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Sean M.

Sean M.

Joined on 04/15/03

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

Good cheap power supply

OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS 500 W ATX12V / EPS12V Active PFC Power Supply
OCZ StealthXStream OCZ500SXS 500 W ATX12V / EPS12V Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: Has all the cables you could possibly want. Voltages look good. Runs an HTPC with ease, and I have no doubt if I were to put in more harddrives or a more powerful processor this PS could handle it. The fan in the PS is very quiet as well, which was a big plus for me.

Cons: It's not modular. I used this in a microATX build, and I wish I'd gotten a modular PS.

11/10/2009
Most Critical Review

Decent Board, Some Shortcomings

ASUS P5N7A-VM LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300/nForce 730i HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
ASUS P5N7A-VM LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300/nForce 730i HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Good performance, ASUS BIOS is always a pleasure to use. The onboard sound and video are pretty good for being on-board. The addition of the display port is quite nice to find on a motherboard.

Cons: In Windows 7, the HDMI output on my board causes graphics flickers. At 1080p there's lines that flicker every 1/2 second, roaming up the screen. I have the latest BIOS. I've updated all chipset, graphics, and sound drivers to the latest from their respective manufacturers. Strange there is no flicker while loading windows until it actually gets into the Windows screen. If it were an ungrounded input adapter, I'd think I'd see it in the loading screens too, but I don't - which makes me think it's driver related. However, I can find no other complaints of this issue online for this board. Other cons: No firewire port. Board is pricey. XP won't install on this board out of the box (BSOD after loading drivers for install, but before selecting a HDD partition). Board is slightly shorter than the standard Micro ATX, which causes the board to bend when connecting power adapters since there's no ability to screw in that last column of screws to secure it to the case tray.

Overall Review: I had to run a DVI cable to an HDMI adapter to my 1080p LCD TV in order to eliminate the flickering graphics lines. I was pleasantly surprised to find this board outputs sound on the DVI cable. However, there's still a bit of an issue with the sound this way - the first 1/4 second of sounds appear to be dropped. Not an issue when watching a movie or TV since it's only the first 1/4 of the sound that you lose, so it's not a huge issue for me. But I notice it when windows boots, and with IM programs especially, with incoming message sounds. If the board were cheaper I'd give it a higher egg rating, but for the high pricetag, I don't feel like you're getting your money's worth here with all the issues therein.

11/10/2009

Power Issues and Bloatware

Lenovo Laptop IdeaPad Intel Core i7-4700MQ 16 GB, DDR3L, 1600 MHz (2 x 8GB) Memory 1TB HDD 8 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GT 745M 17.3" Non-Touch Screen Windows 8.1 Z710 (59406361)
Lenovo Laptop IdeaPad Intel Core i7-4700MQ 16 GB, DDR3L, 1600 MHz (2 x 8GB) Memory 1TB HDD 8 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GT 745M 17.3" Non-Touch Screen Windows 8.1 Z710 (59406361)

Pros: Laptop is powerful and inexpensive for what you get. The Core i7 is a fast and excellent processor. The 16 GB of ram is fantastic. The dedicated graphics care performs well, and it's nice having full 1080p graphics on the display. And I love having a backlit keyboard - I will never purchase a laptop without it again.

Cons: Starting from the least annoying to the most annoying... The display definitely has a weird viewing angle to it. I feel like the best angle is about 110 degrees, which seems unusual, and literally built to use on a lap rather than sitting on a desk or table. It's loaded with bloatware that you simply are never going to use. That coupled with the pre-installed McAffee seems to really slow down the system. It feels slower than a system I built 2 years ago and put Windows 8.1 on. I expected an 8 GB SSD to make this faster, but it simply drags on boot-up. I haven't tried gutting all the bloatware to see if it improves performance or not. Simply put, you're probably better off wiping the drive and installing a fresh copy of Windows 8.1. The battery on this laptop is simply not good. It's far too underpowered for the system, as I only seem to get about 2 hours of battery life if I'm lucky. And, lets face it, if I bought a powerful laptop just to run it in power save mode, I might as well have bought a cheaper laptop, so that's not a solution. But the worst part of the system is that my laptop will NOT power on unless I plug the system in. I may have a defective system that's not able to detect the battery status, but when the system isn't plugged into the power outlet I cannot power on the machine even with full battery charge. When I plug it in, it powers on just fine and I can unplug it then. Really odd behavior.

