What New Desktops To Buy For An I.T Suite?

[sven]

build them yourself and put them behind flase back desks, solves us loads of problems and saves alot of money

 

Newest build pcs are going to be:

G620T processors

4GB ram

40GB intel SSDs

Asus P8H61-I ITX motherboards

 

£130-140 per PC, mounted onto an MDF board and sat behind a false back desk where no one can tamper with them, use WOL and remote shutdown scripts and all the cables go through a hole at the back of the desk.

 

Fast, cheap and effective.

 

This is EXACTLY what we are looking to do. Glad I've found somebody that's done it and it's working for.

[achedgy]

I'd second the Lenovo A70z's just installed a small suite of them and very impressed. I would recommend getting the desk stands for them though (about £30ish extra) Looking at HP Elite 8200 as an option for another school, will see how the quotes come out Really liked the Dell All-in-one but the new version (optiplex 790 sff if i remember) seems very pricey compared to how they used to be.

[somabc]

HP 8200, next question!

[flyinghaggis]

build them yourself and put them behind flase back desks, solves us loads of problems and saves alot of money

 

Newest build pcs are going to be:

G620T processors

4GB ram

40GB intel SSDs

Asus P8H61-I ITX motherboards

 

£130-140 per PC, mounted onto an MDF board and sat behind a false back desk where no one can tamper with them, use WOL and remote shutdown scripts and all the cables go through a hole at the back of the desk.

 

Fast, cheap and effective.

 

That's some excellent out of the box thinking. Would love to see some pics of this once you've done it!

[mrbios]

That's some excellent out of the box thinking. Would love to see some pics of this once you've done it!

 

Been doing it for the past 3 years, i'll take a few photos for examples if you like We only have one classroom with computers in that aren't behind false back desks now and those are 4.5 years old, though we're not paying to replace them as they get abused, the teacher has no control of the room etc.

 

Obviously the PCs we have currently aren't as small as they are in the spec of my last post as that is what our new builds are going to be (save space, less heat, less power is the main aims over performance) but it still gives you a good idea of how we've done it.

 

It works out lots cheaper than buying/building full PCs. Will take some pictures on tuesday and post them up on here.

[john]

I remember seeing these ---> idesk, the Worlds First Integrated PC Desk. <--- mentioned somewhere previously .. could be an interesting approach ..

 

A very expensive option is what they are.

[flyinghaggis]

Been doing it for the past 3 years, i'll take a few photos for examples if you like

 

Cool, would love to see exactly how you went about designing the enclosures to house the PC components in the false back desks!

 

We've looked at things like iDesks in the past but could never justify the added cost.

[mrbios]

Cool, would love to see exactly how you went about designing the enclosures to house the PC components in the false back desks!

 

We've looked at things like iDesks in the past but could never justify the added cost.

 

ahhh forgot to take pictures today, i'll write myself a note to remind myself tomorrow!

 

Luckily all the benching that gets put in for computers is factored into the maintenance/capital costs, so we're essentially getting PC cases/enclosures paid for from someone elses budget

[Haptic]

I have PM'd you.

 

Chris

[RTFM]

I have PM'd you.

 

Chris

 

Just curious about what desktop you recommended to the op?

[Duke]

I've just been pricing some stuff up... Dell desktops with 4GB RAM, Core 2 Duo and a dedicated GFX card come to between £600-£700 each (probably cheaper when I get a 'real' price from our reseller). I can build a similar spec PC for £300-£400, but then there's the time involved with building them and having to RMA each part manually rather than having a whole-PC warranty.

 

I'd like a PC with a dedicated GFX card for IT suites as they want to do some 3D work, can anyone recommend a cost-effective option for a whole PC?

[Haptic]

Just curious about what desktop you recommended to the op?

