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something to think about: if Dells break you can't fix them. If the warrenty is up and the PSU fails, you have to throw away the whole PC or pay huge amounts to Dell who may or may not supply a replacement (or buy a 1U server PSU which is a far site more than a normal sized PSU.
Same for MoBo and CPU HeatSink.
DOWN WITH PROPRIETARY MOTHERBOARD STANDARDS!
fujitsu or hp same problems?
Or find an ATX one that fits and rejig the pins?
Ben
Sorry I didn’t mean to start a fat v thin war. The only reason I would not recommend un-branded PC’s is technician time.
You guys work hard enough as it is, why increase your workload by building or fixing them yourself when things go wrong and the company disappears quicker than Shergar along with the rest of your 4 year on site next business day not worth the paper its written on warranty.
Don’t get me wrong, I build Servers and PC’s for testing but I would never recommend one of these for my client.
Forgot to reply to this one, if it does break.... a cleaner could replace it!Quote:
Originally Posted by plexer
No ghost or RIS or scripts etc etc.. plug it in and away you go!
Because I can build a diskless ATX board in about 20 min and save enough money to buy the replacement parts. All they need is a stick of ram, mobo and powersupply - not much to go wrong for £120 - any problems and they can usually be fixed faster than a phonecall to dell.Quote:
You guys work hard enough as it is, why increase your workload by building or fixing them yourself
I like the thin client approach my school just can't / won't afford the infrastructure and upfront investment in it. We use a mix of Tiny and dell fat clients. The tiny were bought before my time :)
All the Dells we have are standard PCs. ATX PSUs, ATX format boards and cases, and no odd daughter boards. Just avoid the ultra slimline ones.
The infrastructure and upfront investment is not as much as you would think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teth
£6000 would buy a decent pair of load balanced servers with all licensing (not citrix) and this will easiliy support 50+ users.
Thin Client devices are around £120 ea (without monitor)
If you compare this to the price of 50 Fat Clients at £250 ea (without monitor) The thin client solution is £500 cheaper!
One of my clients is happily running 50 thin client laptops over wireless using two load balanced servers.
They did invest in CISCO wireless kit but you can't really cut corners when you are running terminal services over a WLAN
With hardwired points at 100mb bandwidth for TS is not an issue.
Yes, in the long term thin clients are much cheaper. It's actually getting to the point where we have no choice but to go down the thin client route. We simply can't afford to keep buying new PC's. Both in inital investment costs and tech support terms.
We have some NSO Pcs which come with a 3 year warranty so we don't need to fix them if they break we just send them back. I guess that’s probably the important thing so your time isn’t take up. The other thing I would suggest if your getting a local supplier to build them is get a couple of test units in to see how they work.. we have some IBMs for example bad case design cant put memory sticks in the front… so having the machine there in front of you will probably help, you could probably also arrange to make a standard build and get the supplier to ghost them for you this would also save time and they are probably willing to do it to get the deal… Check out the components used as mentioned else where… just make sure they are good quality… all our pc’s have Intel main boards in for example.
Our last lot of PC's were built inhouse. Hardware failure isn't the issue though. It's just the sheer number of computers and never ending reimaging.
Not always. We have bought some DELL PSUs for GX260 SFF Optiplexes that were out of warranty, they were £45 ex vat for 180w SFF non-standard PSUs, not cheap compared with cheap & nasty generic ATX PSUs but not a huge amount vs the cost of a new system unit. We didn't buy them direct from DELL though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Midget
£45 for non-dell parts
boggo PSU £13
that £40/machine saving by going with Dell is less and less tempting
The last time we had one of ours fail, we sent it back to dell and they just sent us a whole new (higher spec, diff case) machine instead as it was easier and/or cheaper for them. Fills you with confidence.
I disagree. I have many Dell Optiplex GX620 in the USFF case. All are fantastic machines and have a 3 year NBD warrenty. As for spares, there aare many dealers out there whowill see you proprietary parts from scrapped machines dirt cheap, indeed, on of them is about to advertise with us shortly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Midget
The problems with getting replacement parts for some of our 3.5 year old Shuttles however, don't get me started!
CCL used to have a good range of shuttle parts, may be worth seing if they have some kicking around still, or can get you them?