It's time to update my office - advice appreciated on buying 9 new workstations.

The time has finally come to update my 7 Win95 and 2 Win98 machines!

You may laugh but they have been completely solid for the past 10 or so years and the only reason they're being replaced is because an update to a program we use has been issued and there is no way at all to get it to work on the 95 machines (I spent all day Monday and Tuesday trying! :angst:)

Ideally I'd like to go the HP route as the newer workstations are HP already and I have a fairly good relationship with HP Support. If I can build them for less than I can buy then I will do that, but I have a feeling at this price, pre-built is best.

So, I need 9 base units, 9 basic keyboards, 9 basic mice and 9 TFT monitors (17" is fine)

They will HAVE to run XP Pro, OpenOffice and FoxitReader and they need to be networked. There is no need for them to dance and sing. They are only used for word processing and form filling.

Budget is say £4000 to £4500 (exc) for everything because I'm tight, but I may go higher if there's something I just have to have.

Thanks in advance.

Stick with HP imo, all our new CAD workstaions and lappy's are HP & prettymuch faultless.

Dell's new Vostro range is mightily tempting, but you'd have to phone them up to get XP Pro put on them, its not offered on the website...

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Originally Posted by 0iD

Stick with HP imo, all our new CAD workstaions and lappy's are HP & prettymuch faultless.

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I agree, 6+ years of HP stuff and only one warranty issue.

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Originally Posted by dave87

Dell's new Vostro range is mightily tempting, but you'd have to phone them up to get XP Pro put on them, its not offered on the website...

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Very tempting, and pretty decent specs too. XP Pro is offered on the Business site which is what I'd use.

I'm working my way through their options lists at the moment - thanks for the tip.

I'd second the Vostro range as some really silly deals, but don't ignore the Dimension 9200 as well (via the Small Business section) specced out a Q6600, 2GB RAM and the X1300 gfx card, tower only, for £314+VAT.

As much as I'd love to recomend using a company like Scan for your systems, you'll never come close to Dell on pricing for a similar specification on paper and whilst, yes, Dell do skimp on component quality, their systems work fine for the office, only benchmarking software can really tell the difference.

Does it have to be new, or will refurbished be any use to you?

www.europc.co.uk may well be able to help you out mate, they deal in refurbished Dells and HP stuff.

Disclaimer :(My company shares the same offices but i do not work for them, nor would i see any benefit of you purchasing from them)

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Originally Posted by Dareos

Does it have to be new, or will refurbished be any use to you?

www.europc.co.uk may well be able to help you out mate, they deal in refurbished Dells and HP stuff.

Disclaimer :(My company shares the same offices but i do not work for them, nor would i see any benefit of you purchasing from them)

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am i the only one who finds this bit of advice conflicting?

how so biscuit?

Dell has made great progress... check them out.

Biscuit - I think so, what have I missed? He gave me a good link to a nearby (to him) retailer and distanced himself from them in case it all went wrong ;)

babblin5 - They offer the easiest solution and their config tool is excellent. If HP had something similar I'd be laughing...

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

f I can build them for less than I can buy then I will do that, but I have a feeling at this price, pre-built is best.

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IMHO (from experience) even if you could build for less don't do it. It's *much* more hassle if / when something goes wrong.

Possible exception:

The money is coming out of your pocket (and it makes an appreciable difference to you!). If so:

1) Buy 100% identical components *and* either keep a fully built spare machine lying around or 1 or 2 identical components... Will make swapping things over much less painful.

2) Don't go cheap on cooling fans. I've done so in the past and have found they start to slow down and / or stop within 12 months due to much higher traffic and hence dust + dirt in the office environment. I'm not saying you need to t buy the best but don't go for the bargain basement stuff. Also avoid cases with low intakes if the machines are going to sit on the floor.

3) Don't go cheap on PSUs and make sure you do your research - e.g. no Antec Smartpowers! I've had a few PSUs go pop in the past (thankfully they didn't take anything else with them but if you build them yourself and you don't have a spare to hand you'll have to trudge to the local shop and pay inflated prices for something and then spend half a day taking the old one out and putting a new one in... Waste of your day and a waste of a day for the person working on the PC that died

http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/...4211&CatId=911
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/...281989&CatId=0

We bought these and have been flawless, misco are quite good on price if you ask nicely :D
Quite close to your budget thou.

