Buying Computers

[tomgrindle]

Hi,

We are going to have to replace some of our ageing computers very soon. As we are very tight on money the Business Manager has put to me the idea about buying reconditioned machines, ex business lease machines etc.

Would it be possible to have some of your feedback about this? Also if you think it is a good idea/have done it yourself would it be possible to recommend some companies as I have only ever worked with suppliers such as Stone and Ergo since I started here.

Many Thanks

Tom

[wesleyw]

ICT Direct one of the sponsors does these. We did it over the summer needs a little more time to sort out than brand new units but it is worth it.


Wes

[dhicks]

As we are very tight on money the Business Manager has put to me the idea about buying reconditioned machines, ex business lease machines etc.

There's were some snazzy all-in-one machines around yesterday, along with a discussion about how to upgrade them to modern motherboards:

50+ RM Ascend 2800 All In One PC's

The hardware would cost you around £150 per machine (there's more available on eBay), including (I think) a fee to Microsoft to transfer the COA license to new hardware if you want to run Windows on them. After that you'll have to license Windows 7, MS Office, or whatever you normally install on each of your machines.

[tomgrindle]

ICT Direct one of the sponsors does these. We did it over the summer needs a little more time to sort out than brand new units but it is worth it.


Wes

Hi Wes, I was looking at ICT Direct and they seemed like a good company. I was interested in the HP DC7800's that they had, with Core 2 Duo processors, only £150! Which doesn't seem bad, with a 2 year warranty. Cheers

There's were some snazzy all-in-one machines around yesterday, along with a discussion about how to upgrade them to modern motherboards:

50+ RM Ascend 2800 All In One PC's

The hardware would cost you around £150 per machine (there's more available on eBay), including (I think) a fee to Microsoft to transfer the COA license to new hardware if you want to run Windows on them. After that you'll have to license Windows 7, MS Office, or whatever you normally install on each of your machines.

Hrrmmm .... that doesn't sound like a bad idea. But if it was going to cost us £150ish per machine then we would probably go for something ready to go, will have a closer look though. Cheers for you help

[RTFM]

I've not done it myself but i think @Millgate might do this? If your not 100% sure its probably worth trying to shop around a little if you can to check specs and prices from a few suppliers.

[MK-2]

Hi Wes, I was looking at ICT Direct and they seemed like a good company. I was interested in the HP DC7800's that they had, with Core 2 Duo processors, only £150! Which doesn't seem bad, with a 2 year warranty. Cheers

we kitted out an iCT room this summer with those. very good quality. don't forget to expect a couple of scratches on the case here and there as they are refurbs, but the pc itself is great. we also just got a core2quad dell machine from ICT direct with 3gb ram for about £160ish. again very smooth machine. can't fault the company or machines (or price!)

[tomgrindle]

we kitted out an iCT room this summer with those. very good quality. don't forget to expect a couple of scratches on the case here and there as they are refurbs, but the pc itself is great. we also just got a core2quad dell machine from ICT direct with 3gb ram for about £160ish. again very smooth machine. can't fault the company or machines (or price!)

Thanks @MK-2 , that sounds very positive. Would you be able to confirm if these machines PXE-Boot or not?

Thanks

Tom

[dhicks]

But if it was going to cost us £150ish per machine then we would probably go for something ready to go, will have a closer look though.

The base units (with screen!) are around £50 each, the extra £100 should get you a right up-to-date (USB3, etc) Mini-ITX motherboard complete with processor and RAM.

[tomgrindle]

The base units (with screen!) are around £50 each, the extra £100 should get you a right up-to-date (USB3, etc) Mini-ITX motherboard complete with processor and RAM.

That is a good price, Network Manager doesn't seem too keen though although they wouldn't take long to upgrade etc. not sure if he wants the hassle. Would be nice though, because as you say they would be fully up to date. Might try and twist his arm though.

[Flatpackhamster]

What sort of stuff are you going to be doing on the computers? Are they just going to be (essentially) dumb terminals using Citrix or sumfink? It's just that if a 3-year old ex-business PC isn't powerful enough for business then I don't think it'll be fast enough for school needs. Just my tuppence-worth.

[Dos_Box]

What sort of stuff are you going to be doing on the computers? Are they just going to be (essentially) dumb terminals using Citrix or sumfink? It's just that if a 3-year old ex-business PC isn't powerful enough for business then I don't think it'll be fast enough for school needs. Just my tuppence-worth.

Most of the machines ICT Direct deal with are swapped out from the original owners as part of rolling contracts etc. and are perfectly good enough for schools. We went in there a couple of years back and they had all of the old Yahoo! UK servers on pallets in there (sans hard drives of course).

[synaesthesia]

I am dubious about the worthiness of refurbished hardware. Although some people such as ICT Direct do high quality refurbs with decent warranties, in the long run I do not believe you get good value for money. Regardless of current budgets, you could actually be making yourself WORSE off - for example in 13 months time when there are no warranties to fall back on, 4 of those machines fail for whatever reason. As the hardware is older, replacing certain parts may be more expensive than needs be and what you have to pay out could very easily be more than you saved by buying refurbs.
I would strongly recommend buying good value new PC's and shopping around for decent warranties, one of the very reasons we've been using (and been extremely happy with) Stone and their 5yr warranties.

[MK-2]

Thanks @MK-2 , that sounds very positive. Would you be able to confirm if these machines PXE-Boot or not?

Thanks

Tom

They are, as we booted all of them to via that to build them. I think out of 25 we had one with a PSU issue, one with a noisy fan and that was about it. Both were replaced fine too.

[MK-2]

I am dubious about the worthiness of refurbished hardware. Although some people such as ICT Direct do high quality refurbs with decent warranties, in the long run I do not believe you get good value for money. Regardless of current budgets, you could actually be making yourself WORSE off - for example in 13 months time when there are no warranties to fall back on, 4 of those machines fail for whatever reason. As the hardware is older, replacing certain parts may be more expensive than needs be and what you have to pay out could very easily be more than you saved by buying refurbs.
I would strongly recommend buying good value new PC's and shopping around for decent warranties, one of the very reasons we've been using (and been extremely happy with) Stone and their 5yr warranties.

but at £140 a pop for a pc with a 2 yr warranty (or 3 yr for an extra tenner), they almost become like consumables. if after 2 years one breaks, at £140 you could afford to replace it with another one which has another 3 yr warranty. so effectively having spent £280 for a pc with 5 or 6 year warranty if you replaced it as soon as warranty ends

[3s-gtech]

I paid a little extra with ICT Direct and got the three year warranty. At the base cost of the machine, the spec we got was far superior to anything new in that price range. We have a bunch of DC7700, DC7800, DC7900 and XW4400 here from them and they're great. Had some little niggles with faulty RAM (like, two sticks) - but then my last lot of brand new HPs are right dogs with rubbish motherboards.