Overclockers.com reviews SilenX Luxurae

Pjotor · Post by **Pjotor** » Sun Jan 16, 2005 10:53 pm

Review

Quote from the review: "At $39.95, the Luxurae is a literal steal when compared to other HD silencers, such as GUP's Smart Drive 2002c, which performs worse than the Luxurae but costs twice as much."

Not a very detailed review, but the statement above raised my eyebrows a bit. Comments?

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 12:28 am

I'm not sure what the reviewer means when he says it performs better than the Smart Drive. It probably doesn't sound quieter, since the Smart Drive is totally sealed and the Luxurae is open on the front and back.

I haven't done any hard drive sandwiching myself, but I remember powergyoza's thorough documentation of his hard drive silencing efforts. One silencing attempt was to put aluminum heatsinks on the sides and speedy-cut rubber on top and bottom. Another was to ditch the aluminum and fill in the sides with rubber as well. He said that there was a big difference between "almost enclosed" and "totally enclosed", and that the aluminum heatsinks probably exaggerated the whining sound from the drives.

Of course, I haven't heard the Luxurae so maybe SilenX knows something I don't. The company can make good products, even if the guy in charge, Peter Kim, is an opportunistic scumbag. (Were you here for the DigitaliX scandal?) Of course we'll never really know if the Luxurae is as good as the overclockers think, because I doubt MikeC will ever review a SilenX product (and rightfully so).

macklin01 · Post by **macklin01** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:24 pm

The thing that irked me in the article was this:

In fact, before SilenX released their Luxurae HDSS, the only real way to
make hard drives quieter was to buy a new, quieter model.

I posted this in the ocforums and also e-mailed it to the author:

Fortunately, this isn't true. The "Smart Drive" he mentioned has been on the market for at least 3 years. Also, there have been similar DIY methods proposed and tested, which can be found on http://www.silentpcreview.com. Here are some excellent examples:

Hard Drive Silencing: Sandwiches & Suspensions
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article8-page1.html (From March 2002)

Effective Passive Hard Drive Cooling
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article22-page1.html (June 2001)

Ron's Water Cooled HDD Silencing Enclosure
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article96-page1.html (July 2003)

I'm trying to get the author to correct his errors.

Furthermore, the Peter Kim business was brought to my attention at the ocforums. I thought the whole writeup was suspcious myself, and so I checked the registered email address of a user at the ocforums who says he wrote the article. (Tom Akita, according to the article.) Let's just say the email address sounded a lot more like Peter than Tom. I'm working on sorting this info out more now.

More information can be found here. I'd appreciate it if you posted here, rather than at the ocforums thread.

Any info that might be useful (e.g., known email addresses and IP addresses for Peter Kim) would be appreciated. I'm not all that experienced in this kind of sleuthing, but my curiousity (and disgust) have been piqued. -- Paul

tay · Post by **tay** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:07 pm

Macklin1, please keep us updated on your sleuthing. I suspected something fishy or a very newbie author that somehow got under the radar at overclockers.com.

Their reader submitted articles are uneven, but like you this one gave me pause to think. I didnt bother posting that here until I read your post.

Tyrdium · Post by **Tyrdium** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:36 pm

FFS, he's still at it?!? Nnnngh...

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:39 pm

Huh... could Peter Kim be up to his tricks again? It makes me wish I knew some linguistics--it would be fun to do a little detective work, comparing the Tom Akita article with Peter Kim's posts here. Thanks for bringing it up, macklin01.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:11 pm

macklin01 wrote:Any info that might be useful (e.g., known email addresses and IP addresses for Peter Kim) would be appreciated. I'm not all that experienced in this kind of sleuthing, but my curiousity (and disgust) have been piqued. -- Paul

The SilenX website is located on WebHost4life.com ipspace (probably bought space there). The subnet for the web server is 66.226.14.231. Look at the email headers. If it's coming from 66.226.14.*, then although it's not conclusive evidence of being affiliated with SilenX, there's evidence to support it.

The next kicker is that Silenx.com is registered to a location in Cerritos, CA. If the domain or sending IP resolves to IPs known to be in that location, it's more evidence to suggest conspiracy, though it's still circumstantial.

macklin01 · Post by **macklin01** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 9:41 pm

Thanks for the help, all.

Alas, the IP address (and the account) is AOL. I'm having a hard time tracking it down to, say, AOL Cerritos, CA. If anybody knows how to find that type information, that would absolutely rock.

I scanned through google a bit this evening, but I didn't have much luck. I've also tried plugging the email address into google to see if anything turned up, but alas, that was not the case. (And I've scanned around ebay and heatware to see if I could glean any additional information, but to no avail.) It's too bad. My gut really tells me that this is indeed the same guy (and some of the other mods agree with me), but I wish I had some more damning evidence ...