Lee

what about 9 base units made of asus pundits, with a tenth unit serving storage space and having a DVD-ROM drive.
Its a DIY project, but it might work out cheaper, as you'd only need small HDD's in each of the PC's

Dont discount Ebuyer. They have some cracking deals for pre-build sometimes :)

Just had a quick look:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/127475
and for a bit more power
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/127474

Seem good - They have rebates on them too :)

If its just going to be DTP stuff, a Sempron is fine, but the A64 will have a bit more grunt. Doubtful you would notice the difference in the office though. They both come with XP.

Sempron system for 7 = £1694 (minus rebate of £20 per machine) = £1554

You then just need to choose the TFT's you want (Dell would probably be a good idea due to next business day warranty's that can be taken out) and kb/mouse.
That brings you well under budget :)
The above also comes with free shipping - Ive just had alook at the Dell's and they want £60 for one system :eek: (didn't check multiple systems though)

The Dells do have the advantage of next day warranty's though, you'd have to check the Hp's to see what they come with :)

For £199 (ex VAT and shipping) you can get a Dell Vostro 200 with:

E2140 (dual core, 1.6GHz / 512K L2 cache per core)
XP installed (selected on the website, no need to call)
1 year support
19" wide screen monitor
1GB DDR2 (PC5300)
250GB HDD
Integrated GFX (unfortunately)
DVD burner
Keyboard
Mouse

Or you can upgrade the CPU to an E4400 (2Ghz, 1MB L2 per core), 2GB RAM and X1300 Pro GFX for £314 ex VAT and shipping

Call them up and tell them you want 9 and see if they can give you a decent discount. Margins can't be great even for Dell on those prices but I'd go for free delivery + 10% off

Cheers guys, lots of ideas.

major, SIR! - I agree with the DIY approach - I had just priced a build based on barebones systems and got the following - these may or may not be compatible, I was just slinging components in my basket.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../scanorder.jpg

which brings me to Steve B's idea ^ almost what I had done above using the ASUS barebones systems. We have a central server already, so the shared storage idea is a good one. The extra machine could serve that purpose or just be there in case.

Agent - Those HPs look good and unlike the Dells come just as I want them, Dell seem intent on giving me software I really don't want. I don't know if they're different over the phone but there's no option to unselect MS Works.

HPs usually come with a 1 year RTB warranty.

So;

DIY (to include one extra "parts" machine) - £3264 ish (exc) (less £120 for the extra monitor I added!) and I think free carriage from Scan (not sure if it applies to large orders though) - I wonder if they'd give me a break on the price too, I guess it wouldn't hurt to ask.

9 Pre-built HP Athlons and 9 iiyama 17" TFTs from Ebuyer - £3,205 (exc) and free shipping less 9 x £30 rebates

9 Pre-built Dell Vostro 200s (19" WS TFT) - £2,897.55 + £539.96 shipping :surprised: (exc)

If I went the DIY route could I buy one OEM version and a multi-user license, is it worth it? I know HP ship with restore plus CDs which I hate.

It looks like going for the HPs is the easy option, and the DIY option is a close second with Dell out of it until I speak to someone about their crazy shipping costs.

I'm sure there are more options so feel free to chip in, I have a while before I'm ready to purchase.

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

C
9 Pre-built Dell Vostro 200s (19" WS TFT) - £2,897.55 + £539.96 shipping :surprised: (exc)

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To be fair the £199 vostro is closer in spec to what you've put together on Scan. That shipping though - WTF?

I was looking at this base units on Scan but the best I could come up with was £150 to 200 with no keyboard, mouse or monitor which is what put me onto the vostro. FWIW I recently bought a Dell laptop for a relative and it was surprisingly free of crap (though I did uninstall works and install open office).

Something deep inside of me tells me Dell is the wrong choice but something (you lot) make me think it could be worth it ;)

I used to hate Dell and everything they stood for, I had endless problems with buying PCs from them for clients of mine and the subsequent problems with warranty and RTB issues.

