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Should My School go with Custom of Pre-built PC's?

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October 16, 2014 8:52:49 AM

I go to a pretty small school and they have VERY ancient technology. The PC's are from 2005 and are just coming to the end. They are some crappy Dell's they have pentiums and celerons. They are SO slow. So my question was if they should go with either prebuilt PC's or custom PC's. They were also considering either Intel NUC's or Gigabyte BRIX. There would be about 20 computers for both staff and students. This is what I was looking at.

Pre-built - http://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item...

Custom - http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RpnMyc

Gigabyte BRIX - http://www.neweggbusiness.com/product/product.aspx?item...
also with the BRIX, there would also be Windows 8, 8GB of RAM and a 120 GB SSD.

Please tell me your recommendations. Thanks!

More about : school custom pre built

October 16, 2014 8:57:41 AM

Who would be responsible for support? With a prebuilt you do get support, which may included repair parts. Custom, you are on your own.
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October 16, 2014 9:01:44 AM

Unless you or the on-site staff is going to be supporting these and replacing parts as needed, I'd recommend going with prebuilt. They come with support which means when something goes wrong, they don't have to rely on a volunteer to happen to be around to fix things. It's also quite likely that they'll want to keep these new PCs for a long time (just as they did with the previous gen), so supported PCs makes sense.
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October 16, 2014 9:02:05 AM

What type of school ? If it's a high school that teaches technology courses as electives, the best idea would be to teach kid show to build a PC in the class and then have them go about building them. The 1st weeks of class should be dedicated to detailing what the individual needs are of each PC and building accordingly.

For the office staff, those builds might suffice for a while .... but for example is someone on staff responsible for making flyers, program materials, that might run Adobe Graphic Design programs or do they have a course that teaches CAD (my 3 sons took that course), then no those boxes would be woefully inadequate.

So at the very least, I'd work with a local custom PC shop to identify your needs and how each will be used and supply perhaps a mix of 2 or 3 different boxes that fit their intended usage.

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October 16, 2014 9:09:12 AM

JackNaylorPE said:
What type of school ? If it's a high school that teaches technology courses as electives, the best idea would be to teach kid show to build a PC in the class and then have them go about building them. The 1st weeks of class should be dedicated to detailing what the individual needs are of each PC and building accordingly.

For the office staff, those builds might suffice for a while .... but for example is someone on staff responsible for making flyers, program materials, that might run Adobe Graphic Design programs or do they have a course that teaches CAD (my 3 sons took that course), then no those boxes would be woefully inadequate.

So at the very least, I'd work with a local custom PC shop to identify your needs and how each will be used and supply perhaps a mix of 2 or 3 different boxes that fit their intended usage.



It is an elementary and middle school. it really only be for internet browsing and usage of Microsoft Office.
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October 16, 2014 9:11:21 AM

iamapizza said:
Unless you or the on-site staff is going to be supporting these and replacing parts as needed, I'd recommend going with prebuilt. They come with support which means when something goes wrong, they don't have to rely on a volunteer to happen to be around to fix things. It's also quite likely that they'll want to keep these new PCs for a long time (just as they did with the previous gen), so supported PCs makes sense.


You have a very good point. And there is an on-site IT person, but to me, he is a dumb-@ss. He is completely clueless. If he doesn't know something he should, he just calls technical support. Which is funny, because there is no support for this antiquated technology. It pretty hilarious if you ask me.
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October 16, 2014 9:12:28 AM

kanewolf said:
Who would be responsible for support? With a prebuilt you do get support, which may included repair parts. Custom, you are on your own.


An IT person would be support. Read the comment above that I wrote.
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October 16, 2014 9:14:22 AM

Dont build them for a school they will steal the stuff lol
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October 16, 2014 9:20:12 AM

Valkyrieneos said:
Dont build them for a school they will steal the stuff lol


No one will steal, I doubt half of the kids even know what the components are.
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Best solution

October 16, 2014 9:25:12 AM

My experience is that maybe 1 in 20 or 1 in 50 of the population at large knows how to build computers, troubleshoot computers, or mess with components. And the IT people at most organizations either don't have time or don't want to mess around with maintaining custom builds.

Add in the time it would take to assemble 20+ machines from parts and install everything from scratch - which would be literally all day if they were super-fast, more likely a few days, and it does not pencil out; you are better off with the pre-built machines for general use.
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October 16, 2014 9:27:37 AM

capt_taco said:
My experience is that maybe 1 in 20 or 1 in 50 of the population at large knows how to build computers, troubleshoot computers, or mess with components. And the IT people at most organizations either don't have time or don't want to mess around with maintaining custom builds.

