Replace or upgrade

[marsdenprimary]

Laptops / PC's connected to the teachers whiteboard. Some running XP... replace or upgrade? Just about to move over to Server 2008 R2... Also same situation with our Admin PC's... Any suggestions?

[Michael]

How old are the PCs and laptops?

[jonathon28]

Depends how old they are and if you have any money! Some of our whiteboard machines are coming up to 6 years old and are a real pain for anything multimedia related. Just haven't got the money to replace them.

 

I'd probably replace admin computers if more than 3 years old. They're important - don't want them giving you problems.

[marsdenprimary]

Depends how old they are and if you have any money! Some of our whiteboard machines are coming up to 6 years old and are a real pain for anything multimedia related. Just haven't got the money to replace them.

 

I'd probably replace admin computers if more than 3 years old. They're important - don't want them giving you problems.

 

I think my only issue is the fact they're running XP. They're all definitely older than 3 years now too. The admin PC's are probably older than that!! They run fine but not sure if they'd handle a Win 7 upgrade.

[sonofsanta]

Depends entirely on the spec. Core2Duo processor and 2GB of RAM will be fine for Win7/8, if you feel they're too slow then stick an SSD in them - cheaper than buying a new machine and will probably feel subjectively quicker anyway.

 

You may be limited by the state of the batteries, though, if they're laptops.

[zag]

stick an ssd in them and carry on

[flyinghaggis]

The other issue is that you may be unable to find compatibile drivers for Windows 7/8. Best to try it on one laptop to see how it runs and whether you can get all the hardware (audio/video,etc) in them to work OK first before deciding. Edited November 14, 2012 by flyinghaggis

[marsdenprimary]

Depends entirely on the spec. Core2Duo processor and 2GB of RAM will be fine for Win7/8, if you feel they're too slow then stick an SSD in them - cheaper than buying a new machine and will probably feel subjectively quicker anyway.

 

You may be limited by the state of the batteries, though, if they're laptops.

 

They're plugged in all the time anyway so battery life isn't an issue. An SSD install sounds like a great idea... x

[Michael]

I'd recommend a system memory upgrade first - 2GB to 4GB, then an SSD second. Windows 7 works much better with more RAM. It has more requirements than XP (as you'd expect).

[marsdenprimary]

I'd recommend a system memory upgrade first - 2GB to 4GB, then an SSD second. Windows 7 works much better with more RAM. It has more requirements than XP (as you'd expect).

 

Okay that sounds like an idea- cheers for that!

[elsiegee40]

Do keep in mind that XP goes out of support in April 2014. You need to be planning for ridding the school of XP by then.

[marsdenprimary]

Do keep in mind that XP goes out of support in April 2014. You need to be planning for ridding the school of XP by then.

 

Yeah that's what i'm planning to do! Upgrade the OS / hardware

[sonofsanta]

I'd recommend a system memory upgrade first - 2GB to 4GB, then an SSD second. Windows 7 works much better with more RAM. It has more requirements than XP (as you'd expect).

 

I reckon I'd go the other way round, tbh - Windows 7 is fine with 2Gb, and although it makes fantastic use of any and all spare RAM for it's pre-fetch cache malarkey, if you have an SSD the need for pre-fetch is mitigated massively because your final layer of storage is so quick.

 

Of course, a 120/8Gb SSD is about £65-£70 (protip: Samsung 830 is amazing value right now and the best SSD, buybuybuy before they're replaced entirely by the 840) whereas 2Gb of RAM is about £7, so if money is an issue, RAM everywhere is better than an SSD in 1 out of 10 machines.

[witch]

TBH unless they were super-duper machines when bought, they probably havent even got 2gb RAM. I would definitely do the RAM first then try one with Win 7 and see about drivers etc.

[Michael]

I agree with the above, you're presuming that they already have 2GB of memory. Also, older memory (despite clocked slower) is more expensive.

 

Compare prices of DDR1, DDR2 and DDR3 and you'll see what I mean. Plus SODIMM for notebooks is also more expensive than its desktop equivalent.

[sonofsanta]

Er, fair point, I managed to jump from "2gb is fine" to "2gb is what you have" via other posts. Dibbing in and out of a thread all day does not lead to a coherent train of thought.

 

2Gb is a minimum for Win7, make sure you're at that. 2gb DDR2 (Core2 processors and earlier) is about £15, so twice DDR3 (Core i processors and after). Anything Core i is likely to be on 2Gb anyway so I'd assume you need DDR2. It is still likely to be cheaper than replacing swathes of machines, though, although you can half and half - buy some new machines, gut the old ones for RAM.

[gshaw]

Core2Duo \ 2GB RAM runs spot on here, slowest is E6600 and fastest E8400. SSDs will make a big difference but I wouldn't worry about a 3yr old CPU provided it's not an old Pentium \ Celeron \ AMD chip.

 

If your machines are pretty standard, either Dell \ HP \ Lenovo or Intel OEM desktop boards drivers won't be an issue either. Intel sometimes make you hunt for them (their support site reckons the DG965MS Stone board has no Windows 7 drivers yet if I download the chipset, VGA and sound drivers manually elsewhere on the site the whole thing runs perfectly!)

 

Try a few out first and see how they perform then make a decision based on if they're still under warranty and cost of upgrade vs replacement