Work Computer for Non-Profit Organization

[LARC]

Hello,

I am a representative of a non-profit retirement community. We are currently running on some very old computers in our facility and they have been giving us a lot of issues in speed and performance as of late. We had intended on saving up enough money to buy new computers off of a shelf, but one of our employee's has informed us that it would be cheaper to buy the parts and build the computers instead of buying them off the shelf. That same employee has also offered to put all of the computers together.

What we would like is if someone here could give us an accurate build/price for a PC that would only be used for basic internet access and Microsoft Office programs. It does not need to be a great computer, just reliable enough to allow us to use our programs without running into issues.

We would greatly appreciate it,

LA Retirement Community

 

[coleam45]

What sort of budget are you looking at per computer?

Will you be re-using your monitors?

Will Windows need to be included in the budget?

 

[obsama1]

We could help, but that gives us nothing to work with. Will you reuse parts? Do you need Windows? Do you need Office? etc.

 

[LARC]

We'll be re-using everything but the tower. Will need completely new tower, and would require MS-Office and preferably Windows 7

 

[obsama1]

OK, that's better but we need more. Budget? How many of these computers? There's a Microcenter in Tustin, about 40min away from LA, and the parts there are dirt cheap.

 

[smorizio]

larc i going to be blunt here it may cause some friction on your end but it has to be said and be one of the pointer. a pre built pc will be cheaper in the price will be windows 7 and now windows 8. your looking at a cost of 80.00 per pc just for oem cd of windows 7. the other issue is how many of your people there are pc techs?? a home built does use better parts but if there an issue with the pc your the one that going to be debugging it and trying to repair it. I would start be doing a audit of your pc and printers. a exel spread sheet and a lable maker will work fine. http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm
will read the mb and ram and video card info for you. the trick is to pull the oldest pc that are going to cost more to upgrade. then pull any parts that you can for spares and then get money for recycling the pc or donating them. (check with your cpa if you can get a tax credit for that and if you can use deprecation of the pc on your tax forms. I would also look for grnats and block grants at grants.gov to see if they have any grants for elderly and pc. you can also see if the local scouts and local corps have any off lease or older pc. a lot of large companies sell off there pc for pennies on the dollars. If they can donate them to you or a local group as a tax write off it a win win for both. I would ask your tech guy to make sure all the pc were running the same anti virus software. a lot of the like avg and avast have low cost small biz/group lic. have him run ccleaner and defrag all of the pc. and run good mlaware bytes scan. on the older and slow pc see what been installed on them. most times it a lot of non needed stuff in start up. using msconfig and turning stuff off that not needed will free up some ram on older pc. the ones that you think that have a hardware issue. have him or her run memtest to check that the ram is fine and use seatools or wd tools or hd tune to see if the hard drives are fine. (also see if someone has an air compressor with an air handle..have the tech take the pc outside and blow them out. most issues i fine is a very dusty pc that the dust is overheating the pc or broken the fans inside the pc.

 

[smorizio]

the cost of pre builts or home builds is going to be what you need the pc to do. if your looking for a word and net pc then any of the cpu and mb with onboard video will work. if there used for movies and or games then you may want to put in an after market gpu in one or two units.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0375256
60.00
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0323929
25.00
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0367693
30.00.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0388574
50.00
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0392704
50.00
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382892
16.00
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0380719
27.00
$258.00 without an os. keyboard or mouse.
min i be looking at for a web pc using intel cpu.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0386356
400.00 dell with the os and one year warranty.

 

[smorizio]

new egg amd build.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106014
60.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138336
60.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104261
21.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811553003
40.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026
35.00 with rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151244
17.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148702
60.00
293.00 without the os.
the amd cpu has a better gpu build in then the intel. if your group plasys movies or games the build in gpu will save you some cash over the intel system that would beed a gpu card to play most games.