Perhaps times have changed...

I'm going to shoot off some emails to HP and Dell and see what can be done about bulk (albeit small) buying and shipping.

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

Perhaps times have changed...

I'm going to shoot off some emails to HP and Dell and see what can be done about bulk (albeit small) buying and shipping.

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I thought the same till I joined a company that only ever ordered their PC's from Dell (at the time because of the ease of ordering + price). To be fair I've had two faults in 4 years with them, one was a short on a unit, possibly due to not inserting the power lead fast enough that I got sorted out in less than 15 minutes via their net chat support and the 2nd is a 4 year old PC where a PCI slot's fallen over.

Only thing I'd suggest though is to phone them rather than e-mail them. Don't take their first offer either, say well I'm gonna go check with HP and they'll often call you back the next day to see how things went and with a better offer.

We use all Dell's at work bar maybe 5% HP, and all the new Dell's seem pretty much flawless (well apart from the regular bios updates), and support is pretty decent (we go for 3yr warranty and get next day call out etc), the only MAJOR problems we've had with Dell is needing nearly every (maybe 20% plus) Dell Optiplex GX270 motherboard replacing due to faulty CAPs, and the same amount or more Maxtor hard drives replacing...

The thing with Dell, is yes the shipping is high from the website, but when ordering 9, id call them as you may be able to get it reduced or even taken off, wont know till you ask...

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Originally Posted by joshwa

We use all Dell's at work bar maybe 5% HP, and all the new Dell's seem pretty much flawless (well apart from the regular bios updates), and support is pretty decent (we go for 3yr warranty and get next day call out etc), the only MAJOR problems we've had with Dell is needing nearly every (maybe 20% plus) Dell Optiplex GX270 motherboard replacing due to faulty CAPs, and the same amount or more Maxtor hard drives replacing...

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Also the PSU's i find are very unreliable but never had a problem getting anyhitng replaced

Lee

We've had PSU fans stop working as well, the old Optiplex GX270 and GX280s clog up with dust pretty easily. (and then you get fan noise problems as they have to work harder to get air flowing). Pretty bad design (SFF) really carried over from the old GX50s when all you had was a 1ghz celeron, and then they (Dell) expect the same case design, with no air in-vents, to cope with a 2.8ghz P4 :D lol

Suddenly I'm not so confident in Dell :P

:P yeah it's too early to tell whether the Optiplex GX520 (which was replaced rather quickly) and Optiplex GX745 are reliable or not :D

The main difference that I've found with the same size HP machines is that the HPs always seem to come with 4 memory slots, whereas all our Dells come with 2 memory slots... in the future when you want all your PCs to have 4gb of ram, you might find it cheaper to upgrade HPs :)

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Originally Posted by joshwa

The main difference that I've found with the same size HP machines is that the HPs always seem to come with 4 memory slots, whereas all our Dells come with 2 memory slots... in the future when you want all your PCs to have 4gb of ram, you might find it cheaper to upgrade HPs :)

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Think you may have missed the parts in bold!

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

The time has finally come to update my 7 Win95 and 2 Win98 machines!

You may laugh but they have been completely solid for the past 10 or so years and the only reason they're being replaced is because an update to a program we use has been issued and there is no way at all to get it to work on the 95 machines (I spent all day Monday and Tuesday trying! :angst:)

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By the time I get round to upgrading these, computers will be obsolete ;)

HP all the way mate if your gonna buy prebuilt ones, thats what were changing most of our dells to

Lee

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Originally Posted by joshwa

:P yeah it's too early to tell whether the Optiplex GX520 (which was replaced rather quickly) and Optiplex GX745 are reliable or not :D

The main difference that I've found with the same size HP machines is that the HPs always seem to come with 4 memory slots, whereas all our Dells come with 2 memory slots... in the future when you want all your PCs to have 4gb of ram, you might find it cheaper to upgrade HPs :)

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I hope there isn't anything wrong with the GX745 lol as we just installed 30 of them at a clients plus the SFF with the TFTs that fix to them

I have an old GX150 by my feet still going strong, cd drive is a little hit and miss but runs 2003 web server fine

I have also found the 3yr warranty very worth while for the extra peace of mind.

