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Robert J.

Robert J.

Joined on 12/20/05

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 19
Most Favorable Review

Great Power supply

SIGMA MONSTER SP850C 850W Continuous @ 40°C ATX12V 2.2V / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply
SIGMA MONSTER SP850C 850W Continuous @ 40°C ATX12V 2.2V / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: Modular design allowed removal of unused cable whips. Helped clean up the clutter. Wrapped cables look nice in the case, very neat and workmanlike appearance. Powered up great and had no problems.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Would like to have oneline diagram so I could tell which modular ports were on which 12V rail so I could spread the load evenly. Would also be nice if PCIE connectors were only one to a whip to provide a cleaner looking install.

Most Critical Review

Doesn't Last

SIGMA MONSTER SP850C 850W Continuous @ 40°C ATX12V 2.2V / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply
SIGMA MONSTER SP850C 850W Continuous @ 40°C ATX12V 2.2V / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: Modular. Quiet

Cons: I have been through 2 of these in the last 8 months. This last one lasted about 3 months. Same symptom each time. I'm using the machine and it just shuts down, hard. Pressing power button, blue led flashes and nothing. No power. I have 1 GTX280 and a core I7 with 2 HDs, DVD, and a few fans, nothing fancy, no SLI or crossover.

Overall Review: It is obvious to me at this point that there is a design problem with the PSU. Two units, same life span, same failure. Sigma may RMA the second one again. But why bother, I'll be paying to ship a broken PSU back to them so they can ship me the same design that will last 3 months and die. I had previously reviewed and given a better rating. At this point I'm not buying or using another Sigma PSU. I'll try another manufacturer and hopefully have better luck.

10/18/2009

Great laptop

Acer Laptop Aspire Intel Core i5-460M 4GB Memory 500GB HDD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 17.3" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit AS7741G-7017
Acer Laptop Aspire Intel Core i5-460M 4GB Memory 500GB HDD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 17.3" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit AS7741G-7017

Pros: Bought it for my wife. She loves it. Screen is bright and clear. Keyboard layout is good. Mouse pad is in a good location. It's light enough to sit on her lap and doesn;t generate too much heat for what she does (facebook, email, and online shopping mostly). Mouse gensture support is neat, she likes that. Out of box configuration is pretty good. Shuts dowm by itself after no activity for a few minutes.

Cons: Battery life is about 3 hours. That's what is advertised, but always would like better. Mcafee is a 60 day trial. then you have to pay or switch. Some bloatware, but not much. Hard drive is a little slow, but once things are up and running it's not a factor.

Overall Review: The activation of the office starter suite confused my wife. I had to take care of it.

12/29/2010

Very Fast - Great Improvement

Kingston SSDNow V100 2.5" 256GB SATA II Internal / External Solid State Drive (SSD) SV100S2D/256GZ
Kingston SSDNow V100 2.5" 256GB SATA II Internal / External Solid State Drive (SSD) SV100S2D/256GZ

Pros: The desktop kit had everything needed to install in a desktop. Mounting rails, screws, and SATA cable. The cloning software was perfect, a bootable CD. Installed the SSD, checked that it was there in the BIOS and marked it as the boot device. Booted to the CD, cloned my Hard Drive. Rebooted. Windows 7 installed some drivers, rebooted again, and done. The improvement in speed is great. Boot times cut in half. Applications start faster. Icons populate folder views instantly. And quiet, I didn't think I would notice, but I do. No more hard drive sounds when I click on applications.

Cons: Would have preferred a SATA cable with 90 degree fitting on the end by the SSD. Just makes a neater installation. Just a personal preference.

Overall Review: I'll never use a mechanical hard drive for the OS or applications again. Still need the old hard drive for media data (Music, videos, and pictures). And for system backups. But looks like the new standard is SSD for the OS+Apps and HD for data.

12/29/2010

Great phones

Panasonic KX-TG6445T 1.9 GHz Digital DECT 6.0 5X Handsets Cordless Phone Integrated Answering Machine
Panasonic KX-TG6445T 1.9 GHz Digital DECT 6.0 5X Handsets Cordless Phone Integrated Answering Machine

Pros: Sound quality and range is great. We cna use them all over the house and they sound great. The other cordless phones we have don't work near as well. The intercom feature is great; no more yelling up and down the stairs. The phones are sturdy and have good weight. Uses AA rechargables, not some special battery. Battery life is good but we do tend to keep the on the charger all the time and have had them only a week. Call ID announce is great to have.

Cons: Would be nice to be able to label the intercom stations on the menus; ie: Instead of 1, 2 ,3 etc.. have 1. Bedroom, 2. Kitchen, 3. Family room, etc... Wish they had a set with 6 phones in it. I could only find a 5 phone set and I am seriously considering buying the extra handset. Call ID announce usually comes on the 3rd ring.

Overall Review: An All-Call on the intercom would be nice.

11/27/2009

So far so good

hec Zephyr 1000 1000W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
hec Zephyr 1000 1000W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Pros: Quiet. Modular cables. Heavy gauge power chord. Cables are keyed so they won't fit in wrong slots. With my previous PSU I heard some whining and noise from the sound card during the startup of crysis. I had thought that was because of the sound chip set on the MB (maybe cheap). The old PSU blew up 2x so I got a different manufacturer this time. No noise or whining now, so now I know the old sigma PSU was responsible for that problem also (in addition to only lasting 3 months each time it was RMAd). So far (2days) the function is excellent.

Cons: Minor, but I would have preferred that the graphics card #1 power leads also be modular so I could use V5 and V6 to feed the graphics card. V5 and V6 have the highest output current. I still could do it by just not using the cables intended for the graphics card #1 and using the ones for the 2nd graphics card. But then the case would have these unused cables dangling around which sort of defeats the modular cable design. It's a preference, not really that big a deal.

Overall Review: The user manual that comes with it seems to have the output plugs mislabelled on the diagram along with some typos. The labels actually on the power supply appear correct. Also not a big deal. It just leads to the impression that it is impossible to get to V5 and V6 based on the diagram in the manual. Newegg processing is awesome. Ordered on Sunday night, arrived tuesday afternoon via normal ground shipping. And I did not pay for the expedited ordering or any kind of upgraded shipping. Basically 1.5 day turn around.

10/21/2009