 

Ha ha someone curious about me hey.......makes a change! I recommended the Lenovo all in ones as they are a really good price at the minute or to go down the build route in our case this would be Zoostorm. The Dells are very good machines but this is refelcted in the price and likewise the same is true of the HP 8000 Elite with the specific HP monitor that mounts directly onto the base to make an all in one style machine. Although the HP 8000 does come with a 3 year warranty already included which is not bad at all. We sell a lot of all of the above into education but the Lenovos are proving very popular at the moment to be honest.

 

Hope it helps RTFM and thanks for asking!

 

 

Chris

[Duke]

We sell a lot of all of the above into education but the Lenovos are proving very popular at the moment to be honest.

 

Any particular Lenovo model you'd recommend for a basic desktop PC and an IT Suite w/GFX card PC for those unfamiliar with Lenovo models?

 

Cheers,

Chris

[Haptic]

Any particular Lenovo model you'd recommend for a basic desktop PC and an IT Suite w/GFX card PC for those unfamiliar with Lenovo models?

 

Hello Chris,

 

I certainly can and my apologies I wasn't a little clearer in the first place.

 

Firstly, I must state that some of these models would only apply to schools and colleges who have a Microsoft EES Licensing Agreement in place. The reason being, some the Lenovo All in Ones come with Windows 7 Home Premium. The Lenovo All in One A130, A700 and B500 all come with Windows 7 Home Premium as the Operating System with the B500 being the highest spec with this OS. Lenovo also have two All in One models that come with Windows 7 Professional and they are the A70z and the M90z with the M90z being the higher spec'd model with this OS. These have all been very popular so far with our educational customers this year. I think this is mainly due to the price and the preferred All in One style that seems to be the case in the educational IT sector at the moment.

 

Chris

[JonWPS]

In the process of refurbishing our oldest suite and have just purchased some Stone D200 All-In-Ones, coming in about £475 with i3 processor and 3GB of RAM, and 18.5" screens on them. They sent out an evaluation unit which built first time onto our CC3 network using Stone's DDU and the unit in general seemed very good quality. 5 year on-site warranty as well.

 

Will certainly be a step up from the 9-year-old RM 2000s that were in the room until the end of last week. 1.7GHz Celerons with 512MB of RAM.

[FragglePete]

We too are currently looking at some new desktops and I also have also spec'd them with dedicated GFX for use with things like Photoshop, Game Maker, etc. However, don't forget the new breed of i3 and i5 chips have dedicated GPUs on them now which make some of the lower end GFX card look quite poor. We're testing a Stone based i3 machine at the moment.

 

Pete

[mrbios]

Pictures for those of you that are interested in how we build our PCs and put them behind false back desks.

 

The next batch will be on boards about a 3rd of the size as the ITX motherboards we're going to be using are only 6.75" x 6.75" and solid state drives can basically dangle anywhere

 

Hopefully these give you some idea as to how we do it, been doing it this way for abotu 4 years now and it works out LOADS cheaper. It does take time but building one of these is far quicker than building a PC in a case, we built and imaged 165 of these in the space of 2 weeks a few years ago, and that was using ghostcast, chop off a few days now we're using WDS!

 

This particular example doesn't have fan hols + grills as it's only 4 PCs in one row, but on rows of 10 etc in tightly packed ICT rooms we have 3 fans per false back with a grill infront.

 

Also i think the G620T (35w) 4GB ram, 40GB SSD + Corsair PSU comes in at £120-130 per pc. In this picture are E5400s 2GB ram and el-cheapo PSUs

[Steve_T]

Great idea there mrbios and something i will be looking into for my sites.

 

Also i think the G620T (35w) 4GB ram, 40GB SSD + Corsair PSU comes in at £120-130 per pc

Would also be interested in where you are sourcing these sounds too cheap!

[mrbios]

Great idea there mrbios and something i will be looking into for my sites.

 

 

Would also be interested in where you are sourcing these sounds too cheap!

Ah sorry just noticed that was cpu/motherboard/memory price (i was looking at the bundle price )

 

£120-130 for motherboard processor and ram

£57 SSD

£25 PSU

 

Still a bargain though

 

Just replaced a classroom of 19" 4:3 TFTs with 31 BenQ G2220HDBL 22" 16:9 TFTs for £85 each too.

