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ANDREW S.

ANDREW S.

Joined on 12/23/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 20
Most Favorable Review

There it is - my new PSU!

Cooler Master GX - 750W Power Supply with 80 PLUS Bronze Certification
Cooler Master GX - 750W Power Supply with 80 PLUS Bronze Certification

Pros: Findable (like right here) for under a benjamin. Quiet, large fan. Black, subtle, heavy, nice. Neat-o blue GX logo on one side, which would look good if you still had a case with a side window, and haven't outgrown that idea yet. Otherwise, sleep tight knowing your PSU has a cool logo on it inside your windowless case, like the winner you are. Generous power connectors/lengths, and nice, slidy sleeves. Internal guttery made by SevenTeam, and contains no pelican fat. Provides good, clean, dependable power (thus far). Rated 80 Plus Bronze, but CoolerMaster seems too lazy to update the packaging to crow about it (my box just says 80). No lights, jagged edges, buzzes, rattles, flowers, kittens, or strange smells*.

Cons: *Okay, it did feature a strange smell the first time I powered it on. Briefly. Also, if you buy this PSU and then want to complain about there being "too many wires", or the wires not being modular, you know they make power supplies like that for you types. This isn't one of those.

Overall Review: Bought this on short notice when my beloved 6-year old SilverStone 600 Watt finally gave up the ghost. Cooler Master Silio case, so, it slipped right in. Installed in just a few minutes if you don't count the next 6 hours I spent compulsively zip tying wires. You know, that feeling when you flip the switch after this type of surgery and wait for either smoke and/or your OS to show itself? Yeah, that. Lights, fans, HDDs, everyone awake and humming. But.... that pung in the air... Thought something was wired wrong, bad, or about to burst into smoke. Went with my gut. Gave it a few minutes. Probably just that new whatever-is-inside-a-power-supply-getting broken in smell, I thought. Less than five Earth minutes later, smell is gone. 5 hours of heavy lifting via Call of Duty proves nothing detrimental. PC is like new. Power supply makes you aim better in games, and your teeth ARE looking whiter! Try it yourself. everything went better than expected.jpg

Most Critical Review

Okay NAS, But Don't Buy To Use Plex!

NETGEAR ReadyNAS 102 2-Bay Network Attached Storage Diskless (RN10200)
NETGEAR ReadyNAS 102 2-Bay Network Attached Storage Diskless (RN10200)

Pros: Not a bad NAS for the money, Simplistic setup (basically); actually reachable over the Internet without colossal efforts. Quiet, low-power unit. It's good looking, more solid than past units, and decently fast. For HOME use, only, I've spent money on worse. BIG jump in cost from the 2-bay to 4-bay units, even diskless.

Cons: DOES NOT WORK WITH PLEX MEDIA SERVER! - Netgear misrepresented that in their marketing material - Only the series 4 and up support Plex - Netgear's "fix" as of May 2013 is to simply remove Plex references from marketing material. Documentation claims Plex in an embedded app. It's not...and not available via the (ghost town of a market) Genie marketplace.

Overall Review: I know you really need an x86-based NAS to support on-the-fly encoding of media, but to have pretty much fibbed about Plex inclusion is a burn. Technically, there is no reason I can't stream with Plex (without encoding) on an ARM cpu, but unless you come up with some sort of hack, it's not going to happen on this little box.

Can't go wrong in this price range

EVGA GeForce GTX 960 02G-P4-2966-KR 2GB SSC GAMING w/ACX 2.0+, Whisper Silent Cooling Graphics Card
EVGA GeForce GTX 960 02G-P4-2966-KR 2GB SSC GAMING w/ACX 2.0+, Whisper Silent Cooling Graphics Card

Pros: Cool, calm, quiet, great drivers. I needed something to replace a 6950 with a dying cooling system. I'll be gaming in the 1080 realm still for a while (until a better tax return season!), and this fits the bill. Runs everything great at high settings, and doesn't break a sweat. BF4, Dying Light, Metro... all butter. Also... Best. Metal. Case. Badge. Ever!

Cons: It's a little long, as most cards with this elegant of a cooling system are; check your case capacity first. Not a con, really..but if you don't have a 600w power supply or greater, get out of this end of the pool.