I'll hand over a typical IP address to see if anybody else has better luck with it, though:

172.193.225.117

I need to keep the email addresses private for, well, privacy's sake.

Again, it may very well be possible that he isn't Peter Kim, so it is best that we don't leap to conclusions tooo quickly.

Thanks! -- Paul

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 6:13 am

macklin01 wrote:172.193.225.117

172.193.225.117 == ACC1E175.ipt.aol.com

Now if we were cops, we could call AOL up and find out who was at that particular domain at the time.

macklin01 · Post by **macklin01** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 9:59 am

sthayashi wrote:
macklin01 wrote:172.193.225.117
172.193.225.117 == ACC1E175.ipt.aol.com

Now if we were cops, we could call AOL up and find out who was at that particular domain at the time.

Indeed. Alas, we don't have anything more than a suspicion. I don't see much more progress to be made here.

Thanks. -- Paul

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:47 pm

sthayashi wrote:
macklin01 wrote:172.193.225.117
172.193.225.117 == ACC1E175.ipt.aol.com

Now if we were cops, we could call AOL up and find out who was at that particular domain at the time.

I doubt it; AOL has a policy of keeping their customer identities confidential and have not cooperated with the authorities when they were asked for customer information in the past.

macklin01 · Post by **macklin01** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 3:59 pm

Most definitely. We'd need a warrant to even get started, and some real, illegal activity for that. (And while the activity is definitely unethical, it isn't illegal.) I think we're pretty much stuck at tracking down the author to AOL, based in Virginia, which isn't particularly helpful.

But I'll definitely be keeping my eyes/ears open for further developments ... Thanks, everyone. -- Paul

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 9:47 pm

Can anyone successfully Traceroute that IP? Sometimes using the next IP up is helpful, but for some reason I get stopped at AOL's Transit Data Network router. Damn AOL for having annoying host names, I can't even figure out where their damn router is located. For example: My IP right now maps to: pool-<my actual ip>.pitt.east.verizon.net. So you have a pretty good idea of where I'm located (and what I use too

)

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 10:19 pm

A Google search reveals "Tom Akita" did another review for Overclockers.com - this review is for "SilenX iXtrema Pro 400w Power Supply".

tay · Post by **tay** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 10:26 pm

Hahaha it would make me happy if it could be shown that the corporate apologists at overclockers.com are taking money for "user reviews". I like the user submitted stuff on the site but Ed/Joe's constant pro MPAA/RIAA rants are tiresome and keep appearing on the front page.

EDIT : I cant traceroute it either. No luck with different MTU's.

Pjotor · Post by **Pjotor** » Tue Jan 18, 2005 11:25 pm

tay wrote:Hahaha it would make me happy if it could be shown that the corporate apologists at overclockers.com are taking money for "user reviews". I like the user submitted stuff on the site but Ed/Joe's constant pro MPAA/RIAA rants are tiresome and keep appearing on the front page.

EDIT : I cant traceroute it either. No luck with different MTU's.

I can't understand why you would be happy about something like that. It wouldn't be good for anyone or anything, so why would you be happy?

The "pro MPAA/RIAA rants" are more like "pro follow the law". Unless you didn't know, neither MPAA nor RIAA are the lawbreakers. I personally don't support the system (a few huge companies control the majority of the business), but I support illegal activities even less. It's better to try and change the rules instead of breaking them.

Oh, and nobody forces you to read overclockers.com if you don't like it.

Early wednesday morning -- rant out. Moderators -- feel free to delete/move this post if it's too off the topic.

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:47 am

Is any one else still following the progression of that thread?

Tom Akita answers things in a way that strikes me as odd... or am I 'reading' too much into it?...

The whole thing seems... fishy/odd to me... Why are the only two products he has reviewed come from the same company?

If I was innocent I would have reacted much much more to the posts by Big Pimp Daddy & Petieyboy as they seemed quite accusational to me...

Thoughts?...

Pete

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 9:56 am

josephclemente wrote:A Google search reveals "Tom Akita" did another review for Overclockers.com - this review is for "SilenX iXtrema Pro 400w Power Supply".

Well, well, well.....

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 10:37 am

From the PSU review : http://www.overclockers.com/articles1055/

the market has been inundated with new, quiet fans, video card coolers, and CPU coolers, but very few quiet, reliable power supplies have been available... until SilenX released its iXtrema line of power supplies,

(My emphasis)

Sound similar to the HDD silencer review?...

Simply put, this is the quietest power supply we've ever heard (or barely heard), and SilenX's rating of a peak 14 dBA is, surprisingly, very accurate.

(My emphasis)

mmm... Yet in the posts about the HDD silencer he claims no access to sound measuring equipment.....

By the time this review is published, SilenX's iXtrema Pro may already be on the retail market

Why is he getting review samples before retail release if he's not affilliated with the company?

