Joined on 08/13/03
Low ceiling height!
Pros: Very nice looking case with quiet (but small) case fan and external power supply. Pair this case with a solid state hard drive and you'll have as quiet and cool an HTPC as can be.
Cons: Very low clearance above CPU. This case requires a 37mm high (or less) heat sink/fan combo and there is basically only one on the market that meets that criteria - the Silverstone NT07. It comes in AMD AM2 and Intel socket 775 models. Don't even THINK of ordering this case without the matching CPU fan. Also, it can only cool a 65w or less CPU, so forget about that quad core monster. If you can get by with a 45w single core processor do it.
Overall Review: I bought a slim Sony DVD/RW drive to go with this case and it comes with a slim SATA connector on the back, which does NOT work with the standard SATA power connectors in the case. Look at the picture carefully, the drive specs may not indicate which connector is used. The slim SATA combines the power and data channels into a single connector.
Switches fail
Pros: inexpensive 48 port gigabit switch
Cons: Cheap. This one failed after 3 months online. Would freeze up every 24-48 hrs, had to be unplugged and hard reset. Past the Newegg 30-day RMA, and I really don't want to put in a replacement of same type so I guess the Netgear replacement goes to auction......
Overall Review: Buy a better switch. I've had better luck with Netgear products in the past, but every switch we've bought failed within 2 years to some degree. Often just one or two ports go down.
awesome server mobo
Comments: We built a 2TB RAID server with the previous version of this board (no "F") last December. It's now been running 24/7 for 9 full months with zero downtime due to hardware- the only reboots have been Windows 2003 or other software update related. 'Nuff said?