Advantages: online capacity expansion, deals with hard disc problems better
Disadvantages: slow compared to software RAID

...recommend upgrading to current firmware and 2.16 storcon utl (both are on www.intel.com. There is a linux version of the 2.16 storcon, but it was hard to find!) With initial installation on a Gigabyte GA7 motherboard and Adaptec 2940AU SCSI controller, the problems with onboard intel BIOS / adaptec 2940AU and mobo BIOS reared it's ugly head. I could not for the life of me with all the PCI juggling, IRQ remapping and BIOS remapping options get it to boot with a Adaptec SCSI card and Intel RAID card. I asked a friend about his setup, and he had no problems (he was running a Intel serverboard with his SRCS14L) My problem was solved by removing SCSI from system completely and migrating to IDE bootup drives (which was such a pain on linux!) Current drivers are 2.05 which are included since the 2.4.19 kernel. As with all RAID controllers... Read review

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Advantages: reliable, very upgradable, fast and very over-clockable.
Disadvantages: no HT support, only USB 1.1, did anybody get built in LAN?

...Blaster Live 5.1 Platinum. Since I've never used the built in one, I can't comment on it. Generally though they are not up to the standard of the high end Creative cards. I installed 2x 200gig IBM 7200rpm deskstars on the primary standard ide, and a dvd writer and cd writer on the secondary standard ide. On the Highpoint I installed 4x 200gig IBM 7200rpm desktars (primary ide master+slave and secondary ide master+slave). I use them as extra drives only, not as RAID. This is because if you upgrade the highpoint BIOS it can sometimes break the RAID stripe. I didn't want to risk that. This board supports ATA100 max. ATA133 drives work fine, but you will only get ATA100 transfer speeds through the bus. This board started life with a socket 478 Pentium4 Williamette processor at 1.5GHz. This lasted me for a while, and ran happily when clocked... Read review

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Advantages: Sturdy. Good Quality.
Disadvantages: Compatible with SecureConnect hard drives only.

...I recently bought one of these cables to connect my hard drive (also WD – Western Digital) to my motherboard. I had never used SATA before and was only familiar with IDE cables – the annoying thick ones that are a pain to connect. Unlike IDE cables, SATA leads can only be plugged in one way at both ends. This cable holds the power connection stable too. This cable can only really be used on Western Digital hard drives, but they are a leading manufacture and highly recommended. Both WD Raptor and WD Caviar SE Serial ATA drives use this unique connection, but there are also other SecureConnect compatible hard drives out there. The main reason you would buy this rather than any old SATA cable is because of its SecureConnect design which holds it in place nice and tight. I have a WD raptor drive, and following the usual hard drive... Read review

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Advantages: none
Disadvantages: poor service all round

...We flew from Gatwick to Orlando on ATA in October 2000. Although the flights were ok the planes that we flew on where outdates and uncomfortable. To start with the planes were so old that they needed to refuel in Canada. The refuelling process requires all passengers to disembark (down steps into the cold Canadian weather) for safety purposes and then wait in a horrible terminal building for 45 minutes before getting back onto the same plane to carry on the journey. We left all of our belongings on the plan. This is not too bad if done during the day – however, the return flight also requires that every passenger leave the plane. That’s no fun with three kids at one in the morning in the middle of October. Apart from having to disturb everyone’s sleep, they made us get of the plane via a stairway and walking across the tarmac... Read review

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Advantages: cheap, glows
Disadvantages: packaging problems, can cause problems, dim glow

...this could lead to it being faulty, which is what i suspect has happened to mine. When i first installed the hard drives in RAID 0 i would get a message telling me there was an error with the set up and the computer simply wouldn’t boot. Turning the computer on and off would usually solve this, however sometimes it wouldn’t. I took the side of the case off and made sure the cables were attached correctly and they were, during the check i had moved the cables to a different position and then the computer booted first time. When the problem came back a few weeks later i tried straightening out the cables as much as possible, as they were still bent from the packaging, and since then i will only get the problem once in a couple of months or longer. So make sure when these are installed that you keep them as straight as possible with no sharp... Read review

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Advantages: SLI. AMD64 bit goodness, DDR memory still used, Hypertransport, Hardware Firewall, Cable testing ports
Disadvantages: New PSU needed for 24 pin ATX and PCI-E power, BIOS updates required

