Buying Computers

[tomgrindle]

Hi,

 

We are going to have to replace some of our ageing computers very soon. As we are very tight on money the Business Manager has put to me the idea about buying reconditioned machines, ex business lease machines etc.

 

Would it be possible to have some of your feedback about this? Also if you think it is a good idea/have done it yourself would it be possible to recommend some companies as I have only ever worked with suppliers such as Stone and Ergo since I started here.

 

Many Thanks

 

Tom

[wesleyw]

ICT Direct one of the sponsors does these. We did it over the summer needs a little more time to sort out than brand new units but it is worth it.

 

 

Wes

[dhicks]

As we are very tight on money the Business Manager has put to me the idea about buying reconditioned machines, ex business lease machines etc.

 

There's were some snazzy all-in-one machines around yesterday, along with a discussion about how to upgrade them to modern motherboards:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/classified-adverts/85708-50-rm-ascend-2800-all-one-pcs.html

 

The hardware would cost you around £150 per machine (there's more available on eBay), including (I think) a fee to Microsoft to transfer the COA license to new hardware if you want to run Windows on them. After that you'll have to license Windows 7, MS Office, or whatever you normally install on each of your machines.

[tomgrindle]

ICT Direct one of the sponsors does these. We did it over the summer needs a little more time to sort out than brand new units but it is worth it.

 

 

Wes

 

Hi Wes, I was looking at ICT Direct and they seemed like a good company. I was interested in the HP DC7800's that they had, with Core 2 Duo processors, only £150! Which doesn't seem bad, with a 2 year warranty. Cheers

 

There's were some snazzy all-in-one machines around yesterday, along with a discussion about how to upgrade them to modern motherboards:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/classified-adverts/85708-50-rm-ascend-2800-all-one-pcs.html

 

The hardware would cost you around £150 per machine (there's more available on eBay), including (I think) a fee to Microsoft to transfer the COA license to new hardware if you want to run Windows on them. After that you'll have to license Windows 7, MS Office, or whatever you normally install on each of your machines.

 

Hrrmmm .... that doesn't sound like a bad idea. But if it was going to cost us £150ish per machine then we would probably go for something ready to go, will have a closer look though. Cheers for you help

[RTFM]

I've not done it myself but i think @Millgate might do this? If your not 100% sure its probably worth trying to shop around a little if you can to check specs and prices from a few suppliers.

[MK-2]

Hi Wes, I was looking at ICT Direct and they seemed like a good company. I was interested in the HP DC7800's that they had, with Core 2 Duo processors, only £150! Which doesn't seem bad, with a 2 year warranty. Cheers

 

 

we kitted out an iCT room this summer with those. very good quality. don't forget to expect a couple of scratches on the case here and there as they are refurbs, but the pc itself is great. we also just got a core2quad dell machine from ICT direct with 3gb ram for about £160ish. again very smooth machine. can't fault the company or machines (or price!)

[tomgrindle]

we kitted out an iCT room this summer with those. very good quality. don't forget to expect a couple of scratches on the case here and there as they are refurbs, but the pc itself is great. we also just got a core2quad dell machine from ICT direct with 3gb ram for about £160ish. again very smooth machine. can't fault the company or machines (or price!)

 

Thanks @MK-2 , that sounds very positive. Would you be able to confirm if these machines PXE-Boot or not?

 

Thanks

 

Tom

[dhicks]

But if it was going to cost us £150ish per machine then we would probably go for something ready to go, will have a closer look though.

 

The base units (with screen!) are around £50 each, the extra £100 should get you a right up-to-date (USB3, etc) Mini-ITX motherboard complete with processor and RAM.

[tomgrindle]

The base units (with screen!) are around £50 each, the extra £100 should get you a right up-to-date (USB3, etc) Mini-ITX motherboard complete with processor and RAM.

 

That is a good price, Network Manager doesn't seem too keen though although they wouldn't take long to upgrade etc. not sure if he wants the hassle. Would be nice though, because as you say they would be fully up to date. Might try and twist his arm though.

