Are Stone Computers rubbish for you as well?

[glennda]

The Stones we have are large form factor we have 6 running in the office all with the cases half open and you still can hardly hear them. It probly depends on the make of fan/PSU that purchased at that time.

[hakko]

Well I've worked in education IT for 10 years in several schools we've bought PC's from companies across the spectrum from HP, Dell, RM (good cases they know a bit about education) to budget end (clunky sharp edges so on) when we've needed to.

 

I think it's fair to say that I've seen several thousand cases over that time and I know a bit about 'good' cases, they're generally the ones that last. All of the Stone cases that we've had have been towards the top end when it comes to build quality (strong, no sharp edges etc) and are certainly some of the quietest PC's we've had, I can happily stand in a room with 30 running and you hardly know they're running.

 

Most of ours are the Stone Small Form Factor PC so I can't comment on the towers but I find it hard to believe that their case quality has taken such a dive in the last 12 months when they've been consistently good in that area for years.

 

Stone Computers - Computers, Computer Equipment

 

We get their towers, sharp edges, flimsy metal blanking plates/front ports. We've had the Stone sticker fall off on some of them and on switches breaking as well as the front USB ports on our bosses PC, falling off. Basically they are a cheap class of case that does not go with so called "branded components" they provide.

[glennda]

We get their towers, sharp edges, flimsy metal blanking plates/front ports. We've had the Stone sticker fall off on some of them and on switches breaking as well as the front USB ports on our bosses PC, falling off. Basically they are a cheap class of case that does not go with so called "branded components" they provide.

 

We have the the ones shown below - the only thing i was annoyed about was the firewire card not being able to connect to the motherboard - but its only me using firewire so didn't really have to worry as i just took my pci card out my old machine. We have lost most the stone stickers but you tend to lose lots of them anyway enless you by from the giants that have them built onto the cases.

 

http://www.stonegroup.co.uk/media/41702-mini-tower_bundle.jpg

[hakko]

The Stone logo used to be a button, nice big button - I think that was a better case looks wise.

[glennda]

The Stone logo used to be a button, nice big button - I think that was a better case looks wise.

 

yeah the 226 where delivered in july last year we are going to be hopefully buying 170ish more for next summer but will depend on what the likes of HP have to offer for the price that we got these as they where a very good deal

[dgsmith]

This isn't the kind of thread I expected to find around here about this company! Probably won't make much difference, but i'll post my observations of Stone thus far.

 

We bought some laptops from them around Spring 2007. Largely been ok - only problems really have been screws coming out from beneath laptop, causing it to open-up (engineer said it was a known issue on our model) and the DVD drives being quite noisy on these laptops. This is all we have ever ordered from Stone and these are the only issues we have mentioned. Neither have had any major impact and only a few have the "missing screws".

 

We plan to buy new batches of workstations and laptops in the coming weeks/months, and Stone have been very much involved in the tendering process. Can't fault their customer support and account manager has been truely excellent. Had an eval unit from them recently (it was a SFF desktop), and it is just as good as the cases RM offer (which I don't think there are any better than, in my opinion). Was certainly very satisfied with the build quality and durability.

Obviously can't comment much on the desktop range having never ordered any, though our eval unit was fine (then again, they're obviously going to triple check those as orders may well rest on the quality of them).

 

Was a bit concerned by the "BIOS settings" etc comments, as that pretty much can't be anything other than a lax approach and poor QC. I suppose these things happen, however much a company may pride themselves on having superb QC, they can be let down by somewhat incompetent individuals making human errors. I know for sure we'd certainly be dissasstified if we bought equipment and found this and I'd certainly be making a point of it if that were the case.

 

Fact is, Stone are getting bigger and I believe they have recently moved into new accomodation and haven't long bought out "Rock" which is now the brand of their laptops. I'm not put off in the slightest by the negative comments here. There will always be some people with bad experiences or who simply are dissatissfied for one reason or another - that's to be expected (in fact, whilst it would be truely amazing for a company to have 100% positive feedback, i'd be somewhat worried if this were the case, as you would have no idea as to what might go wrong in future or how it would be dealt with if such event was to occur). I prefer to know the faults of a company and how they go about addressing them. From what I can gather, the not so good experiences seems to be in the minority and I am sure anyone who has had a bad experience with this company have very genuine reasons for feeling that way, but proof is there is an overwelming majority who seem perfectly happy with the service Stone provide.