Overall Review: Excellent bundle... you get the goods, the apps, the bonus goodies, and an amazing card at this price point. Also this is an eligible product for EVGA's "Step Up" program, which means if they blindside you with a TI or 4 GB version of this card within 90 days of pulling hte trigger, you can likely upgrade for the difference. EVGA are cool cats.

Pleasantly Surprised

Amped Wireless SR10000 High Power Wireless-N 600mW Range Extender and Smart Repeater
Amped Wireless SR10000 High Power Wireless-N 600mW Range Extender and Smart Repeater

Pros: Works out of the box Decent price Quick Setup Amazing performance Current firmware out of the box Runs cool and silently Vertical or horizontal orientation options Included performance app for smartphones (simple, but free/effective) Discreet design (small and invisibly black without sleep-disrupting LED levels)

Cons: Long Reboots Not multi-band (this model, anyway) Flimsy feel (no egg deduction)

Overall Review: After throwing my THIRD NetGear wireless repeater in the scrap bin, I took a chance on the Amped brand, with little prior knowledge of them. I've also all but given up on chasing the dream of extending 5 Ghz Wi-Fi, but with one or two devices in the house out of 12 wireless gizmos, I figured I could let that go and run with a 2/4 only repeater. So, this little thing is small, light, a bit "cheap feeling", but after going through their setup wizard (save yourself the grief and set up these things with a network CABLE), I was up and running and outshouting my neighbors in less than 15 minutes! I'm NEVER going to trust a wireless repeater that is A) From NetGear (sorry guys, I've tried!) or B) Doesn't have real, external antennas. I've taken apart all my prior failed repeaters, and the crummy internal radios are clearly inferior to a real "rubber duckie". And this one has TWO. I've been sunning this for over a week, with more Wi-Fi bars in the struggling areas of my property than I have ever seen using other brands. I didn't use it, but the response to Amped's tech support seems favorable based on other reviews. Although fairly brainless to set up, I can see room in some of the advance options where you might need to watch what your clicking, or even consult Amped support for some fancier configurations. (Determining to keep DHCP on by default or not was one of those areas that gave me pause). As another reviewer best put it "finally something with overkill!" A final word to the wise - take the time to learn which wireless channels you can REALLY use in your country, get a good survey of your competing neighbor signals, and let this device do the rest. I'm really pleasantly surprised and satisfied with my purchase.

These are fantastic!

IOGEAR GFR209 USB 2.0 Support microSD / microSDHC / T-Flash, SD/SDHC, mini SD, MMC, MMC Plus, RS-MMC, MMC Mobile, MS, MS Pro, MS Duo, MS Pro Duo,  12-in-1 Pocket Card Reader/Writer
IOGEAR GFR209 USB 2.0 Support microSD / microSDHC / T-Flash, SD/SDHC, mini SD, MMC, MMC Plus, RS-MMC, MMC Mobile, MS, MS Pro, MS Duo, MS Pro Duo, 12-in-1 Pocket Card Reader/Writer

Pros: Totally reliable, simple, small - actually reads everything I throw at it! I go through these like water, and this model keeps being the reliable one in my bag.

Cons: No read/write activity LED... that's about it, but for the money, can't fault this too much.

12/28/2013

So far.... well, better than what it replaced from Netgear

NETGEAR WN2500RP-100NAS N600 with 4 Port Universal Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender-Desktop Version
NETGEAR WN2500RP-100NAS N600 with 4 Port Universal Dual Band Wi-Fi Range Extender-Desktop Version

Pros: It's not its predecessor. The WN2000RPT should all ahve been sent to the sun. Seems to configure easily, its wizard is far faster than the model it replaced, and it taked the 5 Ghz band nicely seriously. So far.

Cons: Nothing bad so far. Just has that overall, flimsy, "I'm here, but don't count on me forever" feeling. I wish I knew why. I don't think this product has anything to do with the people who design or produce their higher-end router products. (much less things like their metal ethernet switches!) Even if this turns out to be a fine, workable wireless extender, why does it had to feel so, SO cheap? And why can't Netgear decide which of their 7 designs they are going for?

Overall Review: I think its hilarious and sad that both online and brick and mortar stores (well, that one blue-polo shirt store that is left) still sell the WN2000RPT model. I mean, WHY? It's the nework equivalent of selling the Xbox 1. (by which I mean the first, first one....) Why oh why?