Andy

Yeah the old Dells were rock solid :)

Does anyone know how to get free postage? The Vostro prices are pretty awesome!

Josh

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Originally Posted by joshwa

Yeah the old Dells were rock solid :)

Does anyone know how to get free postage? The Vostro prices are pretty awesome!

Josh

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Just on the phone to them now trying ;)

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

Just on the phone to them now trying ;)

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Let us know how you get on and what you said to get them to agree :)

Best I've managed before is getting discounted carriage by arguing that they're all coming to the same unit (this was on units w/out monitors)

Well after 40 minutes on the phone!

I've got them to spec 9 Vostros and a server. They're doing a "deal" on the total price if I buy a server at the same time.

I just said that for 9 machines coming to one address, £600 is ridiculous and that I could buy another two machines for the same price. I may have mentioned that HP don't charge as much ;)

I'll report back with a quote when it comes through.

Right, I'm now armed with a quote.

9 x Vostro 200ST

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)
1024MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]
250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
13-in-1 Media Card Reader

Dell™ 17" Value Flat Panel (E178FP) - UK/Irish
Dell™ AS501PA Soundbar for use only with E15x, E17x & E19x flat panels

Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Dell™ Optical USB Mouse - Black

Genuine Windows® XP Professional - English
Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English
Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support

£3.366.00 with delivery of..........

...

...

£0.00

But only if I buy the following as well;

PowerEdge 840

Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 3060 Processor at 2.40GHz, 4MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB
2GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz (2x1GB dual ranked DIMMs)
1ST HDD 250GB 7,200rpm 3.5inch SATA hard drive (hot plug)
2ND HDD 250GB 7,200rpm 3.5inch SATA hard drive (hot plug)
SAS 5iR internal RAID Controller, PCI-Express
C7 - Ad-in SAS/SATA, RAID1 min 2 max 2 Hard Drives connected to ad-in SAS controller
48X 4G CDRW/DVD Drive

Dell™ 17" Value Flat Panel (E178FP) - UK/Irish

Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Dell™ 2 Button USB Scroll Optical Mouse - Black

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server R2 2003, Standard Edition with 5 Client Licenses - English
Additional 10 Client Licenses for Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003
Upg to Silver 3Y (24x7) Premier Enterprise Support

for £1,599.00

Total: £4,965.00

I do need a new server but I wasn't planning on getting one until I'd let the teething problems of having new machines die down. Obviously I can buy the server now and implement it later so my only reservations are the server specs and buying Dell.

I'm now going to spec up the similar kit with HP and see what sort of price I get.

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

Right, I'm now armed with a quote.

9 x Vostro 200ST

Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core E2140 Processor (1.6GHz,800MHz,1MB cache)
1024MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]
250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
13-in-1 Media Card Reader

Dell™ 17" Value Flat Panel (E178FP) - UK/Irish
Dell™ AS501PA Soundbar for use only with E15x, E17x & E19x flat panels

Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Dell™ Optical USB Mouse - Black

Genuine Windows® XP Professional - English
Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English
Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support

£3.366.00 with delivery of..........

...

...

£0.00

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Now they are decent spec'ed machines, but if they are going to be used just for DTP / browsing stuff, its a total overkill. They cost more than you need to spend, use more power, and will kick out more heat than a lower end equivalent.

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

...only if I buy the following as well;

PowerEdge 840

Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 3060 Processor at 2.40GHz, 4MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB
2GB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz (2x1GB dual ranked DIMMs)
1ST HDD 250GB 7,200rpm 3.5inch SATA hard drive (hot plug)
2ND HDD 250GB 7,200rpm 3.5inch SATA hard drive (hot plug)
SAS 5iR internal RAID Controller, PCI-Express
C7 - Ad-in SAS/SATA, RAID1 min 2 max 2 Hard Drives connected to ad-in SAS controller
48X 4G CDRW/DVD Drive

Dell™ 17" Value Flat Panel (E178FP) - UK/Irish

Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Dell™ 2 Button USB Scroll Optical Mouse - Black

Microsoft Windows Small Business Server R2 2003, Standard Edition with 5 Client Licenses - English
Additional 10 Client Licenses for Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003
Upg to Silver 3Y (24x7) Premier Enterprise Support

for £1,599.00

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I'm not up to speed on server prices (especially in terms of server software) but that seems a little expensive for the hardware you're getting. Not that a server needs to be super quick or anything. Presume having Windows SBS and 3 year on site support bumps the price up somewhat?

