you havent made it until someones tried to use you to perpetrate
a scam.

Mike,
you have been reasonable and fair as I have come to expect from you. Nice letter.

I would still like to encourage that all sales reps are identified as such where known through an avatar or description under their name.

Maybe even we design avatar's from their logo's (with their permission) and whack them on their logins

That way we can read and listen in the light of who they represent.

How could I be soo stupid!. A recent post by myself, concerning some posts about fans used in silenx 350W...



hmm, makes me wonder. How could I just not see it. Anyway the most difficult part is now for me to disregard whatever this digitalix/silenx/??? has said about their PSU, and most of all their *good* experience with it. gee. how can I erase my mind?.
[/b]

Ya know reading all this today I thought this whole idea of these silenx guy(s) faking us out to promote their products seemed sort of opportunistic / capitalistic and maybe we're overreacting a little but when Mike C said



I have to agree with him. This was not opportunism. This was a revelation of a tendency to depersonalize real people and enjoy duping them in a sort of internet-sociopath mode. Good show MikeC. All these well-spoken apologetic posts by silenx in this thread are nothing but a show.

I thought I was talking to regular people here, not plants.

They should be banned. Big difference between a fanboy, an admitted employee, an admitted go between, and some guy screwing around with aliases who is supposed to own a company.

I agree with whoever said it is mind boggling how unprofessional these people have been.

Boards can benefit from company people. They should be upfront about who they are, knowledgable about products, help people out, while promoting their products. Not being deceitful, creating aliases, and jamming their products down people's threads.

What is a Silent X PSU, but a modified Fortron anyway. What is so special about that? I guess it's the different name, you know it has the word "silent" in it...

Most people who visit these forums can change their own fans or learn how to change them. That's exactly what forums like these are for.

How can you do any business with people who have a mindset to do something like this? They could have been upfront and done very well, yet they decided to do this because? Because Ahanix supposedly screwed them? Yah, that makes sense, NOT. I think it's their mindset that is screwed.

At least this is a reminder to people to take everything with a grain of salt on the internet.

I am new here, and maybe my vote doesn't count for much, but Mike, I think you should cut them off completely. I don't think you should review their products. In the words of many country songs, 'they've done ya wrong.' It's not retalliation, it's not being bitter, it is just good business not to deal with people who do bad business.

Empty17
*Thank you Seasonic for my 400 PSU with the easy to replace fan that plugs in and requires no soldering...

It would be kind of silly to completely "ban" their products from being reviewed. Regardless of your feelings about digital-x's behavior, the products are very much an important part of the silent scene. As it is, there aren't that many companies taking the silent market into account. If we start arbitrarilly banning products based on non-commercial reasons, SPCR is going to make itself irrelevant, which isn't something anyone here should wish for.

Heh only just spotted this thread, This explains those disclaimers..
It does kinda worry me that a company pulling this sort of stunt isn't even competant enough to do it from different ISPs

Wonder if this blokes a 13 year old e-millionaire

As a nice contrast, I think MikeCs sticky reply is spot on.
To the point without getting all draconian or throwing a hissy fit. (hey he didnt bribe you with a free PSU did he )
Good Work.

And the Enron Award for Ethics in business goes to.....Peter Kim at Silenx.com

wow bud, all that the time and effort you spent into yanking us around , maybe you should have read an ethics in business book or two. Banning these clowns will make SPCR the BEST source for unbiased information.

Hey Pete just cause you feel you got screwed doesnt give you the right to screw us. Come to think of it I'm glad you left exoticpc.com now we dont have to worry about handing over our credit card numbers to jokers like you. Bye Bye ..

I'm quiet suprised to see SilenX banner ads still running on the site. Personally, I would refund any remaining deposits back to him, and remove the ads, and reviews as well.

This is one of the strange curiosities... that Exotic would allow the use of the brand name silenx & allow brand confusion. Those are exoticpc ads, K man.

Oh ok. Yeah, Exotic should do something about that.
I know it would not be pleasant to remove all of your hard work concerning your SilenX review, but I would suggest it.
Or as a minimum, update the review with some links to these recent SilentX posts.

Geez, I go on vacation and miss all this good stuff. I feel so let down missing all this drama.

I just spent about an hour reading all this stuff. Whether anyone wants to hear it or not, here's my take (careful I tend to ramble incoherently):

PK is trying to defuse the already exploded bomb by being all honest and forthcoming. The bomb however, did blow up and it sprayed his brains all over the boards. Where was the honesty and forthcoming-ness when he was making people into fools and hocking his goods. Anyone that would even consider buying a product from this hack after reading this thread would seriously have to take a look in the mirror.

