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DON J.

DON J.

Joined on 01/15/03

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Product Reviews
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product reviews
  • 17
Most Favorable Review

Good HDTV Card

Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 ATSC/ClearQAM/NTSC TV Tuner MC-Kit 1183 PCI Interface
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 ATSC/ClearQAM/NTSC TV Tuner MC-Kit 1183 PCI Interface

Pros: ATSC/DTV and cable tuner card in one, MediaCenter-ready, IR remote, works with Win7 RC x64

Cons: WinTV Software is a bit funky, uses legacy PCI.

Overall Review: The card itself isn't too bad and works surprisingly well with Win7's Media Center application. I was able to detect the various DTV channels in my area (with decent strength) and use cable TV as a fallback source. DTV channels are fantastic and look amazingly crisp and sharp, at least the ones I was able to pick up. Some cannot be detected even though most are from the same transmission tower(s)/location. Be weary of channels that transmit simultaneously on two different DTV channels. Media Center will try to utilize both signals. Hauppauge's WinTV software is weird. It scans the cable TV channels fine but can't find jack squat for ATSC/DTV. Because of this, my primary TV viewer is now the Media Center app. Works with Windows 7 RC x64 w/ 8GB of RAM. Seems to work flawlessly in MC and the remote works out of the box.

Most Critical Review

Avoid this drive

Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate Desktop HDD ST3000DM001 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: large capacity, speedy, works when it does work

Cons: Bad apple, quality a shadow of former self

Overall Review: Purchased this on Nov 23, 2012. Nearly a month ago, the drive half-died on me. By half-died, it went ka-put but power-cycle (power down, power on) brings it back to life. It can be detected on start up, but reading data off of certain random areas takes a while. Worse yet is that some data became unreadable. Fortunately I was able to barely move essential files to another working drive, despite that it took hours for that to get done. This is one of the drive models that Backblaze uses in their storage systems. It had one of the worst failure rate out of the drives they've ran and used. Yet I don't put the kind of strain or load, the drive still couldn't live longer than it should have. I thought I could trust Seagate with the kind of reliability that they had. But I guess they've really gone downhill. I don't think it's worth getting Seagate drives any more. It's disappointing when a company as big and as reputable as Seagate starts throwing out bad drives that couldn't last longer than their biggest competitor: Western Digital. Conclusion: avoid this drive like the plague.

So Far, So Good

OEM Samsung EB-L1G6LLZ Li-Ion Battery for Galaxy S3 i9300 2100mAh FAST USA SHIP
OEM Samsung EB-L1G6LLZ Li-Ion Battery for Galaxy S3 i9300 2100mAh FAST USA SHIP

Pros: Should be compatible with all Galaxy S3 models regardless of carrier. Keyword is should. Used on Verizion model (SCH-I535).

Cons: Received battery is not exactly as listed. It's still compatible. But it's not good when the item you get has a model number different from what you're ordering. The item listing and its description should be updated to reflect that. Item description should list all the possible model number for the battery and what it is compatible with.

Overall Review: Battery life so far is good. Lasts about 1.5 to 2 days on a charge with extremely light usage. My S3 is reduced to being an alarm clock so this will extend the life for just a while longer.

10/29/2016

Fast and responsive

SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E250B/AM
SAMSUNG 850 EVO 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-75E250B/AM

Pros: Fast, responsive, and small. Makes a great laptop replacement drive or as an upgrade.

Cons: Very minimal packaging, it simply comes with the drive and that's it. If your case does not have mountings for a 2.5 drive, you should grab a mounting adapter prior to purchasing.

Overall Review: I've been spoiled by SSD. Ever since I started using it on my Win7 desktop, it's been so responsive and fast to use. Boot time is short and loading large games have been quick. With the 850 EVO, I dropped this into a laptop with a Core i3 CPU in it. Not only does the laptop boot insanely fast but everything is now responsive and snappy. I used to put the laptop into hibernation when it was using the hard drive. It's now fast enough that I don't need hibernation any more.

Solid board from Gigabyte

GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3P LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3P LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Latest Z68 chipset, USB3.0 connectivity, HDMI output, Virtu for configuring Intel GPU setup, lots of overclocking options

Cons: Nitpicking but I wish they'd truly use UEFI instead of clinging on to BIOS. It's time to move forward. Get rid of the BIOS. Other than that, I don't know anything bad about this particular board.

Overall Review: So far, so good. The board has tons of options for overclocking. I don't even overclock that much and it's overwhelming for me. It will take me a while to actually tune the board and the rig to get the most out of my 2600k CPU. Virtu will certainly make transcoding video files an interesting option once I have everything set up. The board runs fine and I have no problem yet, sans software issues from games which is due to bad programming and optimization. I chose this board after seeing the dismal reviews for the ASUS P8P67 PRO. It was my target board when I started planning for this upgrade. However, as time went by, and reviews are posted, the outlook and the ratings (3 of 5 egg/star at last view) for the board just doesn't look good. Current specs below: Intel i7 2600k Xigmatek HDT-S1283 w/ ACK-I5361 mounting bracket & Noctua NF-P12 16GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 (F3-12800CL9Q-16GBXL) XFX HD-695X-CDDC (Radeon 6950 2GB) XXX Edition (x2)

Bonus freebie

Patriot X-Porter 2GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) PSF2GUSB
Patriot X-Porter 2GB Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) PSF2GUSB

Pros: Small, simple, comes with activity LED

Cons: 2GB size ain't big enough, heh.

Overall Review: Used it to put in a couple of USB boot utilities as well as BIOS files for motherboards. Does what it does.

seller reviews
  • 1

So far so good

+ Shipped out my order quick + Ordered item arrived in working condition = Packaging is minimal but good enough for my order - Item was not exactly as I ordered. It's within compatible limits but product description and pictures should be updated to reflect this.

On-time
Delivery
Product
Accuracy
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Satisfactory
10/29/2016