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Originally Posted by Agent

Now they are decent spec'ed machines, but if they are going to be used just for DTP / browsing stuff, its a total overkill. They cost more than you need to spend, use more power, and will kick out more heat than a lower end equivalent.

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How are machines using onboard GFX and with the lowest spec core 2 duo power hungry?

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Originally Posted by Agent

Now they are decent spec'ed machines, but if they are going to be used just for DTP / browsing stuff, its a total overkill. They cost more than you need to spend, use more power, and will kick out more heat than a lower end equivalent.

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Gah!

You mean in general or the spec that I've added?

The base model is the same except it has the following

512MB 667MHz Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x512]
160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive

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Originally Posted by malfunction

I'm not up to speed on server prices (especially in terms of server software) but that seems a little expensive for the hardware you're getting. Not that a server needs to be super quick or anything. Presume having Windows SBS and 3 year on site support bumps the price up somewhat?

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3 year on site - £130 it means I get to speak to someone in England and to me that's worth paying for.

SBS R2 + 5CAL - £284
+ additional 10 CAL - £540

So that adds £954.00

I hadn't actually worked that out on until just then. An HP server starts at around £500 and has no monitor, mouse or keyboard, one HDD, no RAID and so on.

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Originally Posted by malfunction

How are machines using onboard GFX and with the lowest spec core 2 duo power hungry?

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Urgghh. That will teach me to post after just waking up :embarrassed:
I was flicking between tabs, and my little brain got confused.

You're spot on with the power hunger though. My bad.

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

Gah!

You mean in general or the spec that I've added?

The base model is the same except it has the following

512MB 667MHz Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x512]
160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive

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Going from your first post : "They will HAVE to run XP Pro, OpenOffice and FoxitReader and they need to be networked. There is no need for them to dance and sing. They are only used for word processing and form filling."

If thats all its going to be used for, then the base spec will probably be enough.
Don't get me wrong, i'd be tempted to go with 1gig RAM and a bigger HD, but in all honesty, will the machines use it? OO & form filling isnt exactly taxing.

The price isnt bad for those systems alone, but could still do better (much) via self building them. That aside, once you add the compulsory server purchase in, its starting to look like nothing amazing. The RAM inside it isnt even registered / ECC, so its basically just a powerful desktop machine with a RAID card in.
I guess a fair bit of the money will go to the security of the warranty and the software on the server, along with support.

You say Open Office will be used on your machines for DTP, have you considered a Linux distro for the server? If you are happy with windows though, spending the money for something you are familiar with can be less hassle than learning something new.

All in all, its not a _bad_ deal, considering it comes with support, but i'd try to push them a bit more. The HP's I previously linked would still be in the front of my mind. All they need is a TFT / KB / Mouse and you're ready to go. Would save a lot too. You could then use the money to buy a server that you can build yourself (just the one machine), or buy one off the shelf if needed.

Dont be afraid to tell a fib to Dell about what HP are offering you. You've nothing to loose, make them want your custom.

Without knowing more about the details of the work your office is doing, discussing the details of any specification is mostly speculation. Some custom business software can be real hogs, and there's a fine line between simple office suite usage and putting the office suite under heavy strain.

Personally, now that you have found that the major business supliers are much more helpful once phoned, I would definately go with one of them. Small companies without dedicated IT support stand to benefit greatly from the support they provide. I'd hate to be having to stress over trying to fix the computers as well as stressing over the lack of work getting done!

The best thing at this stage is to really start playing the companies against each other. Contact a few other smaller suppliers for quotes also, and use the lowest quote so far as the target they have to beat, and just keep on going back and forth ;)

The bundle as a whole represents a good price for what you're getting, and unless your business is falling on particularly hard times, there's little harm in uppping the specifications a bit. After all, you want to be able to try new things with your systems every now and again and if you've had the foresight to get a little more power for your money, the option is there.