 

I don't think it's fair for me to post an "opinion" of them with so little experience of their products. Who knows, should we decide make an order with Stone and find we are having the same problems as the OP, I may well be posting comments more similar to those of the OP.

[Haptic]

even as a supplier I have heard good things about stones build quality and warranty

[maniac]

I've got quite a bit of kit supplied from Stone now.

 

We have 30 All in one PCs brought in September 2008. So far I've had one faulty screen which was replaced within 2 days - would have been next day but they had to order the part for this particular model - still I'm not complaining, was still fixed promptly.

 

One batch of Neo Netbooks brought in July 2009 - so far one problem with them which was a noisy fan which was permanently stuck on high speed as the fan controller had obviously malfunctioned. Swapped out the next day.

 

One batch of 46 Desktop PCs with 19" hardglass TFT screens and wall mounts for the screens - brought in July 2009. They even held onto the order for us in their holding warehouse free of charge until we were ready for it. No problems at all with any of this kit thus far.

 

4 New servers brought in July 2009, which are all custom built by stone to our exact requirements. All intel based good quality kit, and absolutely no problems at all with any of this thus far.

 

Overland tape changer and tapes supplied to us last month at a very good price. Slight delay in delivery as the courrier messed up, but Stone found out what had happened, and kept me informed -I didn't have to lift a finger, and it was delivered safely a couple of days later.

 

I cannot fault Stone one bit as a supplier, their service is brilliant, their warranty support is on the button, and the kit that I've had off them thus far has proved to be well built and trouble free. I cannot say the same about some of the kit I've had from other manufacturers over the years.

 

Mike.

Edited March 6, 2010 by maniac

[mb2k01]

I've replied on previous Stone threads so don't want to make another long post on the subject, but yep - completely agree with maniac. I've purchased a similar amount of kit and used for slightly longer.

 

There is no supplier in the world who will never have anything go wrong. Stone are no different. A hard drive might go down, a button on a case might break, but it's how suppliers deal with it that matter.

Any negative issue I have raised with Stone (and over about 5 years = hardly any) has been rectified immediately. No quibbles, no pointing at disclaimers or small print - just a quick and easy swap out / engineer visit.

[PeterW]

I'm not sure how much you know about cases and if you've seen cases of other manfacturer PCs.

 

These cases are like basically cheap ones you'd get off ebuyer or something.

 

All of thier cases are made by Chenbro a pretty decent manufacturer, the same cases are used by Viglen & RM

 

Also the default fan profiles of the Intel mainboards they use (same as Viglen & RM again) would normally be set to be optomized for the least noise unless they have specifically configured them for a more aggressive profile which I couldn't see any reason for.

 

Maybe if you could let us know which model or case/mainboard combination you have from stone and what you are comparing them to so we know your basis for comparison.

[hakko]

The cases are similar to the one posted earlier.

 

It is a cheap case/PSU, we've also got some old Viglens, also rubbish cases. We've got a range of Stone PCs from the past 7 years in the office, from the beige ones to current black models with the cheap pebble Stone sticker. Line up Stone, Dell, HP and Lenovo PCs and compare the cases. Anyway, the main issue is reliability and I think they are not suitable for enterprises. Maybe ok for schools/primary light users, who can tolerate 35 staff days lost in a year.

[cookie_monster]

The cases are similar to the one posted earlier.

 

It is a cheap case/PSU, we've also got some old Viglens, also rubbish cases. We've got a range of Stone PCs from the past 7 years in the office, from the beige ones to current black models with the cheap pebble Stone sticker. Line up Stone, Dell, HP and Lenovo PCs and compare the cases. Anyway, the main issue is reliability and I think they are not suitable for enterprises. Maybe ok for schools/primary light users, who can tolerate 35 staff days lost in a year.

