if you had to build 20 computers, 15 identicle, and 5 more powerful...

[MikeMike]

how would you do this?

i might be able to get a contract w/ my fathers place of employment to build ~20 computers 15 or so of them would be identicle, while the other 5 would need to be slightly more powerful, and have more ram.

all these computers would be used for would be internet, adobe acrobat reader, and success (inventory mgmt system).

should i apply for a reseller liscense, or what? because i am not a true company, and just an individual. these would be no frills, fdd, mobo, ram, cpu, case, cd-rom drive gpu, soundcard, nic, computers. as cheap, but as realiable as possible.

what should i do for this? i will call the computer person up on monday and tell her what i can offer, because recently they have been having problems with a lot of their computers.

what should i register for, and of course, any suggestions? i would like a decent power supply, and decent case, (smaller=better, cheaper= sumwhat better if quality) these will be replacing OLD 300mhz, 400mhz, 200 mhz, computers with as little as 32mb ram, running win 98, they would like to try windows XP (i am providing no software) so give me some recommendations on what i should do for this.

p.s. noise is the enemy here too

MIKE

 

[Nebor]

Nice mobo w/ integrated sound\intel extreme graphics and celerie 2.0ghz chips. Throw 512mb of cheapie memory, I think celeries use pc2100... and you're set. That's all they need for those applications.

Oh, for the other 5, P4 3.2ghz, Abit IC7-G Max 3 mobos, 1GB of Corsair PC4000, Gainward GFX5900 Ultra Video cards, Audigy 2, 2x WD Raptor HDs in RAID 0, NEC 17" 1760 LCDs, Klipsch 5.1s Ultras, Logitech MX Duo, Zalman 7000Cu coolers, Coolermaster Wavemaster Cases.... Um... That should about do it. THose 5 will be powerful enough to put the others in thier place, and show who the bosses are. I assume the bosses are the ones who get the more powerful computers.

 

[mechBgon]

I can recommend these, which have proven very stable and reliable: link Get AthlonXP 2000+'s, the new AMD heatsink/fan unit is very quiet. And I'd get some Seagate 7200.7's to go in there.

For the more-powerful systems... what kind of "power?" If the systems are involved in heavy I/O, build the system above, but substitute an 18GB Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 and an LSI Logic U160 card. The drives are in their element in a high-I/O situation and have a five-year warranty to sweeten the deal.

If you need the features and additional CPU/memory performance, a 2500+ on a full-blown nForce2 SPP+MCP-T board with dual-channel DDR333 would boost the platform performance without going too crazy. Pick a video card to suit the job, perhaps a dual-head ATI Radeon of some kind.

If the more-powerful systems are doing a task that involves streaming data processing (video editing, etc) then consider an 800MHz-bus Pentium4 on i865PE with a separate video card.

That's my 2¢ worth, hope it helps throw some ideas on the pile

 

[MikeMike]

i guess i should have said the more powerful ones will be used for a few more proggies, same stuff as before, but more programs like.

excel, word, these would be for the people who are at their desk all day. and all they do is use it.

i would LOVE to build them a server, but they just got a new one 2 years ago, its gettin slower, but they only have 56k connections from every building to the main place (8 locations, all in ohio). they might get a dedicated fractional t1 so they avoid all their long distance charges, and it would cost bout the same as the rented lines do.

are cellies, cheaper than amd's, or what?

MIKE

 

[mechBgon]

Celerons don't have much punch in the processing department. If they run strong antivirus software there, I'd advise either Pentium4 or AthlonXP, because antivirus software can put a big dent in system performance at times (some brands more than others).

If the more-powerful systems are just running more of the same apps, then go with more RAM. This allows the OS to cache applications in RAM all day long and relaunch them straight from RAM in the blink of an eye, instead of dredging them up from the hard drive again. For Win2000, 512MB is nice, easily acheived with one 512MB module to leave room for more.

For responsiveness, 15000rpm SCSI is still a delight, particularly when you're trying to work through lunch and that turns out to be the time that the daily antivirus scan is scheduled (this is the case at my workplace). Where IDE flounders under the cross-traffic, SCSI hits its stride beautifully. Still, it's a big jump in up-front cost, despite the fact that the SCSI drive is built to run 24/7 for five years, so it might be a hard sell. I guess I should add that the seek noise on SCSI is music to some ears but it's certainly audible.

 

[Zepper]

I would build them all the same - just add an extra 256MB of RAM and a larger HD to the more heavily used ones.
MSI KM2M Combo L mobo - none of the apps you mention require any more.
1700 or 1800+ AMD XP - retail units (for the 3yr warranty) (none of your apps require much in the way of CPU power).
256MB DDR 2700 (400-512MB for the big ones) - some of the office apps can benefit from more RAM.
Smallest (20-30GB) 7200 rpm HDS you can find for base units, 40-80 for top units (consider RAID-1 for reliability). Good brands, you know the drill...
Toshiba CD-ROM drives.
Samsung floppy drives good quality and cheap.
ENLIGHT MICRO ATX CASE MODEL # 76020B1 - Retail
I doubt you could do better at Q-25 than from newegg.
.bh.

 

[TheNoblePlatypus]

The real question is: Whats the company's budget for all these machines?

 

[zainali]

also consider support u would need to provide. maybe u could get cheap dells or something.

 

[jose]

I'd use the exact same mobo. because you won't have time to fool around w/ diff. drivers.
go w/ an intergrated mobo. And make sure the case is well ventilated..

