HTCPCP

Have stopped with seagate a few years ago in all critical applications. Any home builds that require spinning rust disks, then I use WD/HGST. Got burned with a load of Lacie Drivers a few years ago which all used Seagate mobile drives.

We have it for some of our staff, and is being rolled out to staff when laptops are being replaced (not edu). Word of warning reagarding the probook 440 though - my experience of them is far from a happy one - a lot of flex, and not the reliability I would expect from HP. Bought a couple last year as they were the only ones we could get in the time frame needed, and both have had issues with parts and drivers (most notibly the wi-fi). The latitude 3301 works with our startech docks, but annoyingly doesn't have a network socket, and very limited IO on the device itself (1 USB A, 1 USB C, 1 HDMI, 1 Sim, 1 audio and 1 charger). I think Dell are quite dubious about shouting about USB C, as from experience not all docks are made equally. Talk to your Dell account manager and they should be able to help (or look at the WD19 dock and see which devices it has been designed for.

was scheduled to have a meeting with one of our directors regarding emergency planning and using teams as a communication method - They ended up having to work from home that day. Doing the meeting over teams seemed such a good idea...

Home I have an old Toshiba Sat Pro with a 1st gen i5, but its now getting to the point its failing on me. Most of my work from home is done on my general workstation - a Phenom II X6, 16GB RAM, and about 20tb of storage, with gaming being handled on my Ryzen machine which I really need to install some of my other software on it

Can vouch for these - I have the Xpert version and can't fault it really - far more reliable than the cans. Not exactly quiet, and the power cord is a bit short for personal preference, but a long 1 gang extension lead makes it far more useable.

Never tried them, but from experience Hitachi are normally a reasonably decent cost effective option (as long as there aren't any mechanical doors) and not heard anything horrendous about any of their offerings manufactured in the last 7 years

Always found Casio projectors to be far from reliable too, and my experience of getting warranty repairs was far from easy (and getting a temporary unit when the other was being repaired too). As a result, as soon as the warranty expired, and they started to decline, they were replaced with great joy from everyone involved.

So dave no longer has a sweetie stash then?

I have Konica devices here, and they aren't bad. The oldest model is now getting a bit unreliable, but the other ones are fine. Papercut on it isn't quite as fast as when we had it running on Sharp kit in different areas, but nonetheless still not bad. Would I go for them again? It depends. Personal preference is for Sharp, and wouldn't touch Ricoh again.

That's brilliant. Thanks everyone, seems that the people who installed the software on the printers and on the server had left the load balancing on, and I hadn't picked up where it was hiding!

We have recently had an install of Papercut 19 in my new place, to replace a rather painful User box print job release system on 2 Konica Minolta MFPs. The setup was installed on our old DC (2012 R2), where all of the roles moved over to another server, with the only settings that automatically fail over onto that machine being DHCP. Users can print fine, and they appear in the queue. However, when the user goes to release the print job, some of the time the job is releasing from the other printer. I have done the following, but always a bit confused that I may be missing something. - Removed the printers from the original print share on another server - Checked that 'find me Printing' isn't enabled in either of the printers on Papercut - Checked to see if there was anything noticeable on either of the printers shared out - checked if the jobs are compatible with the selected printer This seems to be happening for all users, not just a select few, and a variety of different print jobs. Any suggestions?

I would give ICT Direct a call and see what they suggest, as with that price range, to get something with decent performance, it may well be best to go for a refurb.

Word of warning - having printers in every room will result in "have printer, will print" mentality. We did it for a teacher who was in a mobile so they wouldnt have to keep going outside to get printing, and the level of printing went through the roof, and everything went through it (and extra) because it was there. We do however have a handful of HP M254dw and M281FDW printers in some of our centres, and no problems so far.

AMD have had a bit of a track record of announcing the new chips a fair amount of time before them actually being released on sale. AMD announced 'Matisse' (Ryzen 3000 series processors) at CES in January 2019, and the first chips* went on sale in July, and some of them haven't officially gone on sale yet. I would expect there to be a similar approach next year. I wouldn't expect to see any new desktop 5, 7 or 9 series processors until May at the earliest. *Yes, I know technically the mobile chips went on sale in January, but that is kind of a different kettle of fish at the moment, as the uptake has been very limited.

sounds like you might have got yourself a duff battery there, or a badly connected battery at least. RMA it and get them to send you a new one!

Have a look for the screen code on accupart and screens.uk. Both have never let me down with quality, and normally if 1 doesn't have it, the other normally does.

Yeah, they do seem to think that people eat toners and need new ones every couple of days... That being said, the last time I bought a load, they did seem to run out abnormally quickly compared to how long they normally last. But as a result, I have stopped using them, and haven't introduced them to my new place in the last 2 years.

IDNS and Cartridgesave are the main 2 I use. With recycling through IDNS who send us a box. They haven't said they don't like the toners we send them (mix of Konica MFP, Dell Laser and Epson cartidiges).

If you are doing video editing, then you need to be considering the Dell precision mobiles. Downside is (not sure about the latest model) it requires a dongle for network cables. plus side, should have more than enough grunt if you go for the i7 or i9. From memory, I think the new XPS 15 has an nvidia graphics card in (not sure which one) which will make things a bit better. If you are going HP, I'm a bit disappointed with the robustness of the new HP Probooks, there seems to be an alarming amount of flex in them, so I'm expecting the ones deployed this year coming back at some point in a not particularly good condition. Not tried the new elitebooks, but they are normally pretty good. What ever model you get, make sure it will work with a USB C Dock, because that makes things a lot easier!

AIO coolers do go and lose liquid over time, and even with biocide in the coolant, will degrade. It sounds more like there has been some degredation inside the cooler itself which will affect the perfomance. The Enermax problem shows a sped up version of what happens slower on other ones.

As long as it's a sensible length run, I tend to hide a coupler within the trunking, with a short 2m lead running out through a brush plate. It adds a failure point, but also means that repair and replacement times (and costs) can be cut, and reduces the risk of cables being broken from sticking out of the wall socket. Also keeps it looking nice and tidy too. That being said, those sahara things are amazing if you need different options for connecting them. On one of our remote sites, I did go and put a docking station inside one, without any issues at all.

I tend to use either Aida64 or SiSoft Sandra (neither are free), however on a basic level, something like Memtest CPUburnin - but keep an eye on how long it takes to throttle Passmark - gives you an overall and easily readable figure on CPU performance!

I used to (when I had time and money) do quite a bit of water cooling, and, with that, have had water pouring out of my case on numerous times. Did it always break stuff? No, far from it. However, there were certain things that I always made sure I did after a leak or water cooling failure Change the power supply if water got near it - Unless it was a top mounted PSU, or I was 100% confident water went nowhere near it, then it got replaced everything was unplugged, and dried seperately - not always necessary, but ensures that there is nothing hiding anywhere. Stress test everything - ideally comparing it to pre water incident performance - Run one of the many benchmarking tests on that machine, and if you have one, a machine that hasn't been water damaged

I'm old school, and would go laptop (probably something like a used thinkpad or similar), simply because, they can then mix work and pleasure. I'm always a fan of having the option to be able to do more, e.g. games, desktop versions of software etc, and a used thinkpad will take a fair few knocks without breaking too!

Have you got any other of the same model? That way, you can confirm if the membrane is damaged, or if the ribbon has become damaged at some way?