Not to mention the more power you have in front of each user, the less likely they are to complain about their system being slow.

I would say 512mb is a good amount for XP, but would definitely say Vista will benefit from 1gb. Heck (gosh darnit :p), even Windows 2000 PCs need 1gb if users open 20 odd Excel Spreadsheets :)

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Originally Posted by Agent

Going from your first post : "They will HAVE to run XP Pro, OpenOffice and FoxitReader and they need to be networked. There is no need for them to dance and sing. They are only used for word processing and form filling."

If thats all its going to be used for, then the base spec will probably be enough.
Don't get me wrong, i'd be tempted to go with 1gig RAM and a bigger HD, but in all honesty, will the machines use it? OO & form filling isnt exactly taxing.

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Aside from a bit of anticipated web browsing that really is it. I have 1/2 gig of RAM in one of my current desktop machines running all of the above and a bespoke accounts package and I find it a bit clunky. I think that's partly to do with the fact that I have two other machines that have 1gig and two home machines that have 2gig. For the rest of my office, stepping from a PII 233mhz with 32/64 meg of RAM to 1/2 gig is going to be an improvement. You're spot on though, for these users I don't think it'll get used at all.

Quote:

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The price isnt bad for those systems alone, but could still do better (much) via self building them. That aside, once you add the compulsory server purchase in, its starting to look like nothing amazing. The RAM inside it isnt even registered / ECC, so its basically just a powerful desktop machine with a RAID card in.
I guess a fair bit of the money will go to the security of the warranty and the software on the server, along with support.

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I'm not against building myself and with a bit of digging I could probably match the spec at a cheaper price but ... as someone says later on, do I really want the strain?

Someone else suggested earlier in the thread that I bought 10 identical self-builds and that is still in the back of my mind. I also think I'd get a healthier discount for what could be seen as bulk buying. I think that's why I posted here, normally I'd have gone ahead and bought off-the-shelf stuff, but spending a bit of time here, and self-building myself has given me the itch. Part of me wants to be convinced to self-build :D

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You say Open Office will be used on your machines for DTP, have you considered a Linux distro for the server? If you are happy with windows though, spending the money for something you are familiar with can be less hassle than learning something new.

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Again, that's another possibility, I'm quite familiar with Ubuntu but I don't think I can "teach" the rest of the office to use it. It's too much of a step for some. I didn't tell you this but one of our more senior ladies called me to tell me her mouse wasn't working, it was moving strangely and seemed to do the opposite of what she "told" it to do. When I got downstairs I found her with the mouse upside down in her hand. She was rolling the ball with the other hand.

Running a Linux server is an option, but I'm slightly wary that I don't know anywhere near enough to keep it going or recover it from a crash. Our accounts package guys are Linux geeks and have offered to supply a server but I think it's something I want to do myself. Learning on the job, at the moment, isn't really an option though.

I manage the current server/network/IT myself at the moment and the more complicated stuff I've picked up as I go along, I just think this much of a turn at this time could be disastrous, I could be totally wrong though.

Quote:

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All in all, its not a _bad_ deal, considering it comes with support, but i'd try to push them a bit more. The HP's I previously linked would still be in the front of my mind. All they need is a TFT / KB / Mouse and you're ready to go. Would save a lot too. You could then use the money to buy a server that you can build yourself (just the one machine), or buy one off the shelf if needed.

Dont be afraid to tell a fib to Dell about what HP are offering you. You've nothing to loose, make them want your custom.

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Dell have given me a week to mull things over. I'm off for two weeks, so I want them to badger my office while I'm not there and get no reply, they were very keen to sell so they should keep on trying. As for the HP machines, they were my first choice before I even started this thread, so confirmation from someone else is good to have. I'm still waiting for HP to get back to me with a decent price though.

The Dell server, now I've had a look is as you say just a basic desktop machine but I'm a bit stumped on what a server needs to have that your standard desktop machine doesn't. I've not built a server before and the current office server is a joke so it offers no base from which I can work.

And the fib part - done that already ;)

Excellent advice Agent, thanks very much.

