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David E.

David E.

Joined on 10/07/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 9
Most Favorable Review

Works fine with external modem

ORION Pro Series Model 400-080-003 USB to Serial Converter (DB9M)
ORION Pro Series Model 400-080-003 USB to Serial Converter (DB9M)

Pros: .

Cons: .

Overall Review: Worked great connecting a 56K USRobotices Sportster-Voice external modem. I needed this modem to do Electronic Funds Transfer.

Most Critical Review

Description incorrect

JATON GeForce GT 630 2GB DDR3 PCI Express x16 Low Profile Ready Graphics Card Video-PX658-DLP-EX
JATON GeForce GT 630 2GB DDR3 PCI Express x16 Low Profile Ready Graphics Card Video-PX658-DLP-EX

Pros: none

Cons: The card only supports 1920 x 1080 with a dual-link DVI cable, not 2560 x 1600. Box says PCI-E 2.0, not 1.0 I was unable to run 3 monitors. The included NVIDIA software reported that the GPU only supports 2 monitors. But other reviewers claim it supports 3.

Overall Review: Tech support requires "registration". Registration requires replying to a confirmation email. But I never received the confirmation email.

Hooray, it works!

SPARKLE PRODUCTIVITY DMS Series GeForce 210 1GB PCI Express x16 Graphics Card 700035
SPARKLE PRODUCTIVITY DMS Series GeForce 210 1GB PCI Express x16 Graphics Card 700035

Pros: Supports 2 monitors. One monitor at 2560 x 1440 using a display port cable, other at 1920 x 1080 using a regular DVI cable. I tried connecting a third monitor using the remaining DVI output connector, and though Windows recognized the third monitor, the NVIDIA software reported that the GPU only supports two monitors.

Cons: Comes with half-height bracket installed. But it was easy to replace it with included full-height bracket.

Overall Review: Works in PCI-E 1.0 socket. Using Windows 7, I did not need or install anything on the included CD. But perhaps whatever I needed was already installed by a previous video card.

Works great, but little slow

HIS H545H1GD1 Radeon HD 5450 Silence 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express x1 Low Profile Video Card with Eyefinity
HIS H545H1GD1 Radeon HD 5450 Silence 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express x1 Low Profile Video Card with Eyefinity

Pros: Fan-less and only needs a PCI Express x1 slot.

Cons: Annoying installation.

Overall Review: It does work as a second video card to drive additional monitors, at least it worked with my ATI Radeon HD 5400 card. However, it's slower than the video card in the PCI Express x16 slot, which is sad, but understandable. The display attached to this card lags way behind when scrolling documents. It's not plug and play, you MUST run the installer on the included CD. And the installation is ridiculously slow, probably because of all the advertising you're forced to watch. Don't panic when the screen goes COMPLETELY BLACK, just wait it out. The "advanced installation" settings include check boxes to exclude games and other garbage, but this is silly, YOU CAN'T UN-SELECT THEM! Despite that, no garbage was actually installed into Windows 7. Nothing in the start menu or on the desktop. So after installation, everything's good.

Accessories not included

SAMSUNG 840 Series 2.5" 500GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7TD500BW
SAMSUNG 840 Series 2.5" 500GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7TD500BW

Pros: works great

Cons: The package does NOT include "Samsung Data SmartMigration software". The instructions direct you to download and use Norton Ghost, but don't waste your time registering and burning this software to CD like me. The Ghost + Backup package requires an unlock key which is NOT included. I thought the label on the back of the "SSD Magician" CD was the key. Not. So I used Partitian Wizard by MiniTool instead. Unlike the instructions for Ghost, Partitian Wizard does the whole drive, every partitian, in one whack. Nice. If you use Partitian Wizard, be sure to copy the partitians WITHOUT RESIZE if you want the drive to be bootable. But you can enlarge the partitians afterwards. Note that the special bracket for mounting SSDs is not included either, but I already had that.

11/19/2012

Bought 3, working fine.

Aluratek Tornado 120GB USB 2.0 2.5" External Hard Drive With Push Button Auto Backup AHDUB250120
Aluratek Tornado 120GB USB 2.0 2.5" External Hard Drive With Push Button Auto Backup AHDUB250120

Pros: I bought 3 of these to rotate through for monthly full disk image backups and they are all working fine so far. I use the free software DiskImage XML to do the backup and it takes about an hour to backup 60GB.

Cons: Caution, I found these drives do not work with Amacom's Back2Normal BareMetalRecover CD! This Linux restore software did not recognize and could not read the drive.