jimbopembo

It seems like quite a straightforward swap out - the pc band psu just unscrew and slide out. I’ll speak to IDNS.

Okay.... After speaking to a Sahara rep who called me yesterday..... They don't supply spares to end users, only via their nationwide repair service - provided by a 3rd party. He stated that the call out charge (prices provided by IDNS) is so high because of the travel distance. So, my take on it is this - if your school has a Sahara touchscreen that is out of its 3 year warranty period you will have to pay £575 just for the call out, and a £925 total fix cost - you cannot go 3rd party for a fix. However, they also offered the option to buy a new 55" replacement at £2,350 fitted:hand: I'm genuinely disappointed with Sahara's treatment of it's customers who have out of warranty screens - schools shouldn't need to be budgeting for such expensive equipment at the end of the warranty period. I'll be doing a bit more due diligence before I make future recommendations.

Bump:)

I contacted Sahara last week for support with an out of warranty touch screen that has failed. I new it needed a hardware repair, and I asked for a quotation. They forwarded the request, without my approval, to IDNS who sent a quotation to the school - £175 for a PCB, £175 for a PSU, and - wait for it...... £575 for a site visit. Call me suspicious, but it looks to me like the price has been inflated to encourage schools into buying new kit! I'm not overly impressed with Sahara's play on supporting its customers. Just wondering if any of you guys and gals have experience/ contact details for 3rd party repairs and parts??

Hi Liam The firmware update is specific to this particular laptop model. its a bay trail board Clevo model w950u. Have you approached Stone? Will Group policy apply if you plug them into the LAN via Ethernet?

Yes A firmware update has fixed. Very pc sent out a tech to one of our schools last week. We updated the firmware on 20 laptops, and installed the latest Intel driver. They haven't missed a beat since then.

Has anyone had problems with Intel AC7260 cards dropping connections? Hardware: VeryPC Clevo W950TU BayTrail laptops with AC7260 dual band cards. Software: W7 Pro 64 Problem: Limited SSID Connectivity. When you click out of it and click back in, there are no network connections available. Repairing the connection brings it back. This problem is occurring across multiple primary school sites, and only with these laptops. This is causing serious problems with domain logins! I have trawled the internet for tips (!!!) and tried older drivers and various card settings, I can't fix it. Very PC are looking into the issue, in collaboration with Intel. After going through the negative comments about problems with AC7260's I am feeling quite pessimistic about the prospect of solution being found before the schools send them back as "not fit for purpose". Any help appreciated

Yes John, thanks. That's what I am going to do. Any pointers on VM's anyone?

We support 2 primary schools, Infant and Junior which are on the same site and have separate networks. They have recently combined and are now administratively one school. We are now tasked to bringing the networks together. Building work is being done during the summer holidays - new main office in the middle, and a fibre link between the 2 network cabinets. The admin network will be the LA responsibility, and the curriculum ours. We have installed 10G fibre switches in each location (Netgear GS752TXS with spare sfp+ for server)and are now planning the merge. We have an allocation of £5000 for a new curriculum server. This needs to be purchased from the LA because the LA (not the school) are paying for it, but we will responsible for config. I am leaning towards a Hyper-V deployment, and would appreciate some advice/ pointers on the best utilisation of the existing equipment, and spec for a new server. Beyond the £5000 server allocation there is not a lot of scope for further costs. Current setup: Infant school - 1 X Fujitsu Tx100 Xeon E31220 3.1ghz, 8GB mem, 2 X 500GB Raid1, 2 X 1G ethernet W28K R2 configured as DC, DNS, DHCP, File Server, Print Server, WSUS, backup to USB HDD 20 X W7 curriculum laptops, 30 X Ipads, 15 staff W7 laptops, approx. 30 W7 desktop computers. Netgear WNDAP360 AP's (to be managed from WC7520 in Junior school) Junior school - 1 X Fujitsu Tx150 Xeon E31220 V2 3.1ghz, 16GB mem, 2 X 2GB Raid1, 2 X 1G ethernet W28K R2 configured as DC, DNS, DHCP, File Server, Print Server, WSUS, backup to USB HDD 60 X curriculum W7 laptops, 30 X Ipads, 15 staff W7 laptops, approx. 40 W7 desktop computers. Netgear WC7520 managed WiFi I intend to add WDS into the mix, and I need to consider the convergence of the Admin and Curriculum networks in a year or 2 (Sims), but I expect more funding will be available at this point.

Thanks guys

A Primary School customer is asking for advise about buying some laptops. These are the requirements: portable, min. 13" screen No touch screen Long battery life - min 6 hours Running Windows 8.1 but they have a site license Definitely dual band wifi DVD not needed They will be shared between classes, and used for office / keyboard /project stuff They recognise that buying bargain basement isn't best value Any thoughts?

This has worked a treat. I created a WinPE bootable and added the appropriate RAID drivers, and followed the presenters instructions. Its deadly sin number 9 about a third of the way in. Definitely worth watching.

I have tried utilman. Doesn't work

Hmmm sophos Enterprise supplied by Lancashire could could be on it.

Psidii I wish it was that simple. They are saying the password is correct and the only one they have, and that's it!

Unfortunately not!

I'm taking over the support contract for a primary school, and the previous company doesn't seem to wish to pass on the domain admin username and password. No-one at the school knows these details either! Eventually, the Office manager managed to obtain a password that I have tried (with numerous permutations!) and doesn't work. So I have called them myself (a bit frosty - to be expected I suppose) and the person I need to speak to will get back to me (yeah right still waiting) So........ I would be interested to know how others have dealt with similar situations. I have physical access to the domain controller. What are the SAFE options to reset the administrator password? I am inclined to name and shame - this is highly unprofessional. Are we allowed to do that on this forum?

Some of the Primary schools that we support have bought batches of Ipads recently, and some are looking at buying some. Typically, they are wishing to buy up to 20, which will be housed in a mobile trolley. Buying a synching trolley and a Mac so that I can supervise 20 netbooks seems excessive. Should I deploy with configurator, or should I take the MDM route? Or both? Does the Apple Device Enrolment Programme due here soon allow you to supervise your Ipads without needing a Mac? Our Local Authority (Lancs) has recently moved to Lightspeed, and are going to offer the MDM as a freebie so is this an option worth considering? Essentially, I need to be considering if I should be telling my schools to buy a Mac and a syncing trolley with their Ipads, or to save the money?? Any pointers would be much appreciated