dgsmith

Well although the price we have already paid yesterday was slightly lower, I am guessing it is because who we used still has old stock at slightly cheaper prices. Simon's quoted price seems reasonably competitive though when i've compared (higher) prices offered by other retailers for the same product

Sent you a PM yesterday Simon - let me know what you could offer!

I've noticed Simon that the price of RAM (particularly DDR2) is going very high recently. Just managed to get a Crucial 2GB DDR2 (PC6400) stick for £26.83 (exc VAT) - was only £15-20 a few months back. Too late now, but would you have been able to better that price (handy for future ref too)? I think you need to mention the word "grade" a few more times there

Are you sure that it is an E8400? The spec sheet the OP posted shows the L2 cache as being 4MB, and the E8x00 series have 6MB. If it actually has got 4MB, then it could be the E6850 Conroe core which is also a 3ghz processor but has 4MB L2 cache. Even if it is only the E6850, then that is still a fairly good processor and still better than what the OP has been offered. Current RAM is 2GB already which is also good. Not much more you can do there except maybe double it, but then you probably wont see a great difference for what the PC is used for. HDD I guess is the next thing - size increase? Maybe even SSD though that might be overkill.

That processor is already a really good one (especially for education)! We are starting to get an idea of how much we'll need to replace some P4's next year, and the processor we're looking at is the E7500 which is lower than your E8400. I'd definately stick with those and as richard said a RAM increase is your best bet. If they're still not cutting it, then there is another problem somewhere. I'd say buying new machines to replace those though is a waste of money unless you have money to burn.. If you really need better ones, then quad cores should be should be what you're looking at. The atom is certainly a step down and the athlons still aren't up to the performance of the cores.

Just gone to check prices for a stick of 2GB DDR2 ram - yikes! I realise DDR3 is being phased in now - but who said DDR2 would DOUBLE price this quickly? Only in the summer I could pick up 2GB for £15 (exc VAT), now finding the same (or equally reputable) brand for sub-£30 is near impossible! I don't remember this quick a jump from DDR>DDR2..

We used to use lasertech, however their prices were (as of 6 months ago) shockingly high and in some instances we were getting OEM prices on the same level as their compat prices. I wont knock them for customer service - seeing the person who runs your area regularly was a bonus, and any problems would be dealt with without quibble, but we couldn't justify using them any longer with their high prices, and they (understandbly) only collect OEM/their brand.

I bet his parents must have saved a few quid on nappies.. they must have been overjoyed.. Funny find, though I am intrigued what made you come across it?

I can't really say we have benefitted from getting more computer equipment in the school through the TCfS scheme, though we have managed to get a fair amount of digital cameras and "lighter" equipment over previous years. Haven't looked into laptops for pupils so couldn't comment there. We're a ~710 intake secondary school and even with masses of vouchers, still wouldn't be able to get just 1 computer. Even then, we felt multiple gains of smaller items (cameras, headphone sets etc) would be, and certainly have been in the past, of more value than just 1 computer which would just fall into the background somewhere amongst the other equipment and be forgotton about. I know this is quite specific to our experiences with the Tesco scheme, but we haven't had any experience with any other type of scheme. You ask if these sort of schemes have been of positive or negative impact; I wouldn't really say negative as we have been able to get enough lighter equipment to distribute between multiple students and they have had positive impact on T&L, but then these items wouldn't cost much to buy in the first place - I think it's the novelty of getting stuff for free and seeing the efforts of the school's students and community rewarded somewhat. Getting more expensive equipment like computers just isn't possible with the sizes of most schools, and I would guess a fair number of schools may opt for the multiple quantities of smaller items like we have then sink the whole lot into just 1 laptop or computer (at least, that is what we have felt over the years is best).

I think you'll find the only company that can sell RM computers are... RM. Your only hope if you want them for consistancy is to get refurbs or another school selling their old ones. Just wondering why you want the same spec machine on the smartboards? Surely going for the best you can afford would be the better option?

