Joined on 06/06/07
Great basic mobo, but beware newer CPU compat. issues
Pros: Inexpensive, loaded with as many slots and ports as a basic user would need, and has decent on-board graphics.
Cons: Doesn't appear to support certain widescreen resolutions or the new high-efficiency AMD X2 CPUs (e.g. 4050e) out-of-box.
Overall Review: I've been using these motherboards for several months now to build PCs for employees at my company, and they've worked great. I've only encountered two problems to date, and they're fairly trivial: they don't support 19" widescreen resolution, and they won't get past the BIOS loading summary screen if you try to use CPUs like the new AMD Athlon X2 4050e, even though it's a Socket AM2 processor.
Not as good as the HX-191DPB
Pros: * Inexpensive 19" LCD * Decent field of visibility
Cons: * No DVI input * More expensive than the HX-191DPB
Overall Review: The HX-191DPB has DVI, is a bit brighter and is a few bucks cheaper. The lack of DVI alone decreases the longevity of this monitor.
Pros: Inexpensive
Cons: Doesn't work as advertised. Everything autodetected properly under Windows XP -- I didn't need to install the SetPoint software to start working. But within 2 hours of use, the keyboard wireless detection started flaking out. It would come back sporadically, but I wasn't able to identify the cause: the receiver was located away from any devices that might interfere, it had a clear line-of-sight to the keyboard, and the USB cable was plugged into a known-good port.
A solid office PC
Pros: * All of the units I've received to date have come with Seagate HDDs. * Very inexpensive for what you get.
Cons: * Difficult to track down XP drivers, though I still managed to do it. * Comes with a ball mouse, not an optical mouse.
Overall Review: I've already bought four of these and will be buying four more later today. They're solid, inexpensive PCs for casual users; however, gamers or power users who want the ability to upgrade various components (e.g. memory, large video cards, aftermarket coolers) should consider building their own or choosing another model.
Good product, AWFUL software
Pros: Compact wireless via USB.
Cons: Incredibly non-intuitive software that doesn't let you actually use the product.
Overall Review: The GUI that is used to connect to the WNDA3100 is abysmal. Once you've installed the software, you'd think it would be as simple as scanning for networks, connecting to a network, and saving the settings as a profile. WRONG. Clicking an "Apply" button after selecting your pre-configured profile pops up a window that says "Validate Settings"... followed by no connection to the network, even though it can be seen with 94% signal strength. The software looks to be done in Adobe Flash, complete with fade-in and fade-out effects, so everything takes a long time to start or complete. In fact, trying to run the latest software package (v1.3 as of June 2, 2008) resulted in a BSOD on my laptop. That might have been due to low memory, but it shouldn't require that much power to connect to it in the first place. At this point, I may sell the WNDA3100, take a slight loss and buy a different wireless adapter instead.