I am equally appalled at the people (overly forgiving) who think silenx should still be reviewed or recommended as a quality product. Part of the product you buy is the service you expect from the company, and from what I have seen here, I wouldn't expect much.

Also, every time PK gives one of those bland responses like "I genuinely will miss your business, and I'm sorry if I mislead anyone", it makes me want to lose my lunch. The "IF" part is the funniest/saddest.

I'm sure someone said all this, but everyone else got their say

Late to the party,

Mike Russo

EDIT: LOL I mispelled defuse as "diffuse", as in "spread". A little grammatical humor. :Nervous laugh:

EDIT 2: I have removed the reference to other SPCR readers as "sheep". I replaced this with "overly forgiving", which is what I was trying to express in the first place. I still don't agree with it, but everyone is allowed to decide on their own when to forgive and when not to. Apologies if I offended any fellow SPCR's.

In all fairness, SilenX is in a good company :

"This memo, as well as other e-mail messages and internal Microsoft documents obtained from a recipient of the Microsoft e-mail, offers a rare glimpse these days into the inner workings of Microsoft, the world's largest software company. They spell out a program of tactics that were carried out in recent years, ranging from steep price discounts to Microsoft employees lying about their identities at trade shows. "

see http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1001845.html?tag=fd_top

I wonder if now all of us should consider removing MS products from their PCs .

Let's not get sidetracked on a Microsoft issue. Many of us try our best not to buy Microsoft products. That's about all we can do concering Microsoft. But the main point is: Just because one company does it, it does not justify us to tolerate it SilenX from doing it. In our small silent PC community, we can at least do what's right.

Anyone who falsifies his identity, and uses tactics like SilenX deserves to be severed from the community.



I so agree with this statement.

Exactly. I know M$ is an evil corporation and all, but its not like they came in my back yard and kicked my dog. Which is kind of what this situation feels like to me. Kudos to MikeC for not going totally ape$hit. I would have been much less "pleasant".

SPCR feels like a second home, and this stuff makes the neighborhood stink to high heaven.

That enough metaphors for everyone?

Microsoft misleads everyone, evenly. But Peter was intentionally lying to individual people, people who didn't even know they were talking to a rep, to boost his bottom line. The users of this list thought they were getting objective advice from a fellow silencing compatriot.

And least when Bill Gates opens his mouth you know not to believe what he says.

Why remove the product review? It was a PSU from ExoticPC, and it's the best PSU MikeC has reviewed so far. I can see a reason to boycott SilenX.com, but ExoticPC.com has committed no wrongdoing AFAIK. So why throw out a good review of a good PSU being sold by a good retailer?

Also, I see no reason to get angry at people who think that the SilenX products still have merit, or that Peter Kim should be allowed to live . I don't like the way the man deceived us for so long, and I won't buy anything from his shop due to his bad conduct, but several unbiased people here have said they received fantastic service from him. This guy is not the devil, he's just a bit loopy.

Boy, am I going to have my head bitten off..

I bought a 400W SilenX from Peter just as all this was unfolding. Figured I'd rather give my money to the smaller of the two businesses involved. After a bit of a complication, I now have a functioning Peter Kim issue SilenX PSU. It is indeed silent and cool to the touch during routine operation over several days. I am yet to stress-test it, but I have confidence that it will behave as expected. I, for one, hope Peter does well with this product. Of course, this is selfish in the end - if you guys force him out of business with these diatribes, I will lose my warranty support!

I don't particularly appreciate the whole multiple user name game SilenX played, but looking back I don't think it affected my decision all that much. People post all kind of silliness in forums here and on Ars both, and that's OK, just kids and newbies working on self-esteem issues. Deliberate deception is more unpleasant but I deal with that at work all day long, and you learn to (hopefully) screen out the noise to get what you need. Still sounds to me like Peter got a raw deal from Ahanix. I have been involved in some low-grade corporate warfare myself on and off for the past 4 years, so I sympathize with him. Did I mention that it would suck if lost my warranty support ?

If it is a great product, you shouldn't need warranty support. Yeah, yeah, I know...."Even the good ones break sometimes...." Hope you never need your warranty.


(This is not directed at you, gbass01, but is a general reminder) I, in general, also sympathize with the typical mom and pop shop over the corporate giant (mostly because of my views of community), but the little guy is not always the victim of a big, nasty corporation. Just a reminder that in the silenx-exoticpc split, we have a great deal of unsubstantiated information (in both the forums and PMs) from both sides. A little ditty from a piece of ancient literature says, "The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him."

He did that to himself with poor business practices. It's called responsibility for your actions.

