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Amir S.

Amir S.

Joined on 07/04/10

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 3
Most Favorable Review

Great CPU, horrible stock fan

Intel Core i3-530 - Core i3 Clarkdale Dual-Core 2.93 GHz LGA 1156 73W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80616I3530
Intel Core i3-530 - Core i3 Clarkdale Dual-Core 2.93 GHz LGA 1156 73W Intel HD Graphics Desktop Processor - BX80616I3530

Pros: Great CPU purchase for my HTPC. I wanted the latest but without biting too hard on my wallet.

Cons: Stock fan/heatsink design is known to suck, buy an aftermarket HSF with some good thermal paste. I ran into heat issues since it didn't properly mount and the thermal drabs they put on their is absolutely useless.

Most Critical Review

First HTPC Keyboard

IOGEAR GKM561R Black 2.4GHz Wireless HTPC Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel
IOGEAR GKM561R Black 2.4GHz Wireless HTPC Multimedia Keyboard with Laser Trackball and Scroll Wheel

Pros: Good enough range, ~8 ft. I had to move the USB adapter from the back to the front of the computer so that the connection could be made Mouse is easy to use but requires two handed operation.

Cons: Drops a few keys when typing here and there. For example, when typing this review it dropped ~6 keys. Could be better designed - The Enter key is huge and the right shift key is small.

Overall Review: You can probably find a similar keyboard cheaper with better quality but this was my first wireless keyboard of this kind. I would love to have bought a wireless keyboard that copied the Thinkpad design incl the red mouse in the middle. That would've been awesome, but I couldn't find one so I settled with this.

Good, except one critical issue

ECS H55H-I LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
ECS H55H-I LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Size Price Expansion slot Included ports

Cons: The one criticial issue I had was with the video upon startup. I used this mobo for my HTPC (via HDMI) and to get it to display to the correct video source I had to reset it several times until some magic happened. To avoid the issue, I leave the computer on standby instead of turning it off.