Example:

Aopen H450A micro-atx case $42
floppy $8
key/mouse $30
Asus P4GE-VM mobo $106 has nic , sound, lan
WDse 40gig ide 7200rpm $61
512mb pc2700 -- $86
Acer cdrom -- $15 * 15 avg. systems
Aopen cdrw -- $40 * 5 fast sys
P4-1.8 - $128 * 15 avg. systems
P4-2.4 - $159 * 5 fast sys.

total for average systems : $476
total for fast systems : $532

Note: you'll have to add cost of desired OS ie win200sp3 or winXPsp1 or Linux

Don't forget to add your profit margin atleast $200-300 per system.

Oh forgot monitors $150 get them locally

You'll notice that once you add your profit & OS cost , DELL will beat your price w/ support.
sometimes it not worth the hassle to build pc's for sale.

Good Luck

Regards,
Jose

 

[bozo1]

I would recommend building systems like we do at work for our corporate customers. We use Intel mobo's and processors. Stability is key in a corporate environment (and for them to be happy with you of course) and it doesn't get any better than Intel's boards in my opinion. The built-in audio, graphics and LAN are fine. 1.8's for the low end machines, 2.4's for the higher end. DVD/CD-ROM on the machines. CD-RW's on the ones that need it.

Forget about getting a resellers license. Not only will the state be expecting to see corporate tax returns from you, you aren't going to save any money. We purchase well over $100K/month from our main distributor and that isn't even enough to get me better prices than Newegg (and similar places) on most items.

 

[Red Dawn]

I would recommend Dell and set them up for the Company and charge them for my services. If and when there is a problem with the Machine they'd call you, you act as a go between between them and Dell and get paid again for your services.

 

[MikeMike]

Originally posted by: jose
I'd use the exact same mobo. because you won't have time to fool around w/ diff. drivers.
go w/ an intergrated mobo. And make sure the case is well ventilated..

Example:

Aopen H450A micro-atx case $42
floppy $8
key/mouse $30
Asus P4GE-VM mobo $106 has nic , sound, lan
WDse 40gig ide 7200rpm $61
512mb pc2700 -- $86
Acer cdrom -- $15 * 15 avg. systems
Aopen cdrw -- $40 * 5 fast sys
P4-1.8 - $128 * 15 avg. systems
P4-2.4 - $159 * 5 fast sys.

total for average systems : $476
total for fast systems : $532

Note: you'll have to add cost of desired OS ie win200sp3 or winXPsp1 or Linux

Don't forget to add your profit margin atleast $200-300 per system.

Oh forgot monitors $150 get them locally

You'll notice that once you add your profit & OS cost , DELL will beat your price w/ support.
sometimes it not worth the hassle to build pc's for sale.

Good Luck

Regards,
Jose

already have monitors, would get corporate liscnse for XP, and i could buy some cheaper mobos than you recommended. i figure i can build one for ~300$, pr ask the company if they want "today proof" or "future proof" machines future proof would be top of the line processor, ram, for around 1grand; today proof would be 300$ computers, with 1700+, or 1.8a procs, or whatever is cheapest.

MIKE

 

[mechBgon]

I tried to make a Newegg wish list with the ingredients to my system (add $19 for a Logitech OEM keyboard/mouse bundle and $9 for an APC surge strip, speakers of whatever kind if desired): link I hope that works edit: link fixed, it's about $410 before shipping.

Anyway, I support a couple dozen systems similar to these at work, along with about 50 other systems. They're excellent. Note that the case/power supply are NOT cheapies, but an ounce of prevention is worth... right. Plus the Antec case/psu have a three-year warranty and are known for running quietly (use the Fan-Only lines to thermally-regulate the speed of the two case fans included).

 

[MikeMike]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
I tried to make a Newegg wish list with the ingredients to my system (add $19 for a Logitech OEM keyboard/mouse bundle and $9 for an APC surge strip, speakers of whatever kind if desired): link I hope that works edit: link fixed, it's about $410 before shipping.

Anyway, I support a couple dozen systems similar to these at work, along with about 50 other systems. They're excellent. Note that the case/power supply are NOT cheapies, but an ounce of prevention is worth... right. Plus the Antec case/psu have a three-year warranty and are known for running quietly (use the Fan-Only lines to thermally-regulate the speed of the two case fans included).

prolly could save w/o the dvd drive ,and just get a cdrom drive no? and the proc down to a 1700+ (i am no longer sure of prices they vary way to much) plus maybe only 256mb memory for the cheap ones, and 512 for the good ones?

MIKE

 

[Macro2]

Athlon XP 2400+ or 2500+ with Soltek or Asus nforce2 motherbords.
Very stable.

 

[mechBgon]

For Win2000, I can say that 256MB is enough to start Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, Acrobat Reader, Quickbooks, My Computer, Internet Explorer and Network Neighborhood simultaneously, close them all, and have them re-launch from RAM instead of from the hard drive (with our antivirus software running, of course). WinXP Pro is probably going to benefit from a little more RAM, however, so that's your call. I suppose 384MB is another possibility but I don't like using up all the memory slots right from the get-go, so I put one 512MB DIMM. Adjust as desired.

The 2000+ retail-boxed CPU is about $10 more than a 1700+ and the ones I got came with that nice quiet new heatsink/fan unit, so I put that in on the basis of quietness and a little more performance.

An Intel-based solution may raise fewer eyebrows, of course. A 1.8A on an i845G-based board is an option too.

 

[charlie21]

Make sure once you have everything installed to Ghost an image for quick system restores.