Anyone recommend a tough PC?

[MatthewL]

Don't buy Panasonic Toughbooks, they are way over priced and to be honest would give you nightmares!! Walked into the office today after been at the other one for a week and I've got a stack full waiting to be imaged and deployed

[PeterW]

True enough... I suppose it was strange that they'd managed to find pieces of metal the right size to poke in the port that you couldn't see unless you looked closely

A paper clip will do it quite nicely, some boards have fuses on the USB 5v. For example with some ASUS boards if the fuse is blown when you turn the machine on it tells you you have a USB problem then counts down from 15 seconds and turns off. Others will take the board out completly or have other random effects.

As already suggested better classroom managment would be a more proactive way of stopping damage, either by billing departments or students directly for any damage.

Get some CCTV in there even if it is a cheapo camera as it will soon pay for itself.

[f21970]

I buy from Millenium Computers who build to order (was IT Support Centre). I tend to ask them to put a steel plate behind the blank drive covers as I had same problem as you. They're cheap & have a 5 year onsite warranty in with the price. Have about 450 of them & no big issues.

BTW, the PC's are sideways in hangers under most desking and the ports are redirected to a fused port plate on top. Get lots of vandalism on the port plates (USB & sound), but at least that doesn't kill the PC. About £35 for a new port plate from Datacable & charge the department or parent (if the teacher was observant enough to notice who damaged it & when).

[synaesthesia]

The toughbooks are nigh on indestructable, use to use loads of them back in the late P3/early P4 days. I'd get a load in from places like Transco and BT, absolutely caked in filth, and being able to just spray any cleaner you like without fear of ingress to components and scrub away at your hearts content made refurbishment a piece of cake. And we still made a small fortune from them, second hand P3 1ghz models were going for well clear of £500 when the same amount of money got you a basic P4m model from the likes of HP. Worth it = hell yes. In a school? No, would be cheaper to replace the PCs

I brought up the idea of those port panels at another school however due to the amount of PC's it was apparent the budget wouldn't cover it. So, a bit of chinwagging with Belkin (who have a local base and a few people with good sales contacts there) and we got in a load of cheap USB hubs, being the only external port they used. Cheap and easy to replace, PC itself hidden out of reach (all powered on/off remotely at the start and end of day) and it was rather cost effective. Definitely a compromise on the port replicators but you have to adapt sometimes

[El_Nombre]

Thanks everyone. We're currently in the process of 'cracking down', and lessons are being learned from last year when we simply ran too low on budget to buy mice and keyboards to throw into the grinder. Cheers for the advice.

I don't think we'll be buying any toughbooks though, and the suggestion of PC Chesham was a good one.

I might just get a few of these:

[dalsoth]

RM Ones for me. Had a full room of them put in over a year ago and they are still all in perfect condition. Had a couple call outs for a dodgy screen and a motherboard but all covered in the 3 year warranty so no problem.

All my other suites are being trashed every day. We go through 60 mice every month or two and 20 or so keyboards in the same time so you can imagine the damage we get to the computers. Having the keyboards and mice clamped down inside the back of the case makes it almost unheard of to have to replace something in this particular room.

I have looked at a few other all in one style computers but nothing matches the RM Ones and the new improvements they have recently made. Will be buying another suite of them soon. The lack of maintenance more than pays for any additional cost over a standard machine.

[Batman]

All my other suites are being trashed every day. We go through 60 mice every month or two and 20 or so keyboards in the same time so you can imagine the damage we get to the computers. Having the keyboards and mice clamped down inside the back of the case makes it almost unheard of to have to replace something in this particular room.

You wait til they find some scissors... doesn't matter if it's clamped when they cut the cable. Little rascals!

[westleya]

this should do the job... small, portable, and can survive a nuclear attack when north Korea strikes

Uhhhhrgh !! That's put me right off my lunch and saved me £4 in the process

[Butuz]

I think your SMT need to tackle in class behaviour management and also look at rooms that are not teacher base rooms and thus are not looked after in the expected manner?

Buying hideously expensive nuclear proof PC's is just fighting the fire, you need to look at stopping kids from lighting the fires in the first place?

Billing the parents for damage works a treat. Not sure if you'd be able to implement that?

Butuz

[ravens]

We have similar problems so our recent tenders included a stipulation that the PCs must be tough enough to meet continuous use and tampering attempts.

The PCs we settled on are Fujitsu Siemens E3510. The front vent is covered by tough plastic and all the holes are very small.
Plus the case is hard metal and can only be opened with a matching key.
Fujitsu also offer toughened blanking plates.

We have over 150 and not one has been damaged yet.

They also come with a twin boot license for Vista and XP.

I think they are replacing the model for the E5730 which we're taking a punt on even though it looks a little vunerable compared to the E3510 and E5925.

Our tenders tend to be won by Misco who havent let us down yet.

Here is a link in case you want to have a look at the PC:

http://sp.ts.fujitsu.com/dmsp/docs/ds-esprimo-e5625.pdf

[pcman]

Old school where I used to work upgraded to RM Ones and still had a problem.

As has been stated, wires cut, optical eye on mice poked. Keys on keboard picked off/swapped.

I took away internet access, got moaned at by the heads. I asked them to do something to help me, just told to replace parts.

So without SMT support it will be hard.

However back to point and regarding blanking plates, if you know that you're not going to be installing CD-ROMS then you can cover them up with suitable plastic sheets and use Tensol to glue/fuse them on. Will stop students getting stuff in and out and you.

Tensol Cement

Do after school so fumes clear.

[El_Nombre]

I think your SMT need to tackle in class behaviour management and also look at rooms that are not teacher base rooms and thus are not looked after in the expected manner?

Buying hideously expensive nuclear proof PC's is just fighting the fire, you need to look at stopping kids from lighting the fires in the first place?

Billing the parents for damage works a treat. Not sure if you'd be able to implement that?

Butuz

Absolutely well worth bearing in mind. Yes, we have recently started to enforce new measures against vandalism and new room allocation guidelines are being put into place. We hope this will at least limit the damage, but it won't be avoided entirely. Billing is also something we're working on.

Some teachers are better at enforcing this than others though it has to be said. Our results may vary I think. In the 'dodgier' rooms though (which may well be due for upgrade sometime) I'll be all for fitting the toughest PCs I can find along with a few ED209s.

The problem of banning is one I'm sure a million of us have faced, and banning for vandalism isn't something we'll look at too hard. It's all too easy to bypass us with "How can I teach if X is banned?" which is indeed a valid point. I'll leave the portioning of punishment to the heads and department heads who are more than capable so long as damage is reported promptly and treated seriously, which is now about to start happening with great vengeance and furious anger.

I often wondered at registering kids at computers for lessons... Of course, we can see who logged on where with Ranger but if it becomes open and shut enough within a lesson to see that a mouse is missing or a keyboard has swearwords on it by the end and John Smith was registered on the machine it can be reported immediately and dealt with then and there, rather than half-remembered and part of a landslide vandalism repair day with no fingers to point.

Still, anything in registering kids to machines? I'm about to go off my own topic here though...