[Flatpackhamster]

What sort of stuff are you going to be doing on the computers? Are they just going to be (essentially) dumb terminals using Citrix or sumfink? It's just that if a 3-year old ex-business PC isn't powerful enough for business then I don't think it'll be fast enough for school needs. Just my tuppence-worth.

[Dos_Box]

What sort of stuff are you going to be doing on the computers? Are they just going to be (essentially) dumb terminals using Citrix or sumfink? It's just that if a 3-year old ex-business PC isn't powerful enough for business then I don't think it'll be fast enough for school needs. Just my tuppence-worth.

 

Most of the machines ICT Direct deal with are swapped out from the original owners as part of rolling contracts etc. and are perfectly good enough for schools. We went in there a couple of years back and they had all of the old Yahoo! UK servers on pallets in there (sans hard drives of course).

[synaesthesia]

I am dubious about the worthiness of refurbished hardware. Although some people such as ICT Direct do high quality refurbs with decent warranties, in the long run I do not believe you get good value for money. Regardless of current budgets, you could actually be making yourself WORSE off - for example in 13 months time when there are no warranties to fall back on, 4 of those machines fail for whatever reason. As the hardware is older, replacing certain parts may be more expensive than needs be and what you have to pay out could very easily be more than you saved by buying refurbs.

I would strongly recommend buying good value new PC's and shopping around for decent warranties, one of the very reasons we've been using (and been extremely happy with) Stone and their 5yr warranties.

[MK-2]

Thanks @MK-2 , that sounds very positive. Would you be able to confirm if these machines PXE-Boot or not?

 

Thanks

 

Tom

 

They are, as we booted all of them to via that to build them. I think out of 25 we had one with a PSU issue, one with a noisy fan and that was about it. Both were replaced fine too.

[MK-2]

I am dubious about the worthiness of refurbished hardware. Although some people such as ICT Direct do high quality refurbs with decent warranties, in the long run I do not believe you get good value for money. Regardless of current budgets, you could actually be making yourself WORSE off - for example in 13 months time when there are no warranties to fall back on, 4 of those machines fail for whatever reason. As the hardware is older, replacing certain parts may be more expensive than needs be and what you have to pay out could very easily be more than you saved by buying refurbs.

I would strongly recommend buying good value new PC's and shopping around for decent warranties, one of the very reasons we've been using (and been extremely happy with) Stone and their 5yr warranties.

 

but at £140 a pop for a pc with a 2 yr warranty (or 3 yr for an extra tenner), they almost become like consumables. if after 2 years one breaks, at £140 you could afford to replace it with another one which has another 3 yr warranty. so effectively having spent £280 for a pc with 5 or 6 year warranty if you replaced it as soon as warranty ends

[3s-gtech]

I paid a little extra with ICT Direct and got the three year warranty. At the base cost of the machine, the spec we got was far superior to anything new in that price range. We have a bunch of DC7700, DC7800, DC7900 and XW4400 here from them and they're great. Had some little niggles with faulty RAM (like, two sticks) - but then my last lot of brand new HPs are right dogs with rubbish motherboards.

[MK-2]

What sort of stuff are you going to be doing on the computers? Are they just going to be (essentially) dumb terminals using Citrix or sumfink? It's just that if a 3-year old ex-business PC isn't powerful enough for business then I don't think it'll be fast enough for school needs. Just my tuppence-worth.

What exactly won't a 3 year old PC with 3gb ram and core2duo/quad processor do??

We have them in our ICT suite running XP/Office 2010/Serif Webplus/Gamemaker/Sibelius and various other subject specific programs and had no slowdowns at all. If your students are all using photoshop or massive video editing, fair enough, but as for a day to day usage, i don't see a prob.

 

Had some little niggles with faulty RAM (like, two sticks) - but then my last lot of brand new HPs are right dogs with rubbish motherboards.

