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Alexander M.

Alexander M.

Joined on 11/16/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 26
Most Favorable Review
Arctic Silver Arctic Alumina 5g Thermal Adhesive Set AATA-5G
Arctic Silver Arctic Alumina 5g Thermal Adhesive Set AATA-5G

Pros: Comes with a little mixing wand. Decent mixing time. Holds decently strong. Currently keeping my northbridge under 100F/38C -- quite good.

Cons: I went to test the bond after the first time, and the heatsink came off without much force. However! I redid it using slightly more of this compound, and now I can pick up the whole board (including a three-pound CPU cooler) by the cooler attached with this compound.

Overall Review: Pay attention to the instructions on the Arctic Silver website. I'm using it to hold a Cooler Master SLC-S41-U1 chipset HS/Fan to an MSI K8N Neo3-F northbridge. The stock fan died after one year of service.

12/19/2006
Most Critical Review

Beware of these 90mm units

LOGISYS Computer CCF80GN 80mm Green LED Case Cooling Fan
LOGISYS Computer CCF80GN 80mm Green LED Case Cooling Fan

Pros: Very high airflow, greater than other fans in this range. Not bad on noise.

Cons: The diameter of the circular cathode tubes far exceeds the size of the 80mm fan. If you are attempting to install two of these side-by-side in a dual-80mm configuration, stop right now. I attempted this and, before I realized what was happening, had cracked the cathodes on all four units I purchased, as they attempted to cram their 180mm bulk into a 160mm area. If you are installing two 80mm fans side-by-side, go for one of these and one plain fan, and you'll be fine.

Overall Review: I did no damage to the fans themselves, thus I decided to keep them, purchasing a pair of Logisys four-inch CCs for lighting instead. So while I can tell you, the fans are pretty great, I'm compelled to give a rating of 2 because of Logisys's attempt to sell these 90mm units as 80mm fans.

COOLER MASTER SLC-S41-U1 Aluminum Fan & Heatsinks
COOLER MASTER SLC-S41-U1 Aluminum Fan & Heatsinks

Pros: Nice LEDs, nice fan. It's keeping an MSI K8N Neo3-F nForce 4 northbridge under 38C idle.

Cons: After reading other reviews, I decided not even to try the included adhesive setup and instead ordered Arctic Silver AATA-5G thermal adhesive. To use it I, of course, had to remove the existing stuff from this sink. It took a while to clean it to the point of being able to see only metal, and I gave up after clearing just enough bare space for the chip. It really does not want to come off at room temperature, but heating it could sink it into the chip and impair the operation of aftermarket thermal compound.

Overall Review: I really wish there could be a standard method of attaching chipset coolers (like for CPU coolers) so we wouldn't need an adhesive setup...

12/20/2006
MSI K8N NEO3-F 754 NVIDIA nForce4 4X ATX AMD Motherboard
MSI K8N NEO3-F 754 NVIDIA nForce4 4X ATX AMD Motherboard

Pros: The upgrade from an ECS 754 board was immediately noticeable right out of the first boot nearly a year ago. For its time the nForce4 chipset was blazing-fast, top of the line. It still holds a place today, but its 754 implementation is no doubt losing viability. Plenty of room on the board, nice if you want to install a massive CPU cooler. I personally haven't, but it is possible to center a 120mm over the CPU and still clear the case fans. If your cooler is low, however, you will need to worry about the RAM placement. Overall good layout and PCB labeling.

Cons: This board has taught me to be wary of motherboards offering a northbridge fan. I wish I had known then what I know now, that any northbridge fan placed on a motherboard in this range will probably not stand the test of time. Just short of one year of operation, my fan gave out. I removed the tiny heatsink and applied some silver-based thermal compound, and pointed a 120mm fan at it pending the arrival of a Cooler Master SLC-S41-U1 chipset cooler and Artic Silver's Arctic Alumina thermal adhesive (AATA-5G). If you buy this board, or any board with a chipset fan, take no risks. Purchase an aftermarket chipset cooler at the start.

Overall Review: Will be removing this board soon in favor of a 939 dual core. However, I do still hope to get another year or two's use out of it and my Athlon 3400+ as a low-traffic server/general second computer.

Rosewill RFA120L-W 4 White LEDs LED Case Cooling Fan
Rosewill RFA120L-W 4 White LEDs LED Case Cooling Fan

Pros: For such huge airflow, a very smooth, quiet fan. Highly durable and well-molded.

Cons: White LEDs are quite vivid when they're not overwhelmed, but start introducing any other bright LEDs or cathodes into your environment and they will be drowned out.

Overall Review: Bought it a year ago to cool a computer I basically had sitting in a long, low plastic storage bin. The kind you'd shove under your bed. Left it in a box for eight months until my mobo's northbridge fan failed. Pulled it out again to keep the mobo from melting until I get a replacement 40mm cooler, and it worked like brand new.

XION PowerReal XON-600F14T-201 600W ATX12V SLI Ready  Power Supply
XION PowerReal XON-600F14T-201 600W ATX12V SLI Ready Power Supply

Pros: You'll never run out of power with this thing delivering 22 amps on its two 12v rails, nor will you run out of ways to deliver that power. As shown in the pictures, PSU includes plenty of those 4-pin molexes that seem to disappear so quickly. Solidly built, good and heavy. With PSUs, weight = quality. Its cooling fan is excellent and has three settings: low, high, and auto, which adjusts fan speed via a cable plugged into the mobo (like a mobo-controlled case fan). Nice LEDs.

Cons: PSU is delivering some extra voltage to my processor, overclocking my Athlon 64 3400+ by 12 MHz. To me it's simply an added bonus, but other customers may have slightly different standards.

Overall Review: One year ago, this was one of maybe ten PSUs with a 12v rail of at least 22 amps. I needed it due to the requirements of my brand-new, top-of-the-line, can't-get-any-better 7800 GTX. Oh, how I miss the days of superiority.