HTCPCP

Hmmm, can I justify cashing in my season ticket to buy this?... In reality - I just want Dell and HP to start selling AMD processors in their business ranges again. I would be more than happy to buy a Ryzen 2400G based Optiplex or ProDesk, and use the money savings compared to the i5 processors on more RAM, a larger SSD or even just meaning I can replace more machines within budget, meaning areas where we only use refurbs can get better machines and more of them!

Can tell it's a bit cooler now, 'Great' northern have turned the heating off on the trains... Presumably saving up for when the weather heats up?

Not an ideal solution, but have you removed the Hyper-V role, and re-added it? I had a temperamental server that required that treatment a couple of times when we had problems with a faulting UPS.

Even with all the rain we have had, it's only just done any good the top centimetre or so of the ground. But it was enough for Govia to cancel one train on Friday and delays this weekend due to 'adverse weather conditions'...

what's this weird stuff falling from the sky? It lasts 30 seconds, and then it returns to normal for half an hour, and then repeats.

Pretty sure someone was using the train as a foundry last night. With the assistance of Govia being incompetent, I am pretty sure that the heating was still on last night - well hot air was coming out of the heaters, but that could just be re circled air after the train just waited in the tunnels just outside Highbury and Islington. Who knows, by next summer, those new trains they have been promising us for 2 years might eventually be here...* *Call me pessimistic, I'm not going to hold my breath.

depends on the supplier and what i'm ordering. If i'm talking to either Dell or HP, I will tell them what the other one is offering broadly - so i7, 8gb, 256GB at £499+vat etc without any of the specifics of what processor exact model of processor. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. If i know my account manager, and they don't pester me, I'm far more likely to work with them. Works both ways, as they kind of get to know your systems, and what you buy, so when there is a good deal on, they drop you an email. Our former account manager at Insight always let us know when the monitors we use were on deal.

If you aren't planning on over clocking, then it's fine with the lower end coolers - even the stock cooler that Intel put in will work for it. However, Noctua don't produce the most attractive coolers in the world, which is a shame IMO, because they are brilliant. If you have a side window, avoid, as it just looks nasty. Also does your machine need it? It is a bit like putting racing tyres onto your stock 1 litre fiesta. Cooler Master - Can make some good ones, can also produce a load of rubbish. Pretty no frills, but looks reasonable One to consider: BeQuiet - Used a few of their products, and cannot really fault them. Their Silent wing fans are very good. But if you aren't over clocking, any cooler with a rating for that TDP will be fine. But I also recommend getting some decent thermal paste, as the free stuff you get with your cooler is really not good.

Completely depends what you want parts wise. I have used Scan, Insight, Aria, ebuyer (tend to avoid them now). For RAM though, almost always go direct to Crucial.

Samsung 970 evo 500gb M.2 is £140 is not a bad price.

Never had an issue with them either, but not a regular customer of theirs though

I normally go for Sennheiser for headphones for personal use, as I know they are just going to work, the audio quality is going to be good enough, and I find them comfortable. That and I've been caught out a few times with other brands providing style over substance. The other one to look at is the Damson Headspace which I have heard good things about, but not actually tried them.

Zoostorm machines, you can see where they cut costs (based on purchases between 2014 and 2017) Case - flimsy but does the job Motherboard - Usually Gigabyte or Asus, but if you buy 30 or so in a go, the chances are you will end up with 2 or 3 different matx entry level versions. As previously mentioned, they are quite lazy in putting in OEM data... but does the job and they could have cut corners more, but they are usually pretty robust CPU - whatever they can get at the best price in bulk from Intel at that level. No bad thing, I've had batches with intel stock and other coolers in block Also, quite often not the newest generation, but can be great value RAM - Had huge number of failed sticks - Bulk bought, sometimes branded, most of the time not. The failure rate and the packaging they use when sending out replacement makes me think it's seconds. Also, don't expect matching pairs... A real cost cut, which if they sorted it out, Hard drives - Usually WD Blues, but also had blacks in there too. Normally got non SSD models and installed an SSD myself before WDS build PSU - the biggest saving of the lot... Cheap, nasty and always has the risk of going bang. That being said, when I was there, only saw that with 2 and had about 10% failure rate. the Support team were never surprised when one went wrong. Optical Drive - would have preferred not having one, and them spending the savings onto a better PSU Warranty - when I was in education, we bought a load when they were offering a 3 year onsite warranty for edu (if they still offer that), with the engineer coming from the same local contractor for both Dell and Lenovo. The ones we had that weren't on the NBD warranty, they were more than happy to send out parts to us to make the change (excl motherboard or major issues) and then you ship the faulty part back to them. All in, they are cheap, and you get what you pay for. Would I recommend it to anyone? probably not. But, if you want new, and don't mind spending a bit of time troubleshooting, a big saving can be made if you are buying 60+. Overall failure rates around the same level as RM or Fujitsu (around 10-15% over 3 years - most problems within a few months). Phone only support, wasn't exactly high quality, but did get to deal with the same person from start to finish, and the call back once repaired to check it was all working was a nice touch.

