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Colin F.

Colin F.

Joined on 07/12/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 12
Most Favorable Review

Fast / Cheap combo unit

BIOSTAR COMBO 6P2 AMD Sempron 3400+ AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX Motherboard / CPU Combo
BIOSTAR COMBO 6P2 AMD Sempron 3400+ AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX Motherboard / CPU Combo

Pros: Cheap, Small, uses cheaper DDR2 memory, reasonably fast processor, uses 20+4 power and 4pin CPU power so it works with 99% of the power supplies available these days.

Cons: Cheap CPU fan

Overall Review: This is a great deal, the system is reasonably fast. I used mine to construct a FreeBSD network file server. Compiles are fast, 64bit works nice and overall I consider this to be a great deal. The only downside is the fan it ships with. It's not horribly loud, however after just a few weeks of run time the fan started making a lot of noise and was replaced with a much better spare. If you're buying this for an HTPC or silent PC then you should really order a different cooler.

Most Critical Review

Avoid

SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI-Express x4 Low Profile SAS RAID Controller
SUPERMICRO AOC-SASLP-MV8 PCI-Express x4 Low Profile SAS RAID Controller

Pros: Cheap, PCIe, lots of ports

Cons: After reading the quick list of supported OS's I decided to buy two of these cards. I received them and installed them. My plan was to first run FreeBSD, no dice getting that working with these cards at all, So after that I went through 4 different Linux distributions, I only got it working after switching to a 3 year old centos distribution, this allowed me to install the 3 year old proprietary drivers, with their 3 year old bugs. After some quick testing I noticed right away drives dropping out of the arrays, as well as more concerning cases of drives being readdressed blindly. In any event, for those thinking about utilizing these cards on a non-Windows based system, be aware that they are based on the mvsas driver, are unstable, slow, and should be avoided.

Meh

Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive
Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 1TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

Pros: Quiet, reasonably fast, cheap

Cons: Seemingly unreliable

Overall Review: I purchased 3 of these over the course of a month, I'm into 1.5 month old range for the drive the failed on me. Hard failure with no warning. I monitor my disks closely and this one just quit on me. It should be noted that I run my drives hard, in arrays which operate 24/7 so having one fail like this is not unexpected, just be aware that you may consider a slightly more expensive drive for your single disk setup. No problems what so ever with the return process through the manufacture.

Great keyboard, but NiMH batteries

Logitech K800 2.4GHz Wireless Slim Illuminated Keyboard - Black
Logitech K800 2.4GHz Wireless Slim Illuminated Keyboard - Black

Pros: This is an excellent keyboard. If you type a lot (I mean A LOT) and you've gotten to the point where key spacing, height and action (feel) makes a difference then I highly recommend this keyboard. Battery life is great and recharging is as easy as plugging it into your nearest micro USB plug. * Lighted keys * Action on key press is excellent * full D-Pad * Unify receiver support * Works in Linux and FreeBSD perfectly * Rechargeable

Cons: NiMH batteries. The batteries (which they say are not user replaceable) suck. With any NiHM battery you get about 6 to 8 months on the stock batteries before they stop holding a charge. That said, the batteries are pretty easy to replace and any NiMH AA battery will work just great. I would have hoped that for such an expensive keyboard that the batteries would be lithium based. The other annoying "feature" is the USB connection on it is for charging only. The keyboard will NOT present it self as an HID via USB.

Overall Review: This is a great keyboard, works excellently with my Ubuntu and FreeBSD desktop machines, the battery issue sucks but is really only once a year thing (possibly sooner). The keyboard holds a charge for months at a time without a problem. I highly recommend this keyboard to anyone. I should also note that with the Unify receiver the range on this thing is great, it would make a good HTPC keyboard, however for that I use the little brother the K400.

Get something better

Cuisinart BFP-10CH PowerBlend Duet Blender/Food Processor 7 Speeds
Cuisinart BFP-10CH PowerBlend Duet Blender/Food Processor 7 Speeds

Pros: It's shiny.

Cons: 1) Very very loud 2) Hard to pour 3) Bad electrical burning smell when operating 4) Motor quit completely 5) Chinese garbage

Overall Review: Get something better, this thing is cheaply built and expensive at the same time. The attechments are nice but not worth the trouble. I think we used our blender maybe 10 times and on the 11th time it failed. The thing still looks brand new (even the internals) and for the life of me I can't figure out why it quit working.

Fast, but failed

Patriot Xporter XT Boost 16GB Flash Drive (USB 2.0 Portable) PEF16GUSB
Patriot Xporter XT Boost 16GB Flash Drive (USB 2.0 Portable) PEF16GUSB

Pros: extremely fast

Cons: after 2 years of near constant use the memory is reporting errors and the drive is no longer reliable.

Overall Review: This is a great drive, and I recommed it to anyone, just don't expect these things to last the long haul as they do fail, even with light use, and nearly zero plug unplug cycles.