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Robert G.

Robert G.

Joined on 05/30/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 5
Most Favorable Review

Quality, highly compatible mainboard.

SUPERMICRO MBD-H8SCM Micro ATX Server Motherboard Socket C32 AMD SR5650 DDR3 1333
SUPERMICRO MBD-H8SCM Micro ATX Server Motherboard Socket C32 AMD SR5650 DDR3 1333

Pros: This compact mainboard's a high-quality piece. I've tried it with FreeBSD 9.0-R, Ubuntu 12.04 x86_64, and Windows XP x64 Edition so far. It works very well with all of these. I also had a number of technical questions for Supermicro, which they answered over e-mail, usually on the same day; their support's excellent.

Cons: The Supermicro Superdoctor application shows some of the temperatures (System, Air and NB) running kind of high--113F, 91F, and 122F, respectively. This despite that my configuration's very low-power (HE-class CPU, SSD disks, mild video board, etc). This gives me the impression that the board's running a little warm, but maybe this isn't a concern at all. On the upside, I ran a few hours of load tests and didn't see the temperatures go up at all.

Most Critical Review

Didn't work on my Sun Ultra 20 nor my Thinkpad X31.

BYTECC BT-2000 USB (Male) to PS2 (Female) Adapter
BYTECC BT-2000 USB (Male) to PS2 (Female) Adapter

Pros: There aren't any relevant pros that I can think of.

Cons: This device didn't work with either my Thinkpad X31 or my Sun Ultra 20. On the X31, plugging this device in causes all the other USB ports to stop working. On the Ultra 20, plugging this device in does absolutely nothing. The device's green LED lights but nothing happens.

This adapter didn't work for me (Sun Ultra 20)

BYTECC BT-2000 USB (Male) to PS2 (Female) Adapter
BYTECC BT-2000 USB (Male) to PS2 (Female) Adapter

Pros: None

Cons: I tried to use this adapter to hook up a classic Dell PS/2 keyboard to my Sun Ultra 20 workstation. The Ultra 20's an Opteron-based workstation; it's just a PC--nothing proprietary. But this adapter didn't work reliably; it was as though a few keystrokes "made it through," but most were dropped.

Super clear, consistent, and cheap screens.

PLANAR  PX2710MW  Black  27"  2ms Full HD HDMI WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 300 cd/m2  1200:1
PLANAR PX2710MW Black 27" 2ms Full HD HDMI WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 300 cd/m2 1200:1

Pros: I bought two of these screens for my main workstation, and they're really nice. One's viewing a Windows VM and it works perfectly. The other's viewing an X server running in an OpenBSD VM, in portrait orientation. I had a full-screen, small-font xterm running, and the text is crisp and even across the entire panel. I think these screens were great bargains.

Cons: This isn't a big deal if you already know about it, but note that these screens don't come with stands that let you run them in portrait orientation mode; I had to attach an after-market stand to one for this.

Small, high quality case; great bargain.

SUPERMICRO CSE-731i-300B Black Mini-Tower Server Case
SUPERMICRO CSE-731i-300B Black Mini-Tower Server Case

Pros: This small case has a high-quality, sturdy feel to it, and it's not adorned with dumb extras like flappy doors that break, or meaningless LEDs. Hooking up all the connectors to the mainboard's really easy if you have a Supermicro mainboard also, since they use a custom connector that does them all at once. An adapter's included for non-Supermicro mainboards. I combined this case with an H8SCM and love it.

Cons: The including power supply unit's not super quiet; if you're locating your computer in a very quiet room you're going to hear it. The case fan's not all that quiet either. Both parts seem high-quality though. But if you're going for a super-quiet system, you'll probably wind up replacing the PSU, and hooking up the case fan to 5V direct, non-PWM. The case is still a superb bargain despite these things.