I would go for the replacement. If one fails, then the chances are, another one risks failing too, and its then a lot more work for you. If money is a major issue, i'm sure ICT Direct will be able to give you a good price, they are brilliant at stuff like that (and got me out of many holes in the past where out of warranty equipment breaks) Then, once you replace the server, you can then use it as either a test rig, or a failover rig too.

Hard drives are used for holding all transient data going to the printer. So, it may have been written over a fair few times, but that data would have gone through the hard drive. That's every print job, every scan, fax etc. That data is often partially recoverable without too much effort. Think about it this way, would you dispose of a work hard drive without proper data destruction?

I have bought direct mostly - Dell, Broadberry and HP, but of course you have to pay for it. Plus side, you know what you are getting, and don't get stung. If you don't mind not being able to spec as much, Dell Outlet can offer some good deals, but can also prove not much if at all cheaper than new. Insight do know their stuff, and can be really helpful, ebuyer on the other hand have been ejected from an approved supplier list for us for major changes to products stocked without changing the product code...

Always used Sharp printers with the DSK set up to ensure that wasn't needed on the advice of our provider. I would assume Ricoh offer something similar for anyone taking out a new lease. Our provider showed us how they did the optional extra data destruction (was in the region of £300 a machine IIRC), which was to basically, take the old hard drive out, wipe it professionally, re-configure and re-install. Then you get your Data Destruction certificate for it too. Took them a few hours of work to get it done, and allowed users to come and see it being done if they wanted too. Cost more if you wanted them to shred the drive. Yes, it is not cheap, but all those registers, reports etc that are printed out by teachers are not things you want to have breached.

Another +1 for VeryPC - I've never had a badly built machine from them before. For refurbs, ICTDirect fo sho! Dell - very hit and miss really on times, and last few quotes they have been miles off the ball. That and delivery... HP - normally get them within a day or 2 Insight - A good account manager is a real benefit, and often incredibly quick with delivery times.

A really strange one, one of our field staff have an issue when trying to log into activate it, it comes up "sorry we are having some temporary server issues" This isn't one of our corperate licensed version, but a home license, and the laptop isn't a corperate one, but a home managed one, but trying to help out the user. So far, I have tried - Turn off AV (Mcafee vile thing), remove Trusteer Rapport (equally vile), remove completely and re-install office, tried in safe mode, but all to no avail. Kinda running out of ideas really. Anyone got any other suggestions? or even better know the solution.

Cannon, you don't need to be an admin for Office 365 to be able to do it. We have many users who have permissions on others mailboxes here at my office (non education) and have had no issues. We normally grant EAs and PAs Read and manage and Send as permissions as standard. Have you checked that it's showing up with full access on the Exchange Admin Centre? If not, might be worth opening a new service request with Microsoft. as they are normally quite good at getting to the bottom of issues like that.

I have previously bought the following brands: Smart - Over priced, and has annoying 'features' like the motion detection thing which can mean your screen stays on all night if you aren't careful iBoard - Started off really well with their early boards - later ones were nothing but trouble. Stopped buying them 3 years ago ViewSonic - Great hardware, well built, but their own software wasnt very good Iiyama - what you expect from them, good quality, reasonable price, well designed and didn't have any grumbles apart from the fact "It doesn't look as nice as those smart boards teachers X&Y have" Trialled but didn't use Sharp - Well out of budget, but one of our local suppliers had a demo model to show customers, and wanted to show us first (not to try and sell us them!) Promethian - better than the old projector linked ones, but still behind rivals, and considerably over priced Clevertouch - The demo model we had didn't work properly - part of the screen was faulty and had dead pixels - Seen them elsewhere without fault, but was disappointed that they would deliver a faulty demo model...

Well, now we know WHY the time war started... Never eat apples again | Doctor Who | Know Your Meme

When that annoying kid who always brings in his homework in a .pages format so the teacher can't mark it, you can now get them to save it in a real format in the Music department!

And being made by Apple, they just work Oh and they are Shiny!

Blatantly a great idea... Come on, how else will there be a constant stream of grade B macbooks on eBay*! In all seriousness - It's about as good of an idea as Professor Branestawms Pocket Motor Car for the reasons listed previously *Other auction sites are available, not all for sale are stolen, and no I don't know of any currently stolen on eBay