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Originally Posted by Rosaline

Without knowing more about the details of the work your office is doing, discussing the details of any specification is mostly speculation. Some custom business software can be real hogs, and there's a fine line between simple office suite usage and putting the office suite under heavy strain.

Personally, now that you have found that the major business supliers are much more helpful once phoned, I would definately go with one of them. Small companies without dedicated IT support stand to benefit greatly from the support they provide. I'd hate to be having to stress over trying to fix the computers as well as stressing over the lack of work getting done!

The best thing at this stage is to really start playing the companies against each other. Contact a few other smaller suppliers for quotes also, and use the lowest quote so far as the target they have to beat, and just keep on going back and forth ;)

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It's a law firm - (watch the helpful posts die out now! :P). The users audio-type (not yet digitally - but it's an option) in Word, do the odd spreadsheet in Excel and use HotDocs/legal form package and that's about it. I want to introduce web browsing but at the moment we have a few internet ready machines that they use. It's just your basic, simple, office use.

My role is office manager / legal accountant but I do the IT support at the moment and I intend to do that with these current machines, the 1 year on site warranty is just a bonus. I've decided that whatever we get I will get one extra as a backup machine (thanks to whoever it was who suggested that!) so we'll be without downtime should anything die.

I'm already playing people off each other, it's working, but they're not at all keen to budge on what they feel are "great prices already". We know differently though ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lucio

The bundle as a whole represents a good price for what you're getting, and unless your business is falling on particularly hard times, there's little harm in uppping the specifications a bit. After all, you want to be able to try new things with your systems every now and again and if you've had the foresight to get a little more power for your money, the option is there.

Not to mention the more power you have in front of each user, the less likely they are to complain about their system being slow.

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See above, 9 PII 233mhz with at most 64kb of RAM - these users have no idea what slow is but I take your point.

I'm enjoying having an intelligent group to bounce ideas off too, I usually get "Here's £x,xxx, you know more than us, you buy it" so thanks to those who have contributed, it's appreciated, I only wish I'd found Hexus sooner.

Keep the ideas coming too, if there are more. I'm very interested to see what people think a server has to have in it to be considered worthy and I'm keen on DIYing that myself if it's fairly simple.

Hello,

I've ordered myself a Vostro 200MT core2duo, 2ghz, 2gb ram, 22" TFT, Vista, 256mb X1300, 320GB Sata, 16x DVDRW, Mouse, Keyb, 1yr warranty, total price inc delivery and vat £417. Even with the £60 postage I doubt anyone could build a PC with that spec for that price!

I've been told I should expect it within 10 days - so I'll let you know what it's like if you're happy waiting that long (could be longer knowing Dell).

Regarding servers - I'm not sure on the differences (especially basic servers vs pcs) as we always get rack mounted Dell servers, but a lot of the cost could be due to the Windows Server licenses?

You also get a noisier PC (perhaps the fans last longer are more powerful, will work in hotter environments?) even with the basic servers - so you may want to keep it in a spare room rather than an office?

Josh

The server does seem a tad overpriced, but like a you say, the SBS licenses probably account for the majority of that cost. For what it's worth, I got the following server back in April for £179.00 +VAT delivered. Naturally memory and an extra hard drive were required, but I bought these elsewhere (as Dell aren't the cheapest for upgrades...)

PE SC440 Dual Core Xeon 3040, 1.86GHz/2MB 1066FSB
Money OFF - Smart Server Deal - Save up to 42%
English Documentation, UK Power Cord
PE SC440 Server Tower Chassis (L5)
512MB 667Mhz (1x512MB) single rank
No Floppy Drive
80GB SATA (7,200rpm) 3.5inch Hard Drive
16x DVD Rom 1st
No Monitor Required
Broadcom 5721 Gigabit Ethernet Controller NIC card PCI-E
No Mouse Required
No Keyboard Required
No Operating System
Open Manage CD with Drivers
No Warranty Upgrade
You have chosen not to take the Dell PowerEdge installation service
Base Warranty
1Y NBD (Next Business Day) On-site
C1 Motherboard SATA cabled, No RAID, 1 Hard Drive (using onboard SATA Cntrl)
PowerEdge Order - United Kingdom

Add £954 (for SBS, 3yr warranty, etc) to £179 and you get £1133. The difference between that and the quote for the 840 will happily buy you an extra GB or two of RAM and a hardware.

