Upgrading existing PCs.

[Norphy]

We have a number of PCs on the network that are starting to age quite significantly and are starting to creak under the strain that modern software is putting on them. Unfortunately we don't have the budget to replace all of the PCs this year but we could quite easily refit one entire room with new PCs and upgrade all the creaky ones with new motherboards, CPUs, RAM and hard drives. Anyone here ever do this? We've done it in small numbers before (never more than 15 at once) but never as many as we're planning at the moment (60+)

[Snuffkins]

The previous Network Manager did it here. Well actually he built them from scratch cause it was cheaper than buying brand name equipment. I think he built 63 in a week or so. They a few years old and still working ok. Once you get the production line cracking and coffee and snacks on stand by you'll go through them in no time. I used to work as a hardware engineer and you can really get through them quick once you start. Try and get 3 year warranties on all the parts though.

 

I think it's a good idea to upgrade your old kit. As long as the cases aren't some small form factor case with a specially designed power supply, lol. What machines are they and what sort of upgrades are you looking to get?

[Dos_Box]

Whats the current spec? And what OS are they running?

[Geoff]

What about converting them to thin clients? Is that an option you're willing to look at?

[Simcfc73]

Don't forget the licensing although if you keep the case with the oem license stuck on it no one will know.

 

I usually buy the cheapest upgrade items I can find as a 2.6ghz chip is plenty fast enough in todays classroom for browsing the net trying to bypass the filtering to see some flesh.

[ChrisH]

Were always short on money and have some very old PCS so for the price of 62 new PCs I have bought 62 second user PCs P4 2 Ghz 512 Meg ram XP pro. Replaced all the switches with procurves. Im having 2 runs of fiber done and bought a new server and still have £3000 in change.

[Norphy]

Current spec:

 

P3 500-866MHz, 128MB RAM, Intel BX or 815e motherboards, 8-80GB hard drive depending on when it was last repaired. Stone machines. Running 2000. Coming up to six years old now.

 

Looking to upgrade to: Sempron 2800+, 512MB RAM, S754 board with grfx/audio. Upgrading to XP for various reasons.

 

I can see the inevitable question: Why not use them as thin clients? Well, it would cost as much to build a Citrix or TS server and get all the appropriate licences as it would to just upgrade them. We'd have to do the whole thing from scratch as we're running fat clients here at the moment and using a Linux system isn't an option so it would have to be TS or Citrix.

 

I used to work as a repair engineer for a fairly large and completely evil computer mail order company so I know whats involved and have a fair idea of how much time it would take. It used to take me about 20 minutes to half an hour to build a basic PC and get it tidy.

[Dos_Box]

TBH, with that processor speed I would just look at a HD and memory upgrade. XP runs fine at that speed with lots of RAM and a new-ish hard drive.

[Norphy]

If it they were just running Office, I'd probably agree with you. However Studio MX v8, Photoshop Elements 4 and other pieces of software crawl on them no matter how much RAM you put in there so a faster CPU is in order I think. Hell, Fireworks 8 is sluggish on this thing and its an Athlon 64 3000+ with 2GB RAM :|

[Dos_Box]

Ah, you're proberbly right then.

[Geoff]

I can see the inevitable question: Why not use them as thin clients? Well, it would cost as much to build a Citrix or TS server and get all the appropriate licences as it would to just upgrade them. We'd have to do the whole thing from scratch as we're running fat clients here at the moment and using a Linux system isn't an option so it would have to be TS or Citrix.

 

That's a one off cost. Continually upgrading your desktop PC's is not.

 

A Linux TS is fine for the basics. eg, OpenOffice, GIMP, Scribus, Firefox, Thunderbird is what I'm intending here eventually.

[MrDylan]

Everyone here bar the Head wants to get a Leasing Scheme running.

 

Unfortunately, like I said, the Head doesn't.

[webman]

Hell, Fireworks 8 is sluggish on this thing and its an Athlon 64 3000+ with 2GB RAM :|

 

Just shows how bloated Macromedia software has got, really

[Snuffkins]

They actually wanted me to try and get the autodesk suite running on celeron 533 machines with 128mb memory, which were already crawling with XP and various other 3d des software. Took me a year of arguing to get 3.0g p4's in place of them. I almost cried i was so happy, lol.

[webman]

"It's a computer, it can do anything"

-OR-

"It's a computer, surely you can make it work?"

[CyberNerd]

We're throwing out 60 perfectly good PII 233's 64MB *AND* we are already a thin client network !

 

Management want us to replace them with new thin clients wyse terminal or similar (PII 233, £200 each) because the others are too old ???

 

Aparently aesthetics is everything when it comes to IT.

 

I can see the inevitable question: Why not use them as thin clients? Well, it would cost as much to build a Citrix or TS server and get all the appropriate licences as it would to just upgrade them. We'd have to do the whole thing from scratch as we're running fat clients here at the moment and using a Linux system isn't an option so it would have to be TS or Citrix.

 

That's a one off cost. Continually upgrading your desktop PC's is not.

 

A Linux TS is fine for the basics. eg, OpenOffice, GIMP, Scribus, Firefox, Thunderbird is what I'm intending here eventually.

 

This is a good way to go, you can still run your windows apps using a windows TS, so you cut down on licensing. An excellent tutorial

Setting up Windows and Linux Terminal servers in schools HOWTO

[pete]

They actually wanted me to try and get the autodesk suite running on celeron 533 machines with 128mb memory, which were already crawling with XP and various other 3d des software. Took me a year of arguing to get 3.0g p4's in place of them. I almost cried i was so happy, lol.

 

you are me.

 

and the kids continally reset the machines "because they're slow", which corrupts the registry.

[Geoff]

Management want us to replace them with new thin clients wyse terminal or similar (PII 233, £200 each) because the others are too old ???

 

Aparently aesthetics is everything when it comes to IT.

 

Just buy new cases.

 

We use the reverse logic here in the IT Office. We but brand new AMD64 based machines in grotty old cases. Always a bit of spare cash for upgrades that way.

[webman]

Just buy new cases.

 

But don't tell them that the internal components are the same, and wait for the "it's so much quicker now you got the new machines" 8)

[CyberNerd]

Just buy new cases.

 

I agree 100%, its already written into a budget now though, and we seem to have too much money to spend (probably all this linux and thin client stuff... hehe)