craiglay

Yeah, as eean mentioned Ebuyer, thats where I got my hardware from!

Not forgetting the IP throughput being about 20Mbit/sec on a 54 access point!

Er, for a small village school of about 25 desktops and 10-15 laptops I recently got a HP Proliant ML110 off the shelf and upgraded it myself. Total cost for hardware was under £250 ex VAT. I already had a UPS so this may need to be factored in. Its a Xeon 3040 1.86Ghz Dual Core 1Gb RAM 2 * 160Gb HD in RAID In runs Windows Server 2003 SP2 file and is the DC, DNS, DHCP, File and Print Server. Craig

How about this program: http://www.download.com/Notebook-BatteryInfo/3000-2094_4-10470620.html Craig

Also there's a load of help with the help files bundled with PHP and MySQL

I get this quite often on my Elonex machines. Normally means the drive is about to fail. Did you FULL format it when reinstalling? Craig

Just an update... Some of my machines that were crashing on flash sites were still crashing loading websites (still IE6 and IE7) Run the Adobe uninstaller and re-installed Flash9 but it was still happening. The solution is to manually delete all traces of flash and re-install the latest. Do a search for swflash.ocx, flash.ocx, etc and delete them. Make sure u empty the recycle bin too as they will still be found. Then re-install and it should work. NB, lots of programs like smartboard install flash without telling you and that can cause problems

Very recently, I've had problems with various flash sites crashing both IE6 and IE7 in one of my schools. It would crash but not state what module. This was spontanious, No-one had installed any software, and Windows Updates are manually done. Updating Flash and Shockwave seemed to fix it for me. Craig

Yup, Plexer has one! Allowed me to find out that local NTL microwave towers were messing with my WiFi!! Very useful, and colourful too Craig

Surely with no profile specified, the system will create a new one from scratch each time a user logs on, which takes extra time. In most schools I use mandatory profiles, with some non specified. Teachers have full roaming profiles (which are a pain) I've been toying with laptops, and having a copy of the mandatory profile on the local drive, and in the AD profile settings pointing to the local mandatory profile. The pain will be updating them though. My reason is just to reduce network traffic when the laptops log on though. Craig

I second OutToLunch, stick a cheap Nvidia 8400 in it for about £30 and that'll prob improve performance with DX10 support to go with it. Then go for RAM Try, http://www.ebuyer.com/product/133002 Craig

I have been known to fix computers for beer before!! Not in school I must add. I sometimes get asked for advice from staff / parents but would shy away from fixing their computers. I have fixed the occasional staff members laptop but not charged. Don't forget insurance cause if their pc breaks even futher, you could be liable. Craig

Regarding Vista, see if you can get the XP licences with the free upgrade coupon. Thats what I have. They're oem mind... I recently got some Office 2007 licences and was sent 2003 media and keys for both... May be a county thing though. Craig

Yes, its blocked by LEA (Norfolk) Yes, i'm on it, and just found the Edugeek group! I much prefer it to Myspace, got more friends that use it, and most of my old uni friends and 6th form friends that i'd pretty much lost contact with have found me too. The apps are starting to annoy me though, but you have an ignore button!! Craig

I think somewhere in the GP there is an option to log users off if GP processing fails. Try Computer -> Admin Templates -> System -> User Profiles -> "Log user off if roaming profile fails" Craig

Best thing for a dead laptop, if the hard disk still works, get a 2.5 inch enclosure from ebuyer for about a tenner and bag cheap portable storage.

Have u tried another browser? Firefox, Opera to rule out a problem with the browser your using. Craig

Word of warning on cheap gigabit switches.. I have an 8 port Netgear gigabit (one of the prosafe ones) and two Dell servers, a 430 series and an 840 series. Both have Broadcom network cards. The Netgear switch would keep dropping the link when the network was under load. (only 3 devices connected, all gig) resulting in temp network failure. It seemed fine on Realtek network cards. Plugged it into a Dell PowerConnect 2324, it was fine, Plugged it into a HP 2324 with Gig expansion, and its fine. Just the switch. I recommend the PowerConnect 2324 (24 10/100 ports and 2 gig ports) cheap, does the job and will allow future expansion. Craig

There could be some health and safety issue with opening LCD monitors and replacing components. Maybe Geoff can elaborate... Craig

Or use Firefox with the SwitchProxy Addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/125 I use this in 7 sites and its just a case of right-clicking in the bottom right of the screen and selecting the proxy. Its very easy to just set a "Home" and "School" one. Craig

Yeah, I had longer arms for weeks after lugging mine around uni.

There's an idea... Hmmm, might be easier to suggest coming to pick it up. It weighs probably just over a ton!!

Personally I have a 21" flat CRT monitor what used to be a hard of sight PC in the University I went to which I'm looking to get rid of. Problem is, i'm in Norfolk. Craig

Sorry, should have made it clearer, the Realtek is the one that wont do gigabit, the Broadcom does gigabit on the same cable. Your situation maybe something to do with jumbo frames, RWIN, TCP offloading, could be anything really. Craig

Not using a Realtek 8169 series NIC by any chance? And HP switches? i'm having issues with using gigabit on this card on a network point that supports a Broadcom NetExtreme at gigabit, keeps defaulting to 100Mbit. Latest drivers make no difference. The Realtek will negotiate gigabit on a cheap 8 port Netgear switch though. Any ideas? Craig