Add in the time it would take to assemble 20+ machines from parts and install everything from scratch - which would be literally all day if they were super-fast, more likely a few days, and it does not pencil out; you are better off with the pre-built machines for general use.


Great! I will tell them that pre-built is the way to go!

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October 16, 2014 9:41:39 AM

redjordan9 said:

It is an elementary and middle school. it really only be for internet browsing and usage of Microsoft Office.


That's unusual .... usually there's someone paying bills (Quickbooks) and doing flyers for parents, school shows, etc. I'd suggest an audit to confirm what software is being used..... and 1st thing I'd do is dump MS Office and use Open Office or one of the other "free flavors" like Libre Office..... that's a H U G E savings.

Once the software audit is confirmed, I'd give the specs to a local PC shop and have them custom build you the needs of the audit. From what you said, there's probably going to be 18 straight easy office office machines and **maybe** 1 or 2 with one or two components upgraded. For example, there's usually a box for multimedia presentations, films and ya might wanna jump off integrated graphics for that box. Finally, someone needs to decide whether they will all be on same network with a server.

For example, I would not want boxes used by students on the same network as the staff. The staff network should have a server or NAS for centralized file storage and backup. Boxes used by students should be imaged and a spare HD kept handy with that image loaded.
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October 16, 2014 11:43:54 AM

JackNaylorPE said:
redjordan9 said:

It is an elementary and middle school. it really only be for internet browsing and usage of Microsoft Office.


That's unusual .... usually there's someone paying bills (Quickbooks) and doing flyers for parents, school shows, etc. I'd suggest an audit to confirm what software is being used..... and 1st thing I'd do is dump MS Office and use Open Office or one of the other "free flavors" like Libre Office..... that's a H U G E savings.

Once the software audit is confirmed, I'd give the specs to a local PC shop and have them custom build you the needs of the audit. From what you said, there's probably going to be 18 straight easy office office machines and **maybe** 1 or 2 with one or two components upgraded. For example, there's usually a box for multimedia presentations, films and ya might wanna jump off integrated graphics for that box. Finally, someone needs to decide whether they will all be on same network with a server.

For example, I would not want boxes used by students on the same network as the staff. The staff network should have a server or NAS for centralized file storage and backup. Boxes used by students should be imaged and a spare HD kept handy with that image loaded.


Well there is one person in the front office who uses her computer more heavily, but she has her own laptop and is not in need of a new computer. I believe she is running a 4th gen i7 with 8gb ram and an ssd. It't a pretty nice combo. Also all of the user accounts are on the same server and they would all be on the same network.

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October 16, 2014 11:51:35 AM

Yikes.... I see some geeky kid looking to fund his college education by hacking into students grades records :)  ... $50 for an A, $30 for a B ....
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October 16, 2014 12:31:07 PM

JackNaylorPE said:
Yikes.... I see some geeky kid looking to fund his college education by hacking into students grades records :)  ... $50 for an A, $30 for a B ....


That won't happen. Everybody knows everybody in this school and anyway, the admin can track who logs on and what they are doing on the server.
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October 16, 2014 1:00:54 PM

That's true on every network..... that's why they call them hackers; they log on using other people's credentials. Not uncommon to find login names and passwords on a post-it in say top draw of someone's desk, under monitor stand etc.

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October 16, 2014 2:16:07 PM

JackNaylorPE said:
That's true on every network..... that's why they call them hackers; they log on using other people's credentials. Not uncommon to find login names and passwords on a post-it in say top draw of someone's desk, under monitor stand etc.



Ok, no one is a hacker. The school has 40 kids.

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October 16, 2014 2:28:35 PM

Are they on the internet ? .... that connects you to everywhere..... schools with full time IT staff get hacked every day.

http://kfor.com/2014/06/18/do-over-high-school-grades-a...

But its like backing up ya HD .... no one does it until they've had at least one loss experience.
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October 16, 2014 2:32:25 PM

JackNaylorPE said:
Are they on the internet ? .... that connects you to everywhere..... schools with full time IT staff get hacked every day.

http://kfor.com/2014/06/18/do-over-high-school-grades-a...

But its like backing up ya HD .... no one does it until they've had at least one loss experience.


Ok, Thanks you your information. It is very helpful.
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