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eric s.

eric s.

Joined on 02/19/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 10
Most Favorable Review

Great Headset

MOTOROLA CommandOne Bluetooth Headset with CrystalTalk / MotoSpeak / Caller ID / Advanced Multipoint
MOTOROLA CommandOne Bluetooth Headset with CrystalTalk / MotoSpeak / Caller ID / Advanced Multipoint

Pros: Great sound quality & noise reduction. Looks good. Micro USB charging port (universal these days). Sexy computer voice tells when when I'm connected.

Cons: Had trouble finding the button to activate voice dialing & end calls. Its actually part of the charging port. Specifically the plastic surrounding it.

Overall Review: Looks WAY better than my 6 your old $13 bluetooth.

Great!

ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
ASUS M5A97 AM3+ AMD 970 USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: It's an ASUS so it should last a very long time. Easy to install everything

Cons: People complaining about things that are clearly stated in all the specs information for this board.

Overall Review: Used this board for my 1st build in a LONG time. Everything went together smoothly. After considering the ASUS alternatives to this board it really depends on budget. The EVO board is $20 more, has front USB 3.0 support for the front of you case and Dual Intelligent Processors 2 with DIGI+ VRM - Digital Power Design! I don't know what that means, but it sounds pretty awesome. In my case, I saved $20 over the evo on the board, saved some more on the case that didn't support usb 3.0 on the front panel. Still got a great setup, I just have to wait longer when I transfer files...or just get a $2 USB extension from on of the 2 open USB slots in the back of my pc.

Great little board

BIOSTAR A780L3L AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
BIOSTAR A780L3L AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Small, cool & well it works!

Cons: Had an issue with the windows certified display drivers causing the bluescreen from an ATI2 driver (ones on the CD work fine)... DL'd the one from amd.com and went through the custom install to skip the catalyst control center (does nothing that I can tell on the 3000) & all is good. Also had an issue with the HDD having issues booting up fully without errors. Turned out to be an improperly seated SATA cable, it was fully in the socket but had to be removed and reseated to solve the issue. That was months ago & everythign is working well.

Overall Review: Built this as a replacement for my parents ancient AMD 2.0ghz pc. Built sparse with 4gb or ram, windows XP home & a cheap box. Tossed in an AMD 455 x3 and we've been off to the races!

Great lil MB

BIOSTAR A780L3L AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
BIOSTAR A780L3L AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Easy to install & play with, great pricepoint. The bios is very OC friendly. Make sure you read the BIOS manual from biostars website.

Cons: None

Overall Review: For the people complaining that their CPU's arent showing at full speed. This is probably from the "Power Now" feature in the bios. It clocks back the CPU speed based on the cpu usage to reduce power consumption. When there is little load it clocks down. When you're doing heavy duty cpu intensive stuff it clocks back to full speed. This stuff has been around for the better part of a decade and is easily disables in bios.

@ Volvox

PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Graphics Card AG3850 512MD3
PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Graphics Card AG3850 512MD3

Pros: Fast, very fast. My amd single core 4000+ running at 2.4mhz is only using about 10% of the cards potential. Card does run much faster thanevga 6800.

Cons: No fan speed controller, runs 100% all the time and is the loudest item in my computer. There is no way to change fan speed aside from running the fan to some sort of manual controller as this card does not have the hardware to change the fan speed from 100%

Overall Review: @ Volvox, agp aperture size has nothing to do with the cards internal memory. AGP Aperture size allocates a certain amount of ram for texture information that goes beyond the cards 512mb limit. The recomended setting for AGP Aperture size is 128mb. Adding more or less does not bring any speed increases. So stick to 128mb, its a commonly used value and has worked flawlessly for me.

Works Like a Charm!

PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Graphics Card AG3850 512MD3
PowerColor Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 AGP 4X/8X Graphics Card AG3850 512MD3

Pros: Went in without an issue. *DL'd the drivers from ATI Support under "support & drivers, click on Catalyst software for gamers, DL the Catalyst AGP Hotfix, installed just the drivers at first. * I am getting 25 fps in Dal up from 12! Makes the ol 6800 look like the old hardware it is :)

Cons: All the reviews and articles I read about this card had me believing I would be returning it today. They were wrong!

Overall Review: My setup: Abit AV8 3rd eye (with the Via chipset) AMD 4000+ single core, 600w psu w/ dual 18amp 12v, 2gig Kingston HyperX. Prior to the actual hardware install I disabled fastwrite in BIOS. I Downloaded the ATI Hotfix drivers and Driver Dleaner Pro. Uninstalled all the nvidia software and restarted in safe mode (hold down f8) and ran Driver cleaner targeting the nvidia software. Installed the videocard, hit cancel when windows detected new hardware. Installed the hotfix in Custom mode, installed the drivers only not catalyst control center. Restarted and Played Warcraft! I actually can put shadows on full without my system stalling!!