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Ira E.

Ira E.

Joined on 08/16/06

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 18
Most Favorable Review

10 drives with no failures yet

WD Red Plus 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s, CMR, 64MB Cache, 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX
WD Red Plus 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s, CMR, 64MB Cache, 3.5 Inch - WD30EFRX

Pros: Big, or they were when I started. I've got 8 of them attached to a LSI 9361-8I in my desktop/server, 5 in RAID6, 2 in a mirror and the last one as a hot spare. They just work and that combo is plenty fast enough for what we do here. Then there are a few more in a 4 bay USB3 enclosure for backups. I guess they're quite as I never notice them over the rest of the noise in there.

Cons: Don't really have any cons. I guess it would be better if they were 7200 RPM and used the same or less power, but in my environment they seem to be just perfect.

Overall Review: I would recommend these, and as they go on sale I buy them one at a time to replace all the smaller backup driver around the office. The investment in the RAID was significant, but it runs our business and I feel confident that our data is about as safe as it can get. I acquired the first 6 of these drives in April of 2015.

Most Critical Review

It's big, it works, bit installation?

Cooler Master Hyper N520 - CPU Cooler with Copper Base and 5 Heatpipes
Cooler Master Hyper N520 - CPU Cooler with Copper Base and 5 Heatpipes

Pros: 2 quiet fans. I guess it works, I don't know yet. I wish I'd bought something else.

Cons: Look for the 3 pieces in the mounting kit stamped 1366 and then sort of follow the 755 directions. There are no i7 directions. Installation. It installs with nuts from the bottom so you have to mount it before you attach the MB to the case. I like it much better when you put screws in from the top. the 2 fans have really short cables to a Y cable so I can only use one of the CPU fan plugs on the MB which I assume means it can only watch the speed of one of them.

Overall Review: I wish NewEgg would fix their search so I could see ever cooler that fit an i7 without having to choose 4 different selections, I don't really care if it also fits a Athlon 64, I just want to see every i7 cooler at once.

A darn good case for something this size

Rosewill SPECTRA X-Blue ATX Mid Tower Gaming PC Computer Case, Supports 240mm & 360mm Liquid Coolers, 4 Dual-Ring Blue LED Fans, Steel Airflow Mesh, Tempered Glass
Rosewill SPECTRA X-Blue ATX Mid Tower Gaming PC Computer Case, Supports 240mm & 360mm Liquid Coolers, 4 Dual-Ring Blue LED Fans, Steel Airflow Mesh, Tempered Glass

Pros: Most things mount easy, lots of room behind the MB for cables, plenty of ventilation. I especially like the filters front and top. I would certainly purchase this case again though I wish I could get it with a metal side and no lights on the fans. Last build I used a Fractal Design Define 7 Compact and I think I'd choose this if those two were the choice.

Cons: The instructions are minimal. The 4 rubber gromets to mount the HD to the bottom of the case are pre-installed and easy to knock out and lose, I wish they were in a bag in case you need them. I did, knocked one out accidently and lost it for 2 days.

Overall Review: A good choice. The top is supposed to hold two 140mm fans which I purchased, but I had to use one 140 and one 120 because my MBs on board heatsink for something got in the way. Unless you've got skinny fingers, plug all the cables in the power supply before you install it. I didn't and while my fingers are skinny enough, it was still a fight to get them plugged in. It doesn't have a USB-C port on the front panel, just two USB-3 blue ones. You need to use the supplied screws to mount drives to the inner drive mounting plates as they require very short heads. I only found 3 in my large collection that would work till I figured you were supposed to use the MB screws if you needed 6-32 screws, not the drive screws the instructions indicated. If you want to mount a drive to the bottom of the case, you need to remove the drive cage, 4 screws, install that drive, possibly install the cables and then replace the drive cage.

First impressions, mostly positive

EDIMAX EW-7288APC 11AC (5GHz Band only) Range Extender / Add-on Station, to Extend / Add 11AC Wi-Fi Signal for Faster and Cleaner Connection
EDIMAX EW-7288APC 11AC (5GHz Band only) Range Extender / Add-on Station, to Extend / Add 11AC Wi-Fi Signal for Faster and Cleaner Connection

Pros: Works, very simple UI. Fast at close range line of sight. Very low power. Very inexpensive.

Cons: Very simple UI. Can't disable the extender access point when using as a wireless adapter via ethernet. Physical switch to choose between AP and Extender mode, wish it was a software setting. Not really a con, but it's 5ghz only so make sure your devices support that.

Overall Review: Bought one and realized it was the only AC device in the house. Bought a second to try and use the pair as a long ethernet cable. Works perfectly for that task once you figure out how to set it up. The web page for the AP end has enough settings to be useful. The web page for the extender end is a bit lacking for my tastes. I want to be able to configure or at least disable the access point that is automatically enabled whenever you set it up in range extender mode. The Connected devices pop-up shows the connection as N even though I've set the Band to "5 Ghz (AC)" and my laptop which does not have AC still connects so I'm guessing that setting doesn't work. Only had the 2 for a day so can't tell you much about haw they'll work over time yet.

12/19/2015

Works good

HyperX FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Desktop Memory Model HX421C14FBK2/16
HyperX FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 2133 (PC4 17000) Desktop Memory Model HX421C14FBK2/16

Pros: I plugged it in my new ASUS Z170M-PLUS LGA 1151 and it's been working ever since. I always buy memory in the biggest sticks I can. Two eights means I have 16 in the computer and two more sticks when they show up on sale means I'll have 32, yippie!

Cons: Don't think there are any.

Overall Review: I've really no idea how to tell if this memory is any better than the next, It was to upgrade my wife's computer and it's so much faster than she needs that there's no way to tell. But upgrading from the old I7 to a new I5 6600K has cooled her office off considerably and she certainly appreciates the speed improvement.

Works perfect

ASUS Z170M-PLUS LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS Z170M-PLUS LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: The wife is happy. Her old machine started crashing so this MB, 16Gb or RAM and an i5 made her happy again. Went together easy, been working perfect for a week now. chucked the old video card and use the on board video. The top exhaust fan use to blow warm air and now it's room temperature so the power usage went way down which is good.

Cons: Not very many USB ports on the back. I didn't notice it came with two PS2 ports so that's where 2 of the USB ports went. It took a really long tome to Post the first time I turned it on which made me think it was defective. but after went through setup the first time it went back to normal. As has been mentioned before the backplate is really cheap, but thanks to the first comment I knew to bend the tabs on the backplate so the board went in easy.

Overall Review: The machine had Windows 10 and the MB swap was easy as could be. Booted up and spend a while "installing drivers" then installed the new drivers from the CD and it's working perfect. Well, other than Windows became not activated and I had to buy a copy of Windows 10 or reinstall Windows 8 and get the free upgrade. So that was an extra expected but annoying none the less $150. This is a personal thing, but I find the new graphical BIOS interfaces a lot harder to use that the old text ones. I guess the fancy graphics are necessary for the modern audience, but I've been doing this long enough I had to learn how to change the entries in the EPROM containing the IBM PC BIOS so we could put in larger drives and it just seems harder to find stuff than it use to be..