Damage to PC's

[budgester]

I'm so tempted to try some of these

 

http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/

[sinky]

Does anyone else out there have any intuitive ways they secure their Peripherals?

 

The uni I went to had all the wires for the peripherals looped through a little padlock.

[stephenleak]

Does anyone else out there have any intuitive ways they secure their Peripherals?

 

The uni I went to had all the wires for the peripherals looped through a little padlock.

 

Nylon cable ties are cheaper. We use 1 per PC, with the mains, video, mouse and keyboard cables all together. OK, its not 100% (what is?) but it should slow them up enough to be spotted.

[stephenleak]

Does anyone else out there have any intuitive ways they secure their Peripherals?

 

The uni I went to had all the wires for the peripherals looped through a little padlock.

 

Nylon cable ties are cheaper. We use 1 per PC, with the mains, video, mouse and keyboard cables all together. OK, its not 100% (what is?) but it should slow them up enough to be spotted.

[acrobson]

The damage at my palce was horrific a=mainly because the network team ended up giving up and just left it to get trashed, recently we have had a lot of new stuff and getting ecrerything back to what we feeel is a very high standard and it would appear that since we (staff and the college) have started respecting things, so have the kids.

 

It got to a point where i came in one morning during a spot check to find 2 kids opening up 5 fire etinguishers over a suite of 30 PC's, the PC's were dead after that and the best bit is the kids got kicked out for a week and then welcomed back, no more said. I can see why the other IT team ended up giving up.

 

However slowly but surely were getting there. Anyone beat that?

[stephenleak]

CCTV+billing parents for damage seems to be the only bullet proof counter measure.

 

Seems to be working for us. No problems since the CCTV was installed in the IT rooms. The IT teachers also sit them boy/girl/boy/girl and also sit them at the same machine, giving accountability and ownership.

[_Bat_]

Ahhh... this is where the joys of working in a primary school kick in.

 

Damage done to PCs on purpose: 0% ... quite literally.

 

The worst I have seen is the kids continually turning the computers off at the plug sockets, but this isn't trying to damage the computers, it's just a lack of knowledge of how to shut them down.

 

Okay that isn't quite true, I have come across chewing gum in the CD drive once before... but that was only once.

 

And yes, whoever said it was boys that do the damage would be correct. That was always the case in my college... the girls seemed to have a lot more common sense and were above such things.

[6Foot2]

Removed.

[Espada]

In my room, damage runs close to zero. Whilst I am in the room it is zero, the kids know I can ban them from the computers and the Internet, it is not worth the risk. The other rooms are a different story with mice and keyboards being damaged daily.

 

We use almost 100% optical mice and they are all cable tied in place.

[witch]

Generally speaking I don't get much as the kids are 13 or under - the odd label peeled off or bit of plastic gone - BUT all damage appears in the IT suite that I am not based in AND a lot is caused by the teachers hauling the keyboards up and plonking them on top of the monitors - bent/broken pins abound!

[stephenleak]

I shouldn't have tempted fate. We have had our first instance of malicious damage caught on camera. One new Dell keyboard £15, carriage £10, my time for replacing it £35 per hour or part thereof. Bill and copy of the video evidence on DVD to the evil little scrote's equally unpleasant parents. Will be interesting to see what happens. Watch this space. (or YouTube, if I had my way!)

[_Bat_]

I shouldn't have tempted fate. We have had our first instance of malicious damage caught on camera. One new Dell keyboard £15, carriage £10, my time for replacing it £35 per hour or part thereof. Bill and copy of the video evidence on DVD to the evil little scrote's equally unpleasant parents. Will be interesting to see what happens. Watch this space. (or YouTube, if I had my way!)

 

What did they do to it?

[t_guest]

we had a spate of damage a while back now due to the supply teachers not watching the class letting them do what they want

so the school has gone camera crazy ip cams in every IT class now and gatt gets the nice job of doing conduct logs

im sure gatt loves giving kids conduct logs

he was going to give me 1 for pinching his biscuits of his desk

and he disabled my account for 3 days 8O

 

we also have a camera in every corridor and the yards

to watch for vandalism and etc.

[Heebeejeebee]

btw, it's always boys, isn't it? - are things any better in all-girls schools?

opinions, anyone?

