Aluminum 2.5" IDE USB & 1394 External Enclosure
macally PHR-250CC Aluminum 2.5" IDE USB & 1394 External Enclosure

Pros: Got my enclosure today and impressions are very good. Sturdy build and all possible cables included. The drive was recognized through both FW and USB connection on my main PC computer. Windows XP installed the drive without prompting for driver disk. The HDD I am using is Toshiba MK6026GAX 60gb. Even though the spec shows it draws 1.0A, the enclosure was plugged with a single USB cable and worked properly, not requiring second USB cable. Same was true for the Firewire connection.

Cons: Its really not a Con, but to replace the drive with a different one you are required to remove 6 screws. 2 for the end plate and 4 that hold the drive down. So if you plan of switching drives alot, be prepared.

Overall Review: One of my main research points was the chipsets used by enclosures, so decision was based in part by favorable chipset combination in this particular enclosure. It was listed as having Initio Firewire 400/Cypress USB 2.0 combo. I got curious and started analyzing the electronic board. It turns out that the current board design (PI-102 Ver. C; 2006.08.04 RoHS), no longer uses Cypress chipset. Instead, the new Initio 1530L Bridge controller is handling both Firewire 400 and USB 2.0.