I'd still do business with them, and I'd like to see a review of the SilenX SilenX PSU.

I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

You're probably right. And I know this is MikeC's site, and he's perfectly justified in however he chooses to deal with SilenX. However, from a user's perspective, refusing to review their product in some ways takes away our choice in how to deal with them.

This is obviously the best silent/quite computing forum, so it's natural to come here for information about any product that caters to our market. And more than that, even if other sites review the product, it's difficult making accurate comparisons among products based on reviews from different sites. A SilenX SilenX review here can be compared against the same tests done on other products in the other reviews here.

It's one thing to take, for example, video card reviews from different sites. UT2003 flyby is UT2003 flyby, and if one site tests a P4 3.0 w/ a GeForceFX 5900 and another tests a P4 3.0 w/ a Radeon 9800 Pro, the benchmark results are easily compared. But since there's no standardized noise metric, comparing reviews from different sites is basically worthless.

I think the best solution would be a SilenX SilenX review with frequent and frank discussion of their immature astroturfing compaign. If they have the best PSU, then I think that's a fact that should be known, and this, the best silent/quite resource, is the natural place for it. Including the nasty details of their idiotic marketing strategy will let users determine for themselves whether SilenX is worthy of their business.

I really think the best thing for the users of this site would be a review of the product. But I also understand that this site is MikeC's and other's creation, that they have sacrificed their time and engeries into making it an excellent resource, and that SilenX's antics insulted this site's reputation. A nasty decision either way.

I agree that SilenX products should be reviewed. But....I don't think that SilenX.com should ever be mentioned in any of the reviews, nor linked to via SPRC.

It's important to remember that Peter Kim does not manufacture any of the products he sells He's just a reseller. Everything he sells you can get from somewhere else. And I think you should get it from somewhere else.

Now we've heard that the SilenX PSU's that he sells are supposedly different from the SilenX PSU's that ExoticPC sells, but since most of that information comes from Peter or one of his alias I would treat it as suspect, at best. He says that the fans he uses in his are quieter than in the ExoticPC units, but I think it's just as likely that he found a cheaper fan to put in there so he can scam a few cents per unit extra out of his customers.

So, Yes, keep reviewing SilenX parts, but just not the ones from SilenX.com

Right on bro. That's what happens when your credibility is shot. People don't have any way to know if you're blowing smoke up their ass or not, and they probably have a lttle seed of doubt about any claims that you make. You made your bed Mr. Kim, now you have to lie on it.

All the more reason to do an official review of the SilenX SilenX product. If the thing about PK using a quieter fan than ExoticPC is another lie, how would anyone know? If someone who hadn't seen the debacle here, why would they doubt his claim? Whereas a full review here would let people searching for information get the full scoop, both on whether the product lives up to the claims and on PK's business practices.

Yes, I would very much like to see a head-to-head, ExoticPC vs SilenX SilenX review.

Why should SPCR promote Silenx.com with a review of their products? As a thank-you for all Peter Kim's done for it? Digitalix claimed the Silenx.com model was quieter in the My experience with SilenX 400 thread, and al bundy blew that idea out of the water (I'm assuming al bundy isn't a covert ExoticPC rep... ). There's no evidence to suggest the two models are any different, only evidence that they're identical.

Why on earth should MikeC spend his precious review time on a product that's already been reviewed, while at the same time promoting a retailer that has shown absolutely no respect for his site?

I really dont see any point in a silenx from silenx.com review at this stage. Rusty put it most eloquently in his comments on
Mike's review of the ExoticPC version - basically these current generation of 'silent psus' are showing minimal innovation


Now if silenx.com actually came up with something innovative this could be a different discussion, but elastomer fan mounts and an AC cable are far from innovative IMHO! Right at the moment there is minimal technical difference between the suppliers of silenx psus, and the only major significant difference is that I would be prepared to give my business to ExoticPC.

Although IANAL, I do know that California does have a rather broad law (and legal interpretation) regarding the marketing and advertising of products and services: http://www.dca.ca.gov/legal/u-6.html

Any resident of California can lodge a complaint with the state (specifically, the Department of Consumer Affairs), prompting an investigation, or (should they have the legal wherewithal) they can bring a case against an offender directly. Considering that silenx.com is purported to be based in California, they are supposed to operate under the strict guidelines of California's Business and Professions code. Perhaps their legal counsel can explain it to them in a manner that they can understand.

This may be a good time to point out that California has over 10% of the US population (and growing...). And while our state government tends to resemble a banana republic most of the time, it does have a long history of aggressively enforcing consumer protection laws.

That should be warning enough for most vendors.