Low Spec machines at work

[Tesla]

hi all

 

What are the lowest spec of machines that you wondrous IT Folk. deem usable at work? We have money issues etc atm, and trying to work out what "minimum" spec that can be used for basic work ona machine, anyone successfully running pentium 4, maybe with SSD? we have a few of the old RM One's that may be worth a punt at trying to get up and running on win7....

 

any help appreciated.

 

thanks

[win]

I had some dual core pentium 4s that were still usable, along with a ram upgrade of 4GB, regular sata hdd, windows 7.

 

If your p4 is single core it will probably struggle.

[localzuk]

Our worst "fat clients" are 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo machines with 2GB RAM. The speed of them isn't great but they work.

 

Anything older is converted into a thin client!

[Tesla]

Yes, single core unfortunately

 

we have a difficult class that need access to a computer, but i cant keep chucking 300ish quids worth of equipment in there that keeps getting broken, it just isn't financially viable, so im stuck in a very awkward position

 

oh and they want all the smartboard software on it!! which makes things worse..

[FN-GM]

Our oldest machines are I3 with 4GB RAM with 250GB HDD. These will be replaced within the next 12 months.

[Tesla]

i wish our oldest machines were i3!

[unixman_again]

Have you considered ebay? Seven years ago, we were after some machines for use as thin clients in an LTSP situation. We got a pallet load of Compaq P3s at £8 a box (90 of them). For instance at the mo, there is 10 * DELL OPTIPLEX 745 DUAL CORE, 2 GB DDR2, 80 GB SATA, DVD/ CD RW for £259 - could be ideal replacements for your hardware at 25.90 per box.

[Achandler]

Replace mahcines in classes that desrve them and then give the difficult class the hand downs.

[abillybob]

We are still running some machines with a Celeron 1.8Ghz Processor in them and 2GB Ram... These are laptops that used to run Vista... they run Windows 7 and all the other bits and bobs perfectly fine though.

[Tesla]

@Achandler they're being replaced because theyve been broken, not because i think they deserve a better pc... we are a special school and its fornone of the classes with particularly difficult students.

 

thanks unixman I'll have a look... i may just buy a couple of better processors to fit in them...

[localzuk]

SMART Notebook?! On a P4!? Good lord. That's gonna be appalling. I hate how heavy it is on an i5, let alone a P4.

 

I think your best bet is to get hold of some form of refurb machine to put in the room. @ict-direct would be a good choice to find out about some. Eg. http://www.ict-direct.co.uk/computers/desktop-computers/hp/dc5800-small-form-factor/hp-dc5800-small-form-factor-refurbished-desktop.html

[Achandler]

You said one of the classes were more difficult, so I propose you replace the computer in a different class then give the difficult class the one from the other class

[w-clarke101]

ICT-Direct is your best bet! Get an Refurbished one, We have HP 8000 elite SFF, Core 2 Duo 4GB ram, 320GB HD. We got some SSD Samsung 840 120gb put them in and they fly... all for under £200.

[Tesla]

i use ict direct anyway. we just have some old stuff knocking about (the old durable rm ones ehich are ideal for a class like that) and seeing if they were worth trying to save. Edited October 3, 2014 by Tesla

[ICTDirect_Dave]

You can get windows seven running on an old single core P4, we found that in terms of boot time, seven 32 bit was slightly quicker than XP. That's not to say that I'd suggest you do it if you can find a viable alternative. Drop me a line when you get chance and I'll see if i've anything knocking around. how about an old Core 2 duo Toughbook?

[win]

Depends what you mean by basic work. As a standalone machine it will work quicker so for a simple offline computer to play about with those RM ones will work perfectly well. You could even resurrect XP if it's off the network!

[Tesla]

it would need youtube and smartboard

[3s-gtech]

We currently have a minimum spec of:

 

CPU - must be 64bit and at least dual core (huge range from Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz up)

RAM - at least 3GB

Storage - at least 64GB SSD

 

I wanted to have a base spec with more than 2GB or RAM, as integrated graphics tend to nab a chunk and 1.75GB can easily be swallowed by some applications+Windows. All machines have SSDs at least so that helps. With those fitted, I've found that the CPU isn't too critical - so long as it's not a P4 (which have all gone, hurrah!)

[hallb15]

Lowest spec desktop we have now is a Core 2 Duo E7500 with 2GB RAM and these are second PCs in classrooms. Anything less CPU or RAM wise just doesn't cut it with our software build.

 

All main classroom PCs connected to Smartboards are i3 or Pentium G2030 - @VeryPC_Colin_M you were right, you can't beat these CPUs for the money.

 

In the ICT Suite we have Core i3 with 4GB RAM.

Our latest laptops are Core i5 (Thanks to @ICTDirect_Dave) but we still have some old RM Celerons (XP) that are hanging on with a basic build...

Edited October 3, 2014 by hallb15

[Oaktech]

Our worst "fat clients" are 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo machines with 2GB RAM. The speed of them isn't great but they work.

 

Anything older is converted into a thin client!

 

This is the route I'm taking.

 

I've been cannibalising scrapped machines for ram and HDD as some of our laptops were upgraded to ssd, some of our desktop machines now have secondhand ssd in them!

 

I'm basically robbing peter to pay paul with components!

[synaesthesia]

Ditto! Lowest specs are AMD X2 machines (3600 or 4200 usually) possibly with a couple of Semprons dotted here and there. 2GB of ram is bare min, again when machines/suites are upgraded the RAM is cannibalised and pushed into machines that need it. Lots of HDD's still around but all replaced with solid state on rebuild/failure.

[HTCPCP]

Wasn going through our inventory this morning removing a load of machines we had collected today, and we have a load of old Pentium Dual Core E2200 / 5400 , Athlon 64 X2s, a couple of Pentium 4s and some original Intel Atom processors still in active use... All running Windows 7 successfully though, so not too bad at all!

[SHimmer45]

lowest spec machines are 2Ghz Pentium DC's with 4GB ram and some dell 1.8 core duo's which still work well enough for basic word processing and email.

we do spend a bit of time with the builds removing as much none essential stuff as possible, windows search PC protection stuff like restore points etc etc.

[robjduk]

I would go as low as the Intel G range. When you look into them they are i3's at heart but without the hyperthreading and advanced power and speed management.

 

On the subject, With 10 around the corner I guess there is little point but if you fancied a challenge, Windows 8 runs so much better than 7 on slower hardware but the learning curve to manage it was a pain in the bottom.

[timbo343]

Our oldest machines are I3 with 4GB RAM with 250GB HDD. These will be replaced within the next 12 months.

 

Hang on, @Tesla can you not give @FN-GM a small amount of money for these machines he is getting rid of. @FN-GM, whats happening to these machines once you have replaced them? Im just having a think thats all.