What do you guys think of using 1 then 2 then 3 hard drives to 'load' a PSU for a review?

.....

Pete

mrzed · Post by **mrzed** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:10 am

peteamer wrote:
By the time this review is published, SilenX's iXtrema Pro may already be on the retail market
Why is he getting review samples before retail release if he's not affilliated with the company?

Well he (whoever he is) did mention Peter Kim as the source of the review unit at the end of the article.

I still think it may be suspicious. And I'm surprised it's still up at Overclockers. I actually go there more for the "dose of reality" perspective of the editorials than hardware reviews. In the last couple of years the reviews - especially user submitted - have been a bit spotty. But I almost chocked on my oatmeal when I read:

If the noise from your hard drive(s) is breaking your heart, seriously consider SilenX's Luxurae HDSS - it's the best hard drive enclosure ever.

I would have thought the editors would have been wise to at least trim that comment.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Jan 19, 2005 1:41 pm

peteamer wrote:What do you guys think of using 1 then 2 then 3 hard drives to 'load' a PSU for a review? .....

Like using 1, then 2, then 3 cases of beer to measure carrying capacity inside a car.

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:15 pm

And again... "SilenX iXtrema 120mm 11dBA Fan"

I know it's not really the right forum for this but it does 'follow on'...

fierce_freak · Post by **fierce_freak** » Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:02 pm

Yeah, noticed the latest "review" and had a laugh...Back to the HDD silencer, another site has given it a review here

rei · Post by **rei** » Sat Feb 19, 2005 7:41 pm

that last one was pretty lame too.
why not use dtemp/speedfan/mbm to find hd temps?

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 2:09 am

Because the sensors are inaccurate :)

The only way is to measure them with an external probe from at least two surfaces (and do several readings, marking up min/max/avg).

frankgehry · Post by **frankgehry** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 2:53 am

Don't you guys think it is inappropriate for Bill Owen from mnpctech to post an article about how he mods his silverstone cases and by the way, sells all kinds of modding materials and services. Does the guy from coolcases get to do that too?

Everytime bill comes out with another case its displayed right here on spcr like the airbrushed thermaltake tsunami. Who cares if that guy at silentx paid somebody to write an article for some other web site. And I like seeing bill's stuff here. - FG

I could be wrong about this whole thing but the Bill Owen commercials posing as forum posts did make me think about how proper it was. I don't know all the details with silentx.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 6:38 am

frankgehry wrote:Don't you guys think it is inappropriate for Bill Owen from mnpctech to post an article about how he mods his silverstone cases and by the way, sells all kinds of modding materials and services.

I don't think so. He has a :vendor: tag by his name, and posts links to his site in his sig so it's quite obvious that he's not trying to fool anyone into thinking that he's an unbiased third-party.

frankgehry wrote:Does the guy from coolcases get to do that too?

Certainly, if he wants.

frankgehry wrote:Everytime bill comes out with another case its displayed right here on spcr like the airbrushed thermaltake tsunami. Who cares if that guy at silentx paid somebody to write an article for some other web site.

I do, when it's being touted as an unbiased review from someone not connected with SilenX. That's the difference between Bill's posts and these so-called "reviews" at OCforums. Bill's honest up front about who he is so the reader can take that into account as he's digesting the post. The Tom Akita stuff, on the other hand, seems be an "unbiased" review that may in fact be nothing more than another disguised SilenX commercial.

frankgehry wrote:I could be wrong about this whole thing but the Bill Owen commercials posing as forum posts did make me think about how proper it was. I don't know all the details with silentx.

I'd search SPCR for the SilenX/Peter Kim thread and become more familiar with SilenX/Peter Kim's deceptive business practices. I think you'll see where I'm coming from.

Post by **Rusty075** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 6:49 am

The difference between what Bill Ownes does, and what Peter Kim does, is that Bill is public about it. If he signed on under a fake name, and posted, "look at the awesome stuff that the dude at mnpctech does", that would be completely different.

Bill is an honest and upfront businessman, Peter Kim is, well, not.

Read the stickied thread, "who is digitalix?" It will give you an education about how not to win public trust fro your business.

frankgehry · Post by **frankgehry** » Sun Feb 20, 2005 2:03 pm

I'm clear on this topic now. As I mentioned I like seeing Bill's posts here as they are always informative and worthwhile. It did surprise me to see the silentx guy being tracked down with such avengence. Anyway I'm all for playing fair. Maybe Bill will send a few examples of that new fan on his site that apparently replaces the globes he used to sell. - FG

Overclockers.com reviews SilenX Luxurae

Overclockers.com reviews SilenX Luxurae

I'm investigating this article a bit right now ...

Re: I'm investigating this article a bit right now ...

inappropriate?

Re: inappropriate?

Clear now