Refurbished PCs : No budget : Recommendations?

[cjohnsonuk]

I'm looking at upgrading a suite of PCs. They're currently P4 2.6GHz, 512 MB ram (1GB Max) (NEC Powermate).

As we can't afford new I'm looking at upgrading with refurbished ones in and cascading the NECs into places where we have no PCs.

The model on I've got prices for from 2 places is a Compaq DC7600 P4 3GHz with 2GB ram in a SFF case.

Does anyone have any experience of using these?

[kmount]

Get onto ICT Direct about these.

They have them in two flavours with 3Ghz/2GB/40GB HDD for £120 or 3.4Ghz/2GB/80GB for £137.

ICT Direct - computers and base units

[Dos_Box]

Seconded for ICT Direct. They also do spares. Ring them NOW!

[AngryITGuy]

We purchases 5 of these last term from ICT Direct and are very happy with the machines. We are also in the same position and are currently looking to replace our current machines which are all running a Celeron 2.6GHz and 256MB of RAM with refurbished kit.

IMHO the machines offer excellent value for money especially in our case as the performance is blistering compared to the old rubbish we have here.

Only gripe is with the screwless case which is just an open invitation to some of the students here.

ICT Direct have them at a decent price with a 2 year warranty, if your not too bothered about the warranty you can get them alot cheaper as I have found out.

Hope this help.

[cjohnsonuk]

We purchases 5 of these last term from ICT Direct and are very happy with the machines. We are also in the same position and are currently looking to replace our current machines which are all running a Celeron 2.6GHz and 256MB of RAM with refurbished kit.

IMHO the machines offer excellent value for money especially in our case as the performance is blistering compared to the old rubbish we have here.

Thanks. One of my quotes is from ICT-Direct. I just wanted to know how people get on with these PCs, performance noise etc. My other quote is about £20 cheaper (a considerable amount considering the overall cost) but the warranty is less. I'm torn over buying more PCs so we've got onsite swap in units or warranty on the boxes....

Only gripe is with the screwless case which is just an open invitation to some of the students here.

Zip tie them closed? Not 100% secure but reduces opportunistic thefts. The ones I have have a case lock in the BIOS!

ICT Direct have them at a decent price with a 2 year warranty, if your not too bothered about the warranty you can get them alot cheaper as I have found out.

Can you PM me where you found them cheaper?

[K.C.Leblanc]

Compaq DC7600 P4 3GHz with 2GB ram in a SFF case.

Does anyone have any experience of using these?

If it's the same as the HP DC7600, we have loads (I would think about 75) of the Ultra Slims version. Very reliable we've had a few hard drives go and maye one or two PSUs but that's it.

[OutToLunch]

Another vote for ICT Direct here, would be minus an IT suite without them. No problems with the machines, nice and quiet and definitely reliable. Couple of duff HDs after a year but needed upgrading from 40gb anyway so a good excuse to build a new image. I do have a few other companies bookmarked from a previous thread but have no experience of them. You're welcome to the links if you want to try and get another quote for comparison...

[john]

and another vote for ICT Direct, I've got 5 in my LRC from them and they are brilliant, they are loved and are well checked by them before shipping them. Very impressive service from John and his team.


As for the PCs, as a long time HP Fan I can highly recommend HP PCs to anyone, very nice to work on if you have any faults / problems and simple to look after and they do seem robust.

[Butuz]

Spend £20 odd on extra RAM for each PC. To be honest upgrading from a P4 2.6 to a P4 3.0 your not gonna see anything spectacular - sounds like an awful lot of hard work just to end up with machines that are only slightly quicker. Slapping some RAM in will give them a nice speed boost.

Butuz

[steveg]

I'd agree that they dont look like much of an upgrade for the money, and some extra ram and maybe a clean install would be the way to go.

Maybe spend double the money and buy half the number of computers, and take the ram out of the ones you replace to upgrade the ones you have left?

Steve

[kmount]

Not quite clear but I figured the OP said the kit could only take 1GB max? Or was there a mixture of 512's and 1GB's?

[steveg]

Still, is there going to be a major noticeable difference between 1gb and 2gb on a p4 3.0ghz pc? I'd say the 512 to 1gb will be a much bigger difference.

Steve

[Butuz]

Still, is there going to be a major noticeable difference between 1gb and 2gb on a p4 3.0ghz pc? I'd say the 512 to 1gb will be a much bigger difference.

Steve

Yep 512 to 1GB makes a big difference! I upgraded some PC's from 256MB to 1GB and they were like different PCs!

Butuz

[cjohnsonuk]

Spend £20 odd on extra RAM for each PC. To be honest upgrading from a P4 2.6 to a P4 3.0 your not gonna see anything spectacular - sounds like an awful lot of hard work just to end up with machines that are only slightly quicker. Slapping some RAM in will give them a nice speed boost.

Butuz

Yeah I agree. NECs won't take more than 1GB. We're going to redeploy these where they'll only be used for word processing and put the machines with 2GB ram in their place. It is a chore, especially as they need to change sites as well but I can't see a way round it. The 2GB memory will make a lot of difference.