 

 

 

I don't know i'd consider lost time to be a problem if it was affecting my children's education. These PC's need to be a good standard (like the Stone PC's we have) as they'll be on all day just like in the 'enterprise' but they'll also typically be in service for longer than the equivalent business PC, we have plenty of old Stone PC's running just fine of course they're slowing down with age but that's typical of any PC.

 

I don't think your argument stands up any more than mine but I know of more satisfied people on here than dissatisfied.

[mtdmitchell]

Well Stone get the thumbs up from me, good quality pc's and laptops. Support is alot better than most, always next day onsite replacement\fix, and they match or better prices from RM.

 

sales staff are nice and dont hasle you all the time.

 

and the build time time for orders usually 2 weeks is second to none!

[beeswax]

@hakko

Anyway, the main issue is reliability and I think they are not suitable for enterprises. Maybe ok for schools/primary light users, who can tolerate 35 staff days lost in a year.

I hate to get on your case here (geddit?) but PCs in schools don't get "light use". In fact I would suggest quite the opposite, that PCs in business get "light use". When I managed a few business networks I tended not to find that keys had been prised loose from the keyboard, that face plates had been ripped off and the odd pencil thrown in to see what it would do. Though I did enjoy seeing the consequences of one boy changing the voltage on the back of a PC whilst it was switched on. The PC was a write off, but the boy survived. I don't recall seeing much of this type of thing in business as the result would be loss of job. In a school the culprit may get a detention, and return to carry on damaging our PCs.

Our IT suites tend to be used during the holidays for such things as revision classes and other projects, which admittedly can be a pain as we can usually only carry out major tasks during school holidays, and we sometimes have to limp along until we have the available time.

[chazzy2501]

4 years ago we bought 75 Fujitsu p3600 AMD machines each with a 3 year warranty. The PCs are the most used in school and are physically accessible to the kids. To date only 1 PC has failed (PSU).

 

The PCs were more expensive than the equivilant Dells but with a failure rate like that I'll buy them again.

 

Unfortunately at the same time we bought 15 HP laptops, ALL 15 laptops had the batteries fail after 6 months and after 18 months 6 laptops failed from something known as layer seperation. The laptop would freeze and then only work if you squeezed it! The head of our Technology department walked around with a G clamp on his;)

Edited March 12, 2010 by chazzy2501

[hakko]

@hakko I hate to get on your case here (geddit?) but PCs in schools don't get "light use". In fact I would suggest quite the opposite, that PCs in business get "light use".

 

By heavy use I mean, using the PC for work, pushing the cpu, memory and hard drive etc. Not vandalism.

 

You get next day support from Dell, HP and Lenovo as part of their public/sector education deals etc. Might be a bit of a faff when you call, but overall it's less time wasted as they do come out next day, and the times you have to call them out are fewer. Since I started keeping track of Stones call outs - because it started to seem like the Stone engineer lived here! - I found we averaged 3-4 visits a month the past year.

[cookie_monster]

By heavy use I mean, using the PC for work, pushing the cpu, memory and hard drive etc. Not vandalism.

 

You get next day support from Dell, HP and Lenovo as part of their public/sector education deals etc. Might be a bit of a faff when you call, but overall it's less time wasted as they do come out next day, and the times you have to call them out are fewer. Since I started keeping track of Stones call outs - because it started to seem like the Stone engineer lived here! - I found we averaged 3-4 visits a month the past year.

 

 

I'm sorry but i've worked in both sectors and IMO school PC's in general work just as hard. Ours are used for music and video production that pushes things pretty hard. I know you have specialist activity in business as well but a 'vast' majority of business PC's are ticking over at best.

 

As I said above:

These PC's need to be a good standard (like the Stone PC's we have) as they'll be on all day just like in the 'enterprise' but they'll also typically be in service for longer than the equivalent business PC, we have plenty of old Stone PC's running just fine of course they're slowing down with age but that's typical of any PC.