 

yep same, had a couple of issues, but then the last 17 brand new hp machines i had two dead motherboards so swings and roundabouts

[plexer]

My current in house build multipoint servers each providing 8 stations comes in at approx £210 per station.

 

Ben

[Flatpackhamster]

What exactly won't a 3 year old PC with 3gb ram and core2duo/quad processor do??

 

It'll do it now. But perhaps it won't do it in 2 or 3 years' time. Tomorrow I'm off to see yet another client who until about a month ago was running quite happily on XP Pro with 1GB RAM on a Pentium D. Since the most recent batch of Windows updates, the machine is running like a dog. That's the third person with an identical problem in the last few weeks. These installs don't stand still, and software gets bulkier on a month-by-month basis. Adobe Reader updates, Windows updates, Java (unless you can avoid it), Office updates... it all slows the machine down.

[3s-gtech]

We're running a few Pentium Ds with 1.5GB RAM (DC7600), on XP Pro they're working nicely. Got four running Windows 7 on 2GB, no problems at all. Much of it comes down to what you install and how you keep them running well. Getting five years out of a machine in a school is easy - if they're shunted off to less demanding roles as they age. I tend to get new machines for the IT suites every three years, and shuffle the old ones down elsewhere (maybe with some RAM upgrades etc). Refurbs are fitting in well with this - we don't have anything amazing PC wise, but they're much better than just a few years back (think Athlons on 128MB SDRAM, PIIIs etc). Plus, the top spec refurbs are pretty decent PCs overall (DC7900s with 4GB RAM, ATI 5770s and 3GHz C2D).

[MK-2]

It'll do it now. But perhaps it won't do it in 2 or 3 years' time. Tomorrow I'm off to see yet another client who until about a month ago was running quite happily on XP Pro with 1GB RAM on a Pentium D. Since the most recent batch of Windows updates, the machine is running like a dog. That's the third person with an identical problem in the last few weeks. These installs don't stand still, and software gets bulkier on a month-by-month basis. Adobe Reader updates, Windows updates, Java (unless you can avoid it), Office updates... it all slows the machine down.

 

I know it'll all slow it down, but again, you could spend £500 on a brand new unit that will last, lets say, 5 years before showing signs of aging. That price might include a 3 year warranty.

With a refurb even on conservative measures, it might last 2 years with a 2 year warranty before needing to be replaced. You could then buy another one with a 3 year warranty after that to replace it. Cost per unit approx £150. So in 5 years you've spent either £500 on one new pc or £300 on two pc's, with the older one still perfectly good to use for lesser tasks.

That's my point, with our budgets sure to get cut finer and finer, a refurb pc makes sense. especially ones you can bulk up to 3/4gb.

2.6ghz/4gb for £180 isn't exactly yesterdays news in terms of standard desktops.

[glennda]

How many are you looking to by, I know that companies can be very competetive on pricing if you push them, i've paid under £300 per machine for i3s and 4gb ram for the last 2 summers but i have been purchasing 200+

[w-clarke101]

If your going to be getting new PC's! do it soon as the cost will! if not yet will go up.

 

As HDD 250GB going for around £50!!! thats if you can find any

[dhicks]

I know it'll all slow it down, but again, you could spend £500 on a brand new unit that will last, lets say, 5 years before showing signs of aging.

 

Good point. If people are considering new machines, it might be worth thinking about how they could be upgraded in 3 / 5 years time. If you buy new machines now with cases capable of taking standard-sized motherboards you might be able to upgarde more easily in the future. Of course, in 5 years time it might be cheaper to buy a whole new integrated device rather than a standard desktop PC - all our recent new machines have been Acer Revos, small enough to clip to the back of a screen and around £200 each.

[simpsonj]

Just throw in that Misco are doing Refurbs as well, DC7700 with 2gb RAM, XP and Core 2 Duo E6300 for £121, bought 30 of these a few weeks back and so far no issues other than scratched cases.

 

The other benefit of buying cheap PCs is the possibility of turning them into thin clients as they near the end of their life.