.../encoding and it gained a lot of fans due to this ) Not only does this motherboard have the nforce4 chipset which provides 4 Serial ATA ports which are the next generation and can support devices that use 300 Mb/s and the 2 standard IDE channels providing 4 slots here for drives, it also houses the Silicon image 3114R controller for yet another 4 Serial ATA drives to be fitted. In total - this board can accept 12 devices connected at any given one time, which is a LOT of ports to use up. As with all Nforce4 based boards - this has the ability to support upto 10 USB2.0 ports so even the most gadgetfreaked members reading this would have a hardtime filling all 10 ports at any 1 given time. The Nvidia raid is very easy to setup and supports all the standard Raid Settings such as Raid 0 and raid 1 ( Striping and mirroring respectively) and it also has... Read review

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Advantages: 266 FSB, 4 IDE's, RAID, XP Athlons
Disadvantages: Wont make beer.

...512MB’s or... 2 x serial: The old type port. Used for old mouse’s and modems. USB is replacing these, but they are always handy to have. 1 x parallel port: Your printer/scanner port (Unless you have USB stuff) 2 x serial USB: For pretty much anything as long as it’s USB. 1 x mouse generic (PS/2 Style): The new dedicated mouse port (replaced the serial). 1 x keyboard generic (PS/2 Style): The new dedicated keyboard port (replaced the old weird one, don’t worry about it to much). 2 x storage DMA/ATA-133 (Ultra): These are for plugging your hard drives into the motherboard. 133 ATA is the fastest available at the moment. And this motherboard can do this speed! As long as your hard drives can though, and you use an ATA cable. 2 x storage DMA/ATA-133 (Ultra): Yep another two, these are for the RAID... Read review

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Advantages: Dual Channel Memory Controller, Sound-Storm with digital output, Serial ATA support, Great Overclocking
Disadvantages: South-bridge can sometimes get a little warm

...After looking around the market, and getting totally bamboozled with terms such as AN7 this A78N that and NF7 the other I decided to look for a motherboard that not only had a good feature list, but one that was within my price range. The first thing that you notice about the Abit NF7-S when you remove the motherboard is the fact that it has more features than you can shake a stick at. Serial ATA support for both single and raid drives, 5.1 Digital sound with AC3 encoding support thanks to the nvidia soundstorm and of course a nice northbridge cooling fan. When you open the box, you will notice a few items here that you will not really get with other motherboards - These are a Serial ATA cable, and a serielle adaptor. This adaptor allows you to use an IDE based hard-drive on the serial ATA channel and thus use a thinner cable... Read review

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Advantages: Incredible insight into serial killers
Disadvantages: Freaked me out a bit!

...Now, without sounding too much of a "freak" I have a secret passion for serial killers, British or otherwise, it amazes me how someones mind can work in justifying these terrible crimes. This DVD, which I bought myself a little while ago, is priced at approx. £13, and if you are into crimes, especially murders, I would say you would not regret paying it to watch this. Let's start with the packaging, with a title like "Britain's Bloodiest Serial Killers," you would expect it to be a bit graphic. The front of the DVD box also reflects that, being covered in blood, with a gun, syring, rope and a meat cleaver. Now, personally, I prefer a bit of blood, the more gruesome, the better! (I'm not really a secret murderer I promise!) It was released on the 7th June 2006, and I was surprised because before seeing this on the website I... Read review

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Advantages: Features, Design, Future-Proofing
Disadvantages: Price, Dual Power System problems

...-proof solution (PCI-Express) on the basis that it should give me slightly more upgrade opportunities. 3. The type and amount of memory supported by the motherboard. Often over-looked, the speed and amount of memory supported by a motherboard will have a significant impact on it's performance. The GA-K8NXP-9 supports up to 4Gb of DDR400 memory in 4 slots, allowing for plenty of high-performance memory. The newer CPU socket also allows this memory to be accessed in "Dual Channel" mode, meaning it's effectively even faster than it says on the tin. 4. The types of hard drives supported. Historically this wouldn't have been an issue - the standard was for regular ATA hard drives but, as with video cards, technology has moved on and the new standard is Serial ATA (SATA). There are a number of benefits to this new format, not least of which... Read review

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