[PeterW]

Very nice mrbios, you need some of these though

Ekit Mdhek Multi Desk Hub With 3 Usb Ports, Audio Ports and Card Readers: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

(not sure about getting CE approval though)

Edited June 1, 2011 by PeterW

[mrbios]

Very nice mrbios, you need some of these though

Ekit Mdhek Multi Desk Hub With 3 Usb Ports, Audio Ports and Card Readers: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

 

(not sure about getting CE approval though)

 

I love that idea, but at £10 a go compared to what equates to abotu 50p per PC for the individual cables it wouldn't be worth it as they'd get trashed pretty quickly no doubt

 

Every summer we do a circuit of the IT rooms and replace broken audio and usb cables

 

EDIT: oh and cable ties are a must with this kind of setup!

Edited June 1, 2011 by mrbios

[Steve_T]

Ah sorry just noticed that was cpu/motherboard/memory price (i was looking at the bundle price )

 

£120-130 for motherboard processor and ram

£57 SSD

£25 PSU

 

Still a bargain though

 

Just replaced a classroom of 19" 4:3 TFTs with 31 BenQ G2220HDBL 22" 16:9 TFTs for £85 each too.

 

Sure is even if you added a case to that, just over 200 quid!

[mrbios]

Sure is even if you added a case to that, just over 200 quid!

 

I get quite funny with people on here who are spending £350+ per base unit for regular bog standard student and teacher machines, i try to make a habbit of purchasing the right machiens for requirement. My (unpopular) opinion is that a few people here don't do that and they go for the simplest choice and that they're wasting our taxes, one example is that im yet to find any application any stanard secondary or primary school would have that would need the power of an i5 or an i7 EXCEPT dedicated video editing machines (but i don't mean windows movie maker!) yet people still buy them.

 

I understand though that it works on a school by school basis, no two schools are the same, but i'm willing to bet i could walk in to quite a lot of schools and be disgusted with they're spending (i include my own in that, but not in the ICT spending as i now deal with a lot of it, though my manager deals with most of it still)

[irsprint84]

I get quite funny with people on here who are spending £350+ per base unit for regular bog standard student and teacher machines, i try to make a habbit of purchasing the right machiens for requirement. My (unpopular) opinion is that a few people here don't do that and they go for the simplest choice and that they're wasting our taxes, one example is that im yet to find any application any stanard secondary or primary school would have that would need the power of an i5 or an i7 EXCEPT dedicated video editing machines (but i don't mean windows movie maker!) yet people still buy them.

 

I understand though that it works on a school by school basis, no two schools are the same, but i'm willing to bet i could walk in to quite a lot of schools and be disgusted with they're spending (i include my own in that, but not in the ICT spending as i now deal with a lot of it, though my manager deals with most of it still)

 

Kinda of the same but I get machines that I know will last best example (Though laptops) before I was here they brought £300 HP laptops that lasted less that 2.5 years! brought some at £400 and they will definitely last 4-5 years easy. Its all about making the right choice as I thought about the purchase for many months.

[mrbios]

Kinda of the same but I get machines that I know will last best example (Though laptops) before I was here they brought £300 HP laptops that lasted less that 2.5 years! brought some at £400 and they will definitely last 4-5 years easy. Its all about making the right choice as I thought about the purchase for many months.

 

Bad example though as laptops are a whole different kettle of fish from standard PCs, Personally though, apart from a batch of celeron (eurgh) laptops that were bought 4 years ago any other laptops we've purchased in my time in this job has never not lasted the 4-5 years we want from them......that all comes down to the member of staff whos laptop it is.

 

Trying to get rid of staff laptops altogether, but it's proving difficult, luckily the head is semi behind us on it though

 

EDIT: only got one classroom of laptops (in two trolleys that go between the science labs) and those are now 5 years old and falling apart, those were HP Celerons but they managed to last in the hands of students! crap laptops though.

Edited June 1, 2011 by mrbios