 

I work in an all girls school and we've had about £800 worth of damage in about 5 weeks (since we've been totaling up the costs). Someone even pinched the memory out of one of our HP laser printers.

 

Generally mice stolen, ripped apart, pins bent (why do they have to remove them in the first place?), Keyboards with missing keys, cables cut thought with scissors (I'm waiting for a power lead to be snipped ), graffiti and general student ignorance.

 

And the staff swear blind that it's never done in their lessons.

 

HBJB

[stephenleak]

I shouldn't have tempted fate. We have had our first instance of malicious damage caught on camera. One new Dell keyboard £15, carriage £10, my time for replacing it £35 per hour or part thereof. Bill and copy of the video evidence on DVD to the evil little scrote's equally unpleasant parents. Will be interesting to see what happens. Watch this space. (or YouTube, if I had my way!)

 

What did they do to it?

 

Pulling keys and the tilting thingies off and throwing them. Then he actually leapt across the desks to attack another lad and sent the LCD monitors flying. Miraculously, they were OK.

 

They've paid up without a fight, BTW. I suppose if its on the telly it must be true.

[bishopsgarthstockton]

When we start having mcahinces damaged in an area, i tend to monitor it very closely. I make sure the machines in the target room are not been written on stabbed punched etc. If i do find a damaged machine/mouse/keyboard/monitor. that class is hald back after school. the culprit always owns up and a bill is promptly sent home, followed by a detention after school on friday. Personally i would like to launch the little buggaers.

[Skol]

Over the past 3 years we have replaced 2000+ (yes 2000) keyboards and mice due to vandalism. If we get though a term without having to reorder (we order in blocks of 200) we consider it a success.

[bishopsgarthstockton]

smash the keybpards across there heads.... aaa ya cant sorry were not allowed to do out like that

[SpuffMonkey]

 

Not here. We also use nylon cable ties. Within a day of the room being cable tied at least one tie has been cut. By the time a week has passed the majority of the ties are cut. We NEVER find out who is the guilty party. I suspect it happens during covered lessons when supply teachers are in place, over break or lunch, or while a student suggest to a member of staff that they can 'help' by moving a keyboard and/or mouse from computer A to computer B.

 

We've started using small padlocks to tie together the cables - which has slowed things down a bit - I sourced a load for about £1.35 each - which seemed cheap in comparison to the amount of mice and keyboards that were walking.

[enjay]

Either way it rarely comes out of the Technical Support budget.

There's the real point, isn't it - damage to equipment during lessons is a classroom management issue, and not a technical one. The mice in staff offices never have the buttons pulled off them and all their keyboards have the appropriate number of keys - this clearly shows that the IT Support Dept have not bought shoddy kit, so any abuse or vandalism to it should be treated in the same way as if a kid gets up and starts drawing on the walls.

[browolf]

we have fujitsu computers with weak front panelling. (they've changed the design now) our tech department makes us replacement (stronger) panels on their laser cutting machine that we glue back on. we replace a fair number of mice & keyboards, mostly kbs.

generally its supply teachers and certain other teachers it happens to more often.

[mrforgetful]

Isn't is just the Home PCs that have different PCs?

 

Looking at the website they seem the same as the P series ones.

 

We've moved away from Fujitsu for this reason, though I must say I'm pleased with the HP ones more than I ever was with the FJ-S computers.

[kevin]

I have had very little damage to the computer network here and our school is for EBD kids!

 

I have had the little rubber band inside the CD drive removed once, a bluetooth adapter nicked that the teacher left in and a couple of keyboards that have collapsed inside from a over eager pupil playing 'hit the key as many times as you can and win' type games.

 

The only major bit of damage i had was a printers top cover smashed because it wouldn't print. It was only two weeks old!

 

 

Kev

[Geoff]

The old Scenics were very breakable on the front panels. They've changed them now though to something more robust. I'd imagine those are the models browolf meant.

[mrforgetful]

Aren't the FJ-S one's just these now:

 

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/Resources/2/88526685.jpg

 

Looks the same but white to me.

 

The main problem we had with them is if the PC needed pulling forwards, where do you get hold? Exactly, just pulls straight off if you do