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Brad J.

Brad J.

Joined on 10/31/01

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 10
Most Favorable Review
Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case
Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Pros: Lots of expansion, high airflow, fans are quiet on low to medium speeds

Cons: Overall case depth is not enough. I found that cabling was very difficult as the motherboard ends right at the back of the 5.25" bays, making for some very tight connections. My previous case, a Lian-Li, was about 2" deeper and this made a world of difference in providing ample room for SATA and power cables.

11/15/2010
Most Critical Review

Worked well until pump failed at 2 year mark

Corsair Hydro Series H110i GT High Performance Water / Liquid CPU Cooler
Corsair Hydro Series H110i GT High Performance Water / Liquid CPU Cooler

Pros: Quiet, maintains temps on 5960X at 30 degrees near idle, 48 degrees under load.

Cons: Pump abruptly failed after 2 years. Seems to be a common issue. Warranty process is slow and cumbersome.

Meh

LIAN LI PC-A79B Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case
LIAN LI PC-A79B Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Pros: Lots of interior room Nice cable management features Drive cages include rubber isolators and a retaining lock for easy install and removal Bottom grill/dust filter for mounting PSU fan-down

Cons: Top I/O panel ports are fit very poorly, lots of movement and play in the USB 3.0 and eSATA ports Unable to get RPM reading from side fans Reset button is too small and too recessed to be useful Top cover does not fit after installing radiator, not enough clearance between bracket and the clip-on grill.

Overall Review: I've owned a number of Lian-Li cases and always found them to be of the highest quality...until now. The top I/O panel is awful and I don't expect the USB and eSATA ports to work for the life of this build. They're just that bad...worse fit/finish/quality than I've found on the cheapest no-name steel cases. Very disappointed with this case, and will not be considering Lian-Li for my next build, especially while other case manufacturers have really stepped up their offerings for the enthusiast market.

SNT SNT-SAC3051B 5x3.5" Hard drive in 3x5.25" Bay Hot Swap SAS/SATA Backplane RAID Cage
SNT SNT-SAC3051B 5x3.5" Hard drive in 3x5.25" Bay Hot Swap SAS/SATA Backplane RAID Cage

Pros: Does the job and looks good. Fan doesn't seem all that noisy and keeps the drives sufficiently cool even during heavy IO. Flexible power options, between 3 Molex and 2 SATA power connectors.

Cons: Extremely poor documentation, almost nonexistent support. Locks are pretty flimsy and it seems that a drive could still be popped out with enough force even when locked. One bay on mine is faulty, still waiting for response from manufacturer.

Overall Review: To the reviewer complaining about one drive having a different idle LED than other drives, I emailed support and received this response: ----- Our engineer replied: 1)This is because the new HDD you bought has different access definition. This kind of LED is for both link and access. When the power is on, the signal of this HDD is on. This kind of LED definition makes the LED color looks different. This kind of HDD is few. 2)If you want to have the HDD with all the same LED signal colors, we can only suggest he buy the same brand/model to avoid this kind of difference. ----- This makes sense, as I'm using 3 ST31000340AS drives and 2 ST31000340NS drives. My idle LED on the AS drives is green, and is amber for the NS drives.

SNT SNT-SAC3051B 5x3.5" Hard drive in 3x5.25" Bay Hot Swap SAS/SATA Backplane RAID Cage
SNT SNT-SAC3051B 5x3.5" Hard drive in 3x5.25" Bay Hot Swap SAS/SATA Backplane RAID Cage

Pros: Good construction, fan works well with reasonable noise. Latch lock is a nice touch to prevent accidental dislodging of drives.

Cons: Extremely poor documentation. Still trying to determine what an amber LED means for one of my drives. All other drives have a green LED when idle. The drive is in perfect working order with no SMART predictive failure.

NETGEAR ProSafe FSM7352S Managed L3 Managed Stackable Switch with 4 Gigabit Ports
NETGEAR ProSafe FSM7352S Managed L3 Managed Stackable Switch with 4 Gigabit Ports

Pros: Cheap, layer 3 RIP support

Cons: Only 4 gigabit ports Poor VLAN configuration documentation Poor LACP/802.3ad implementation

Overall Review: To the reviewer who mentioned being unable to use stackports: stack-port 1/0/51 ethernet stack-port 1/0/52 ethernet