[hakko]

4 years ago we bought 75 Fujitsu p3600 AMD machines each with a 3 year warranty. The PCs are the most used in school and are physically accessible to the kids. To date only 1 PC has failed (PSU).

 

The PCs were more expensive than the equivilant Dells but with a failure rate like that I'll buy them again.

 

Unfortunately at the same time we bought 15 HP laptops, ALL 15 laptops had the batteries fail after 6 months and after 18 months 6 laptops failed from something known as layer seperation. The laptop would freeze and then only work if you squeezed it! The head of our Technology department walked around with a G clamp on his;)

 

Were they continuously charged, plugged in on the mains?

 

Most PCs are probably Fujitsu on the inside.

[localzuk]

By heavy use I mean, using the PC for work, pushing the cpu, memory and hard drive etc. Not vandalism.

 

Yeah, my experience of business machines is generally they spend their lives ticking over running Office... Compared to classroom PC's which video edit, run complex flash sites, 3D maths games etc...

 

It is only some areas of a business which will have high demand applications - whereas it is the majority in a school, with the minority being the admin machines which tick over with office and SIMS etc...

[localzuk]

4 years ago we bought 75 Fujitsu p3600 AMD machines each with a 3 year warranty. The PCs are the most used in school and are physically accessible to the kids. To date only 1 PC has failed (PSU).

 

The PCs were more expensive than the equivilant Dells but with a failure rate like that I'll buy them again.

 

Unfortunately at the same time we bought 15 HP laptops, ALL 15 laptops had the batteries fail after 6 months and after 18 months 6 laptops failed from something known as layer seperation. The laptop would freeze and then only work if you squeezed it! The head of our Technology department walked around with a G clamp on his;)

 

Comparing desktops to laptops is a bad idea. The life of a laptop battery is determined by a good number of things - such as how often they are charged etc... I suspect you'd end up with a similarly high battery failure rate for fujitsu laptops if you'd bought them instead.

 

Our experience of Fujitsu Siemens laptops has been that they're dire. Design flaws galore (weak hinges, weak mouse buttons, poor mainboards, poor dvd-drives, etc...).

 

You can't base your view of a company's machines on one batch. Every company has problems with a poor batch at one time or another. Look at Apple and its iMacs - different models have different reliability.

[hakko]

I'm sorry but i've worked in both sectors and IMO school PC's in general work just as hard. Ours are used for music and video production that pushes things pretty hard. I know you have specialist activity in business as well but a 'vast' majority of business PC's are ticking over at best.

 

As I said above:

 

They are used for music and video production for 8 hours a day?

 

So even with our (if you consider) "light business" use, with the failure rate, Stone are still rubbish.

Edited March 12, 2010 by hakko

[maniac]

They are used for music and video production for 8 hours a day?

 

So even with our (if you consider) "light business" use, with the failure rate, Stone are still rubbish.

 

You say you've got 7 years worth of their PCs in your school, if you were that disappointed with them then why did you continute to buy them?

Edited March 12, 2010 by maniac
Spelling

[hakko]

I haven't been there for 7 years. From speaking to colleagues it has been a case of decline over that time. Last 2-3 years (since merger with Compsys?) it got worse until this quarter was the final straw.

[cookie_monster]

They are used for music and video production for 8 hours a day?

 

So even with our (if you consider) "light business" use, with the failure rate, Stone are still rubbish.

 

 

We have rotations of classes in schools so maybe not 8 hours but the media lab PC's might do 5 hours of heavy work every day yes and a couple of light use in after school catchup other periods etc.

 

We currently have 200 stone PC's and they've been very good that's all I can say it's an oppinion based on my experience, the work rates stated above are fact however

Edited March 12, 2010 by cookie_monster

[kennysarmy]

706 stone PC's on site here.

 

Issues are dealt with professionally and quickly and technician can't remember the last time we had a call-out....

 

Perhaps rather than flaming on here you should use your time more wisely and get on the phone to Stone and try and resolve your problems...might be a more mature way of dealing with the issue.

 

Jeff.