Hope this helps,

Sam

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joshwa

You also get a noisier PC (perhaps the fans last longer are more powerful, will work in hotter environments?) even with the basic servers - so you may want to keep it in a spare room rather than an office?

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Good point. I should mention here that the Dell SC440 server is extremely quiet (more so than my desktop). I can't vouch for any of their other tower servers, although the SC1430 uses the same case setup. Their rackmount servers are very loud though, but then most are anyway.

Thanks

Sam

Right, I've had a holiday and a few other things and I'm back with vigour and drive (he lies)

HP finally got back to me with a quote for 10 machines and 10 TFTs. The quote went something like this;

10 x HP dx2300 Desktop PC - £ 3,290.00
10 x Next Business Day 3 year - £ 610.00
10 x HP 17" LCD Monitor - £ 1,097.90
10 x Pick Up & Return 3 year - £ 590.00
1 x HPLOYALTY - £ -279.40 (do the sums - that's a whopping 5% saving)

subtotal - £ 5,308.50
total VAT - £ 928.98
total - £ 6,237.48

I've gone back to them with a revised spec machine (the ones mentioned by Agent on the first page) and asked for a bigger price break - 5% is nothing IMO.

So far Dell are winning and I never thought I'd even consider them before this exercise.

I'm still waiting for an HP Server Specialist to get back to me.

As I asked in an earlier post, other than high end parts and hot-swapping functions what would go into a server that doesn't go into a desktop? And is it worth DIYing it?

Server class products go in.. they are designed for 24/7 use so should be a lot more reliable.

Is the second warranty on the monitors?

The dx2300 isn't actually built very nicely..it's a minor detail i suppose but it uses the stock intel cooler ( at a funny angle which i don't know why) and the hard drive is just bolted to the edge of the chassis.

The dc5700 is much more nicely built, hard drives where you would expect them and a nice custom cooling setup but it is a minor detail i suppose.

don't ask me why i know this lol

Server class products are readily available? I'm thinking it's much easier (more sensible) to buy prebuilt servers for piece of mind more than anything else.

The second warranty is on the monitors yes. I don't want any of the extended warranties so they're excluded - I'm buying one extra of everything just in case.

I'll have a look at the DC5700 range but I have a feeling they're more expensive than the above DX2300

Yeah you can buy server class stuff anywhere..scan for example. You're really paying more for the support you get with the servers with people like HP or Dell and the peach of mind that it can be fixed in a matter of hours if need be.

The DC5700 is slightly more i'd imagine. Probably not worth the extra just thought I'd let you know the differences.

I got my Dell Vostro 200 today - they were going to delay it a month, but it arrived only 1 day off the original delivery date, and I'm quite impressed :) When they said it was going to be delayed by a month I complained and they are going to refund the postage :D

yeah all the new vostro laptops/desktops offer amazing value for money...and you're not stuck with HP (i'm not a fan)

My HP contact is back from her holiday and has the following offer for me;

10 x HP dx2250 Desktop - £2,350.00
10 x 17" HP TFTs - £1097.90
1 x HP Loyalty - £-344.79 (we're up to 10% now!)

subtotal - £3,103.11
total VAT - £543.04
total - £3,646.15

And I think there's also the £30 cashback on the desktop, so that's another £300 off. So far I've not been able to find a better price for the above items. The downside seems to be the lead time of 4 weeks on the desktops - whether this is true or not, I don't know.

Do I go back to Dell, spec another machine and get them to beat the price or do I buy HP?

Can you buy the 17" tft's seperately? I've seen 19" tfts for £98 inc vat (misco)

Yup, I can buy any of it from anywhere ;)

19"s while great for a car :D are too big for the office desks.

Ebuyer - 10 dx2250, 10 Dell monitors, free delivery, £3,700.00.

Slightly more than HP themselves but HP still didn't get back to me with any server information.

Slightly more than Dell too, but they wouldn't give free delivery without me buying one of their servers.

5 business days to wait now...

Thanks to everyone for their input :bowdown: and look out for a "What server do I buy?" thread coming soon!