Overall Review: I would probably rate it a 3.5 maybe even 4 stars is the power-on bug didn't exist, but it's ridiculous that I can't power the machine on without plugging it in. That bug alone is giving me buyer's remorse.

HDMI Handshake Has Issues

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card GV-N550D5-1GI
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card GV-N550D5-1GI

Pros: Performs well, plays all modern games and produces a quality picture on my 50" 1080P TV screen.

Cons: There's an issue with this card performing a 'handshake' with HDMI devices. When I connect the card to my TV or an HDMI monitor (or DVI-D on the card to an HDMI monitor/TV) in Win7, I often hear the chime to tell me it's connected but will get no picture. I have to physically unplug the monitor from the card then plug it back in, sometimes several times, before I actually get a picture. Every time I change the "Input Selection" to a different AV source on my TV, then switch back to the PC source again I have to do this all over again - disconnect it, reconnect it, rinse, repeat. Same thing happens with my TV as with an HDMI monitor I have, and when connected via the HDMI port or the DVI-D port. It's a handshake issue, as the VGA port (which does no digital handshake) has no problems like this. However, it's not my PC as my onboard HDMI/DVI video NEVER exhibited this issue for the past 2 years, I just get it with this newly installed card.

Overall Review: If it weren't for the handshake issue above, I would have rated this thing 4 or maybe even 5 eggs. I just don't get how the onboard nForce video always performed this handshake just fine, but a new graphics card just can't make it work. Failure on Gigabyte and/or NVIDIA's part here. FWIW, my motherboard: ASUS P5N7A-VM LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300/nForce 730i HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard, with an Intel Core2 Duo E7500 Wolfdale.

Secure Digital cards don't fit...

Rosewill RCR-IC001 - 3.5" Internal 40-in-1 Card Reader with USB 2.0 Port & Extra Silver Face Plate
Rosewill RCR-IC001 - 3.5" Internal 40-in-1 Card Reader with USB 2.0 Port & Extra Silver Face Plate

Pros: I bought this for a new HTPC build. Looks good in the front of my case, reads the cards that will fit into it well...

Cons: None of my SD cards will fit in the SD slot - the slot is too small. I'm not sure how such a glaring quality control failure could happen, but it did. I simply can't use this to read my SD cards.

Overall Review: There's a stead blue light that is -always- on with this reader. If you're the type that doesn't like lights on the front of your case, you'll need electrical tape to cover it up.

11/10/2009

Good box, gets the job done.

APEVIA X-QPACK-NW-AL/420 Black/ Silver Aluminum Micro ATX Desktop Computer Case 420W Power Supply
APEVIA X-QPACK-NW-AL/420 Black/ Silver Aluminum Micro ATX Desktop Computer Case 420W Power Supply

Pros: Good clean lines, looks great as an HTPC. The 120mm case fan is wonderfully quiet. There's plenty of air flow through the front of the case and the little air slots near the harddrives. The harddrive harness slides up and out easily with just 2 screws loosened. There's a slide-out motherboard tray.

Cons: The temperature sensors are useless unless you plan on mashing them between your heatsink and processor, or inside your harddrive - I even disconnect the temperature display power cable altogether since it's annoyingly bright. The included power supply is weak even for a 420w PS, and I'd highly recommend buying a different one altogether. The harddrive light on my case doesn't function.

Overall Review: My case came with a two sets of screw types. The screws appear the same, sans the underside of the heads where one set is beveled and the other is flat. Turns out, these screws are NOT the same thread size, and only the flat bottomed ones will fit in the motherboard fastener screwholes. Don't anticipate being able to work in your case when everything is put together. Anytime I have to add or remove a PCI card, I have to remove the power supply and even pull the motherboard tray out as well. This is not a case fault however, but more of a microATX size issue. I'm just recommending that if you're the type to add and remove cards on a regular basis, I wouldn't go with a microATX board/case.

11/10/2009