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Daniel K.

Daniel K.

Joined on 06/11/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 3
Most Favorable Review

Person I bought it for likes it a lot

Rosewill RWNB16A Gaming Laptop Cooler Notebook Cooling Pad, 5 Silent Blue LED Fans with Powerful Air Flow, Control Panel with LCD Screen, Portable Height Adjustable Laptop Stand, Comfortable with Wrists
Rosewill RWNB16A Gaming Laptop Cooler Notebook Cooling Pad, 5 Silent Blue LED Fans with Powerful Air Flow, Control Panel with LCD Screen, Portable Height Adjustable Laptop Stand, Comfortable with Wrists

Pros: - Is keeping a 10-year-old chronically overheating Toshiba running without needing to have a desk fan continuously blowing on it. - The lift and angle is making typing more comfortable. - Looks rad. - Seems a tremendous value for the price, compared to comparably priced things I've seen at local big boxes.

Cons: - None so far.

Overall Review: - Get 'em while they last.

Most Critical Review

Haven't been able to get it working yet

GIGABYTE GA-A75M-UD2H FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-A75M-UD2H FM1 AMD A75 (Hudson D3) USB 3.0 HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: I liked this board for it's connectivity options (lots of room for growth: up to 64gb, SATA ports, eSATA, lots of USB, DVI and VGA d-sub). Assembly/installation were simple and straightforward. Makes for a beautifully clean build.

Cons: 1. Board so far absolutely refuses to boot with AMD graphic drivers. Will display 'Starting Windows' screen and then go blank. That's all. Starts in Safety Mode, or in regular mode if the HD 6550d graphics adapter and drivers have been uninstalled and/or deleted. If the drivers are only uninstalled then Windows will auto-discover and re-install the hardware and drivers on next boot-up, but the ATI control center doesn't work correctly, and of course it'll blow the next time you try to restart with the AMD drivers. 2. Board often takes a VERY long time (2-3 minutes sometimes) to complete POST and begin to mount OS... or even give access to BIOS. This has made attempting to resolve #1 an excruciating experience. During this time there are no beeps or messages. Nothing at all, in fact. Blank screen. How much either problem is due to Gigabyte or due to AMD is a question (I tend to lay the POST issue at Gigabyte's door, but the graphics driver issue I suppose could go either way.)

Overall Review: Have been biding my time, not wanting to rush ahead a vent my frustration with a knee-jerk flaming negative review, as I think so many people do. I'm still waiting on some help from Gigabyte, and looking around for other suggestions. I'm not a super-enthusiastist, looking for mind-bending over-clocking experience etc. I need a general-purpose system with good performance and, able to handle the daily applications, along with software development, light-to-middling graphic and audio editing, and perhaps handle the occasional light gaming. The ability to grow the system with additional storage, accessories etc. is more important. I'm hoping that this rig can fill the need but I only have so much time and energy that I can devote to bashing my head on this. Gigabyte's tech support did respond to a ticket about the POST issue (took 3 days) with asuggestion that it sometimes might be a problem when using DVI or HDMI output. Since I'm using neither it was not helpful.

Excellent 'legacy' KVM

IOGEAR GCS62 MiniView Micro PS/2 KVM Switch with Cables
IOGEAR GCS62 MiniView Micro PS/2 KVM Switch with Cables

Pros: Been using one of these for a long time now. - Small, unobtrusive - Hands-free - good cable length - bundled cables helps reduce the cable snake pit under my desk - includes audio support although I don't use that - utterly reliable

Cons: - It is what it is - PS/2 and VGA, in a world in which new PS/2 devices are nearly extinct and VGA is phasing out.

Overall Review: Has worked flawlessly with every keyboard, mouse and monitor I've thrown at it over the last 5 years, including a few USB devices with USB->PS/2 adapters. Also including an older Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combo that had separate cables for each device. Newer wireless combos tend to send both devices through a single USB cable, and I'm not sure how well that will work with this thing.