What was quite amusing is that he was also on other radio stations at the same time, such as Rock FM and Real Radio (for those of us in the North West)! It seems the 2 above where pre-recorded and the Radio 1 interview was actually live (though all broadcast at the same time this morning), as they announced that people had texted in saying how can he be in multiple stations at the same time - rather amusing!

I decided to do some more digging and found this link, and unfortunaely I found where it says: I guess that pretty much ends that idea then - most frustrating! Thanks for the responses though.

I guess what i'm asking isn't the done thing then?

Sorry to drag this up somewhat, but was there any update on this? Did the company respond to you plexer (or anyone else), or should we be concerned?

We have a computer which we only got 12 months warranty on (was a one-off, funds where tight at the time), and it seems the motherboard is now faulty, when the computer is just 18months old. It's an Intel motherboard, and according to their site it seems that they offer a 3 year limited warranty on them. Question is, even though the computer was built and shipped to us, are we able to make any claims against the Intel warranty, or is that only valid for the original hardware builder?

Tried that - was still the same. I took a a chance and deleted the entire contents of the Outlook folder hoping that it would recreate everything - this worked! Still, I wouldn't have managed to get that far or to that area without your suggestion so thanks for that! ..and yes, CC4..

Well it's an RM network, so things tend to be amde automatically At least, we've never needed to do any manual configuration for the user profiles. In their my Docs, under My Settings (and a few folders down) I see "Default Outlook Profile.xml" - I take it this is the one you are referring to? Just delete it then and it should recreate with (hopefully) the problem fixed?

Why is it my problems are always the most obscure that noone knows how to answer them?

We'd have to replace them with something though - and we have no money at all to do that We've not long retired some RM desktop units that were Celeron 2.4ghz, and trying to see what to do with them!

Our oldest still in use are RMOnes from March 05 with spec P4 3ghz, 512mb ram (min ram anywhere) and 80GB HDDs. Starting to struggle - especially on CC4! All 3 main IT rooms (~33 each room) are Core 2 duo, and also around 50 laptops that are core 2 (core 2 accounts for just over half our equipment - in excess of 300 comps & laptops). Servers - oldest is a 2.4ghz Xeon from May 2004 (2 physical single core processors with hyperthreading) - want to get this replaced within the next 12-18 months.

One of our students has a problem when loading Microsoft Outlook 2007. It will always say "Cannot start microsoft office outlook. Cannot open the outlook window". if I execute it for them using the /resetnavpane switch it'll load fine, but then as soon as they close/logoff and load it themself again, the same thing happens. Seems the switch is just bypassing a problem rather than fixing it - any ideas why this is happening and what we do to actually fix it, rather than just work around it?

98% of our projectors are Epson (all new projectors are Epson XGA too), with a total amount of around 50. We bought them in batches (2004, 2005 etc), so the oldest are around 4 years (there are a minority of other brands which are 5-6 years old). We have no money at all, so can't afford to replace them, only if the quality gets very, very bad (older ones) or if the lamp cost in the minority brands make it worthwhile buying new. We'd like a 4-5 year replacement plan on them (unless they are fine at this time, in which case they stay), however like anything, it's as-and-when they need doing. Epson all the way here though, mainly due to the fact that we like consistancy and can't really say anything bad against them (and the prices seem fairly reasonable). There are cheaper brands, but consistancy for us is preferred (unless the prices went too high).

We just bought an Epson projector from RM the other week for £416 (gone up since then..), XGA with a spare lamp included, although I think you mentioned Simon that was a special only RM were doing? We always go for Epson here, but mainly as we like to keep things consistant as possible! Bulb warranty obviously isn't as good as an actual bulb, but still gives peace of mind for the duration it's valid for. I'd definately look for something along those lines, if anything just to save money later down the line!

Yes this is quite old now. Was mentioned here a while back

I'll take a look at oidentd too then - strange how I couldn't see any windows flavour of pidentd - maybe I wasn't looking close enough! I'd be using retina scan if only I could get the blasted thing to install over the network, which it didn't want to for some reason!