[wanted] [WANTED] In desperate need of spare desktops!

[NB9457]

Hi all,

 

I work at a High School in the NW and our budget this year was laughable, spent in a day with much more left to buy needed with no money. We are still running 60+ P4s withe the highest end PCs being Core2 and some are dropping off now and we have consumed all our spare and swap stock. I was hoping if anyone was replacing any suites around the NW if they'd be willing to donate the PCs, obviously we arrange collection and whatnot. Maybe even some advice?

 

All input welcomed.

 

Thanks

[ITJS2015]

Do you know what is wrong with your pcs ? HDDs Failure ? Windows OS corrupted ? Motherboard shortfusing ?

[NB9457]

Do you know what is wrong with your pcs ? HDDs Failure ? Windows OS corrupted ? Motherboard shortfusing ?

 

The fact they're P4 mainly and the majority are boards and PSU failures and as they don't take standard ATX PSUs, we can't get new ones (not that the budget would allow it anyway) and everything that has been scavenged for spares already has sadly, so we've hit a wall now, PCs are getting removed with nothing to go back

[ITJS2015]

I would just wait until someone replies. I wish I could help you right now but we are in the same process with low money and trying to repair our own machine.

 

I have a company for refurbished machines which are good and should last a few years ?

 

Let me know if you need any help with this

[dry]

Sorry I can't be of much help but it may be worth putting the word out to parents. We had a parent who's company was disposing of pretty much all their IT assets (closing office) which meant we received a load of desktops and laptops for free.

[JordanT91]

My advice would be to sit down with the people who set your budget and outline exactly what needs to be purchased, but give them 3 options: enough to scrape by for another year, enough to replace what ideally should be replaced and thirdly a complete hardware upgrade to last at least 5 years.

 

Give them a good idea of costs for each of these three options. Explain that hardware is starting to break and that you have no spares. Explain that computers have a life expectancy. If you are still using XP, tell them about the risks. Diplomatically explain that you can't be held responsible for any issues that arise due to not having the money to upgrade. And leave it with them.

 

If they still decide to not give you any money, continue to do your job to the best of your ability with the resources you have. When equipment starts breaking and you can't replace it, staff will start to blame you (at first). Explain the situation as diplomatically as you can. When teachers start complaining loudly to SLT, that's when you're more likely to get the funds you need.

 

It's all well and good asking for handouts, and nobody here would ever hold it against you, but at the end of the day if the school can't afford you give you at least an adequate budget to provide an IT service then there's something wrong somewhere and the school needs to realise this and deal with it. Filling the budget gap with handouts is not sustainable and will just mask the problem. If you miraculously get a load of old PCs from other schools every year they are going to think there isn't an issue and nothing will ever change.

 

In the short term it's the kids that will suffer the most but in my opinion you should remove equipment when it breaks and don't replace/fix it unless you have the funds. It's the only way things will change.

[Oaktech]

Find every large company you can and your local government and NHS and make contact with their IT services. You might strike it lucky. We got a load of nice optiplex GX980 machines from one of our local banks.

 

It's also worth contacting @ICTDirect_Dave because it's a terrible state of affairs if your school can't afford a core 2 duo for £70!

[NB9457]

Find every large company you can and your local government and NHS and make contact with their IT services. You might strike it lucky. We got a load of nice optiplex GX980 machines from one of our local banks.

 

It's also worth contacting @ICTDirect_Dave because it's a terrible state of affairs if your school can't afford a core 2 duo for £70!

 

Worst bit is we can get Core 2 Machines for around £10 each, but cannot afford them.