Compatible Clonable PCs

[kirkilj]

I manage a computer lab with 10 IBM tower PCs and an assortment of 5 other machines. Needless to say, it's a breeze to clone the drives for the 10 IBM PCs, but the others are so different, in regards to chipset drivers, that cloning is not an easy option. Here's what I'd like to do. Replace the 5 oddball machines with 5 that are driver compatibile with the IBMs. The IBM PCs are ThinkCentre A50p towers using the Intel 865GLC mobo which of course has the 865 chipset. They have 2.6GHz HT P4s. I can get the Intel Mobo for about $80 which is within my financial reach. Paying $175 for the P4 CPU on the other hand is pushing it. Buying new ThinkCentre PCs is too expensive (approx $750 refurb).

So here are my questions:

* If I find another system that uses the same chipset and which doesn't have any other hardware requiring special drivers, should I be able to clone them? I use Symantec Ghost over a network for cloning currently.

* Are there other chipsets that would be driver-compatible with the 865?

* Are there any mobos which support both the Intel 865 chipset but with an AMD CPU or is this similar to bringing matter and anti-matter together?

- John

 

[MercenaryForHire]

You, good sir, are the perfect candidate for a lesson in Sysprep 😉

- M4H

 

[phisrow]

If you use the same motherboard, that should deal with chipset incompatibility problems. Any Intel CPU that works with that board should be fine in software(so you can use some Celerons, which will be easier on the budget). I wouldn't gamble with otherchipsets being driver compatible, and I certainly don't think you could get an AMD solution in there. You might have decent luck(I've had some really nasty cloning mistakes pick themselves up off the cloning rack and work, against all odds;but letting them out of the lab isn't very professional). Normal peripherals(particularly the network cards that you'll probably need, should be supported from any Windows install, and thus be fine.
Depending on what the oddball machines are, you might well be best to just replace their motherboards with the Intel ones, cannibalize the CPU, HDD, etc. If some of the oddballs are AMD, or old or exotic Intel, you may have to bit the bullet and obtain new CPUs. Depending on the uses that these systems are exposed to, though, you may well be able to get away with rather cheaper Celerons, rather than the P4s.

Please do provide details on the lab's workload and the character of the existing odd boxes.

 

[kirkilj]

I was afraid someone might suggest just that. I saw a few references to it in the Symantec Ghost documentation, but I didn't want to dive into it at that time. It looked like it had more of a learning curve than I was able take on at the time. I teach high-school computer classes in this lab, so my priority is on teaching and not improving my PC admin skills. This may have to be an investment I'll need to make.

Thanks for the feedback,

John

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: kirkilj
I was afraid someone might suggest just that. I saw a few references to it in the Symantec Ghost documentation, but I didn't want to dive into it at that time. It looked like it had more of a learning curve than I was able take on at the time. I teach high-school computer classes in this lab, so my priority is on teaching and not improving my PC admin skills. This may have to be an investment I'll need to make.

Thanks for the feedback,

John

By improving your PC admin skills you may be able to improve your teaching 😉

 

[kirkilj]

The heaviest workloads involve:

* digital video and audio editing using Sony Vegas
* programming using Java IDEs written in Java

All the video and audio effects are done in software with no hardware assist, so it can be RAM and CPU intensive, where you might have to wait hours for a high quality video render.

Are there any Celerons that could keep up with the 2.6GHz HT P4s? Isn't cache size a big difference between the Pentiums and Celerons?

- John

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: kirkilj
The heaviest workloads involve:

* digital video and audio editing using Sony Vegas
* programming using Java IDEs written in Java

All the video and audio effects are done in software with no hardware assist, so it can be RAM and CPU intensive, where you might have to wait hours for a high quality video render.

Are there any Celerons that could keep up with the 2.6GHz HT P4s? Isn't cache size a big difference between the Pentiums and Celerons?

- John

Hahaha! 😀

No, there isn't a Celeron that can keep up. Period. They'll get slaughtered.

Just use Sysprep - it's not that hard! Run the executable, check "PnP" and that should be all you need. It'll force a redetect of the hardware, and you'll be up and running with the new motherboards.

However, if you've got five different oddball hardware setups, you'll end up with five different configurations and driver sets being needed anyhow. You seem to be a victim of circumstance - or just poor funding. 😉

Try to haggle a swap with another room in the school for some more identical PCs. But back to your original questions:

1) Another i865 chipset board should be capable of taking the same image
2) No way in hell. Unified drivers typically exist only in video cards.
3) *world explodes* 😛

- M4H

 

[kirkilj]

I got it. Screw the Celerons.

If Sysprep makes it reasonable to maintain a master image for two different hardware configs, then a reasonable compromise would be to replace the 5 odd-balls with a second standard configuration. I'm researching what AMD has to offer that's a reasonably priced alternative to the Intel P4 800MHz 2.6GHz CPU and see what turns up.

The lowest price I can find for that Intel Mobo plus an Intel P4 in the same performance range is $80 + $170, or $250, and that's with a 3.0 GHz processor.

As you suggested, I'm going to take an inventory of the odd-balls and see what's possible.

Oh, and by the way, the odd-ball machines are a result of inconsistent funding. The IBMs were a generous donation by an IBM employee who's a parent at our school; the others were slapped together as they were needed and as budget allowed.

Thanks for the guidance. I've started learning about Sysprep.

- John