cover
Piotr M.

Piotr M.

Joined on 05/31/02

0
0

Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 7
Most Favorable Review

Works with Turion!

ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA 754 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA 754 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Detects and supports Turion MT-37 natively, including all P-States through Cool-n-Quiet (0.9V-1.25V, 800MHz-2GHz). Lots of BIOS options. Comparatively low-power. Passive cooling. Inexpensive. Came with SATA cables, SATA power adapter, IDE and floppy cables, faceplate, serial port riser. Compatible -- includes parallel port, serial port, IDE, SATA, PCI, PCI-E, 16x PCI-E.

Cons: Layout is a bit awkward in my full ATX tower -- PSU connectors is on the wrong end of the board, and some others are in poor places. Does not support processor C-states (many desktop motherboard do not). C-states are deep sleep states where the CPU turns itself off except for I/O when idle, burns 2-3W (massive power savings), and wakes up on an interrupt.

Overall Review: I bought this together with a Turion processor from Newegg for a 24/7 system in my living room. I chose this motherboard because it had NVidia on-board graphics and was inexpensive (most of the Via/Sys on-board adapters have driver issues, while using non-integrated graphics increases power consumption). It detected the Turion MT-37 fine, and fully supported its P-states (800MHz/.9V through 2GHz/1.25V). System idle power is 40W (HD+PSU+motherboard+512MB DIMM+Turion MT37). Power costs $1/watt/year in MA, so I save $160/year over a typical 200W system.

Most Critical Review

Junk

Logitech Z515 Wireless Speakers for Laptops, iPad and iPhone
Logitech Z515 Wireless Speakers for Laptops, iPad and iPhone

Pros: It worked. For 4 months.

Cons: Bought it open box. Piece of junk broke after four months -- just after the 90 day warranty expired. Aside from that, it was an okay product -- not great. Sound quality was passable; my laptop actually has better quality sound, but not loud enough to watch movies in a group. This was plenty loud. Slightly awkward -- no real way to mount it anywhere -- either to a laptop or elsewhere. It's designed to attach to the back of a laptop, but it doesn't really work. No screw holes.

Overall Review: Bought it hoping to save on cables with my desktop. Mounting was awkward enough that I mostly used it with my laptop (as intended). Wouldn't buy again, unless there was a real deal.

Tiny piece of junk

DOLICA LCDPRO27 LCD Screen Protector for 2.7" Screen w/ LCD cleaning cloth
DOLICA LCDPRO27 LCD Screen Protector for 2.7" Screen w/ LCD cleaning cloth

Pros: Decent screen protector if you have a tiny screen.

Cons: This is tiny! I have two cameras, and bought a Dolica 2.5" protector for one. It was fine, but my other camera had a slightly bigger screen. I bought the 2.7" protector, thinking it'd be bigger. I was wrong. This is much, much smaller than the 2.5" protector.

Overall Review: The 2.5" protector measures 2"x1.5" (for a 3 square inch surface area). This one measures 2.25"x1.25" for a 2.8 square inch surface area. Both have diagonals smaller than 2.5" or 2.7" (you can do the math).

Excellent deal

DOLICA KIT1 3-in-1 Ultra Slim Camera Kit
DOLICA KIT1 3-in-1 Ultra Slim Camera Kit

Pros: Very inexpensive 3-in-1 kit. Bag fits my Panasonic FX30 camera (a bit loosely). It has a small inside pouch for SD cards (outside pouch would have been better). Probably not big enough to store a spare battery without battery rubbing against camera. No obvious problems. Includes lens/LCD cleaning cloth with screen protector.

Cons: Kit comes with only 1 screen protector, not 2 as shown in photo. I e-mailed Newegg to let them know the inconsistency, and they said they would let the relevant dept. know (they also gave me a credit for most of the price, although I explicitly stated I wasn't looking for any corrective action with regards to my order).

Overall Review: Small tripod rated to hold a 0.11 lb camera (1.78lb max load). 3.15" height unfolded, 4.13" folded (doesn't fit in pouch). Adjustable angle. Useful for timed group pictures. Screen protector is 1.52"x2.03", and comparatively easy to apply (which doesn't mean easy). Use latex gloves when applying to avoid fingerprints on sticky side.

Good desktop CPU

AMD Turion 64 MT37 Lancaster 2.0 GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 754 Single-Core TMSMT37BQX5LD Processor
AMD Turion 64 MT37 Lancaster 2.0 GHz 1MB L2 Cache Socket 754 Single-Core TMSMT37BQX5LD Processor

Pros: Very low power. Works in desktops. Pays back for itself in power bills quite quickly over a conventional desktop. 1 watt costs $1/year in Massachusetts. Typical desktops are 100-300W. My Turion desktop (Seasonic PSU+ASRock K8NF6G motherboard+Seagate 200GB HD+Gigabyte G-Power fan+512MB RAM) uses 40W idle (35W with HD spun down), and maybe 70W peak, so I save about $160/year with my 24/7 living room machine over a high-power machine.

Cons: Need to be aware of compatibility issues with motherboards (Google around a bit -- MSI and DFI both officially support the Turion, and my ASRock also supports it, but unadvertised). Many motherboards either will not support it, or will not support the lower voltage modes. Heat sink compatibility issues also exist -- it is thinner than a normal desktop CPU, so many clips will not be tight enough, and it doesn't have a heat spreader or heat sink supports, so it is possible to damage the chip with a heat sink (easier to do so than on the original Athlon, which also showed the raw chip, but had 4 supports around the chip). MSI Mobile Pad makes it just like a desktop CPU, though, cheap.

Overall Review: Works natively with the ASRock K8NF6G-VSTA motherboard, also sold by Newegg (as well as most MSI and DFI motherboards). The ASRock detects it natively, and supports all P-states through Cool-n-Quiet (800MHz/0.9V-2GHZ/1.25V), although it doesn't support the C-states (2-3W deep sleep state when the CPU is idle). If you buy this for use in a desktop, you should also order an MSI Mobile Pad. That is a heat spreader that makes the CPU compatible with stock Sempron 64/Athlon 64 heat sinks. It is marketed for preventing damage to the CPU, which is possible but unlikely. The real problem is that the CPU without heat spreader is thinner than a desktop CPU, so your heat sink clip might not be tight enough (a fair amount of pressure is needed to prevent the heat sink from moving, and to ensure a good thermal contact). I had that problem, and had to jury-rig a solution, since I didn't want to wait for the MSI pad to ship.

Not very well powered

D-Link DUB-H7 USB 2.0 7-Port Hub
D-Link DUB-H7 USB 2.0 7-Port Hub

Pros: 7 port hub

Cons: This isn't actually a fully powered USB hub. The USB spec specifies 500mA per device from powered hub. 500mA*7=3.5A. This thing comes with a 3A power brick. Since the hub uses some power, and power systems generally are about 70 percent efficient, that means you're probably getting 300mA per port. It'll power some things, but hook up 7 high power devices, and this thing won't work. Why do companies bother making products that don't work to spec?